“Nary bit,” the boy replied quickly; “it’s down under that shiftin’ sand long before now. But then she was an old gun, and I’m savin’ up to git a new six-shot rifle, so it don’t need to be long now before I’ll be heeled agin.”
“Is your father a rancher, then, Amos?” Jack went on to ask, idly.
The boy grinned and looked at him queerly.
“Well,” he replied, with a quaint drawl that amused the scouts, “I don’t know as you could call him that way, exactly. He’s been cow puncher, and nigh everything else a man c’n be down thisaway to make a livin’. Me and my awful dad we don’t git on well. That’s one reason I gen’rally skips out when he takes a notion to lay ’round home for a spell. He knows right well I ain’t afeard of him, if he has got the name of bein’ a holy terror. I happen to belong to the same fambly. ’Sides, he ain’t what you’d call my real and true dad.”
“Oh! I see, you adopted him, did you, Amos?” Jack asked, laughingly.
“My mam she married agin after pop he was planted, and they went an’ changed my name from Scroggins to Adams. I don’t know which I likes best; but Scroggins that’s honest, anyway, which Adams ain’t—leastways some people around this region say it ain’t. When I grows up I reckon I’ll be a Scroggins, or else get a new name.”
Again the scouts exchanged amused glances. Amos was certainly a most entertaining little chap, with his quaint sayings.
“Now, you see, dad never comes home alone any more, but fetches some of his cronies along with him, and there’s unpleasant scenes ahappenin’ all the time; which is one of the reasons why I skip out. They gets to drinkin’, too, purty hard, till mam she has to douse a bucket of water over each puncher, and start ’em off. Mam she don’t approve of the kinds of business that dad takes up. But he keeps amakin’ these here visits to home further apart all the while, ’cause things ain’t as pleasant as they might be. Some time mebbe he won’t come no more. I’m bankin’ on that, which is one reason I ain’t never laid a hand on him when he gets roarin’ like a mad bull. There are others, too, but I wont mention the same.”
Amos had apparently been very frank with his new friends. He seemed to have taken a great fancy for them all, and, in turn, asked many questions concerning their expected visit to Harry’s uncle on Double Cross Ranch, which place he knew very well.
The conversation by degrees became general, and finally the scouts went on to talk about their own affairs. During this exchange of opinions, it happened that the name of Clem Parsons was mentioned by Ned. Perhaps it would be hardly fair to call it “chance,” when in reality the scout master wanted to find out whether the kid puncher seemed to be familiar with the name of the man whom the Government authorities in Washington wished him to round up.