A pack of dogs of all sizes and signs came clamoring to the fence, followed by a big, slovenly dressed, red-bearded man of sixty or thereabouts.
“Hello, Uncle Joe,” called the girl, in offhand boyish fashion. “How are you to-day?”
“Howdy, girl,” answered Meeker, gravely. “What brings you up here this time?”
She laughed. “Here’s a boarder who wants to learn how to raise cattle.”
Meeker’s face lightened. “I reckon you’re Mr. Norcross? I’m glad to see ye. Light off and make yourself to home. Turn your horses into the corral, the boys will feed ’em.”
“Am I in America?” Norcross asked himself, as he followed the slouchy old rancher into the unkempt yard. “This certainly is a long way from New Haven.”
Without ceremony Meeker led his guests directly into the dining-room, a long and rather narrow room, wherein a woman and six or seven roughly dressed young men were sitting at a rudely appointed table.
“Earth and seas!” exclaimed Mrs. Meeker. “Here’s Berrie, and I’ll bet that’s Sutler’s friend, our boarder.”
“That’s what, mother,” admitted her husband. “Berrie brought him up.”
“You’d ought ’o gone for him yourself, you big lump,” she retorted.