"Yes," I answered. "We are all, in one sense, partners, with a capital of about ten dollars, and are further united by the fear of a common enemy."
Boone laughed silently, though his face was a trifle sardonic. "That is as it should be, and you may have an opportunity for proving the strength of the combination before very long. I have, as I once told you, a weakness for horses and cattle, and I couldn't resist purchasing some at a bargain a little while ago. I want you to take charge of them for me. Here are particulars, and my idea of an equitable agreement." He laid a paper on the table, and I glanced through it. The conditions were those usual in arrangements of the kind, which were not then uncommon, but though cattle and horses were lamentably cheap, they could not be obtained for nothing, and the total value surprised me.
"We are as honest as most people down this way, and we take one another's word without any use for spilling ink," observed the irrepressible Sally.
"I once heard of a grasping storekeeper being badly beaten over a deal in butter by a clever young lady," said Boone; and Steel laughed, while his sister frowned.
"He deserved it, but you seem to know just everything," she said.
"Some people are born clever, and some handsome; but it is really not my fault," said Boone, with a smile at Sally. "For instance, I know what Ormesby is thinking. He is wondering where I got the money to pay for those beasts."
The laugh was against me, but I answered frankly: "That was in my thoughts; but I also wondered what I had done to merit the trouble you have taken to do me a kindness."
"Don't flatter yourself," said Boone. "It is a matter of business, and equally possible that I wished to do some other person the opposite. You must decide to-night, because I have a new assortment of beautifiers and cosmetics in my wagon which I must set about vending to-morrow. They would not, of course, be of any use to Miss Sally, but I am going on to the Swedish settlement where the poor people need them."
It was not delicate flattery, but Boone was quick at judging his listener's capacity, and it pleased Miss Steel—the more so because a certain Scandinavian damsel was her principal rival in the question of comeliness. She drew herself up a little, while Boone smiled whimsically. "You know it is true," he said.
The man had always interested me. He was at home anywhere, and his tongue equally adept at broad prairie raillery or finely modulated English. Yet one could see that there was a shadow upon him.