“Never been over the crest of the Cajons until this afternoon,” replied the cowboy from the Flying Arrow, “but my Dad’s ridden through here once or twice and he told me something about the lay of the land before I started out.”
“Kind of a lonesome country, then.”
“Lonesome and darned inhospitable, especially the Creeping Shadows country over to the northwest.”
“Yeh, I’ve heard that was a good place to stay away from.”
Slim, who was serving as cook, used a forked stick to pull the coffee pot out of the coals. Doubling up a glove, he grasped the handle and poured the steaming beverage into the battered tin cups each cowboy carried in his duffel roll.
The night air near the summit of the Cajons is crisp and cool even on a July night and the warmth from the fire was cheering. They ate in silence, draining the last drop from the coffee pot and gleaning the final bit of crisp bacon from the greasy pan.
“I’ll turn dish washer,” said Chuck, gathering up the simple utensils they had needed for the meal. He went down to the creek where Slim could hear him splashing water on the cups and the frying pan.
Slim piled more fuel on the fire and as the flames leaped higher and the light brightened, his eyes fell on an envelope which Chuck had dropped.
Slim leaned over and picked up the letter. It was face up and the address, “Chuck Meade, Circle Four Ranch,” stared at him. But the thing that really caught his attention was the name of the sender of the letter in the upper left hand corner. It was from Bill Needham, secretary of the Mountain States Cattlemen’s Association.
There was almost an irresistible temptation to read the letter, but Slim conquered that impulse and tossed the envelope over on Chuck’s blanket roll.