The man stared, and then looked down at the ground in a brown study. He could not make head or tail of what Archie said; but when Eugene spoke, he began to have a vague idea that the boys were making game of him.
“We’ll send it by special train, too,” said Eugene, who was highly indignant over the man’s insulting manner.
“I don’t want no sass,” said the latter. “I axed you a fair question.”
“But you didn’t ask it in a fair way,” said Archie. “Now, then, stand clear of his heels and I will let him go,” he added, as Eugene buckled the halter-strap around the bay’s leg below his knee. “I think we shall find him here when we want him.”
The horse was doubly secured now. He was fastened by a lariat to an iron pin, which was driven as deeply into the ground as repeated blows from the hatchet could send it, and his head was tied down to his feet, so that even if he succeeded in pulling the pin out he could not run away. The boys had found that these precautions were absolutely necessary. They had been so long about this work that the fresh steaks had had plenty of time to cook, and when they went back to camp the host told them that supper was ready, and backed up his welcome announcement by grasping the frying-pan by its long handle and passing it to each of his guests in succession, who helped themselves by using their hunting-knives in lieu of forks. The host, not being so particular, fished his share out with his fingers. The emigrant’s wife passed them each a biscuit with a hand which looked as though it had never seen water; a tin cup, with which one of the youngsters had been amusing himself, was filled with coffee and handed over with the remark: “I reckon you three haint afeared of one another;” and everything being thus satisfactorily arranged and everybody provided for, the host found a seat and applied himself to the task of learning a full history of everything our heroes had done since they were born. After asking a few questions he suddenly paused, having thought of something.
“I declare, I’m losin’ all my manners since I left the settlements,” said he. “I’m Reuben Holmes, gentlemen, all the way from Pike, Missouri. That chap there,” he added, pointing to one of the young men, “he’s Reuben Holmes, junior. He’s my son. Know him, strangers.”
The boys, with great difficulty controlling their desire to laugh, bowed to Reuben Holmes, junior, who did not know enough to acknowledge it in any way, and the old man went on.
“This ’yer’s my old woman; that big gal is my darter, and them’s my young children. That chap is Simon Cool, my hired help. He’s going out to the mines to run a quartz-mill for me. Them two,” waving a biscuit toward the two hunters, “are Zack and Sile. I don’t know their other names, but they’re friends of our’n. They met us on the prairie, and finding that we were a trifle out of our reckoning, they took us in tow and are going to show us the way to where we want to go. We’re bound for the mines, and I am going to set up a quartz-mill there.”