“I am afraid you are talking too much,” said he. “Doesn’t this climate agree with your health?”
“Oh, yes! I should probably have been in my grave long ago if I had not come down here. Now, sir, your meal is ready. Will you step in and sit down to it?”
Bill thanked him, and went in to a much finer spread than he had been accustomed to while roaming with his men. He ate until he was ashamed of himself, and came out on the porch with the air of one who had enjoyed a good meal. There was one thing about it he told himself: No matter what misfortunes his cattle might meet with, Mr. Davenport intended that those who were dependent upon him should fare the best.
“I have a little money left,” said he, “and I want to know——”
“Keep your money in your pocket,” returned Mr. Davenport. “When I have twenty-five thousand head of cattle to sell for a dollar apiece I can easily afford to give you something to eat. Sit down. You say you were in the mines at Denver. What sort of work are they having there?”
This was the very point that Coyote Bill had been dreading, but he had gone over it so many times since leaving Henderson in camp, that he had it at his tongue’s end. He knew no more about mining than he had been able to glean from the conversation of his men, some of whom were fresh from Mexico, and perhaps he got the two pretty well mixed up. For example, he told of one mine he had been in where they had been obliged to go down twelve hundred feet before they could get gold in paying quantities. Then Mr. Davenport began to look at him suspiciously. There might be some men at some future time that would be able to go down that distance, but there were none there now.
“I believe you are up to something,” said he to himself. “But what in the world it is I don’t know. I believe I will keep you here for a while and find out.” Then aloud he said: “Where are you going now? If your friend isn’t around here, where do you think you will find him?”
“I guess I had better go back to Austin and work around there at something until I can earn money enough to take me home,” said Bill, hoping that Mr. Davenport would suggest something else to him. “Any little thing that I can do will help me along.”
“How would you like to stay here and work on this ranch?”
“That would be all very well, but I can’t ride. I should have to do something about the house or I shouldn’t earn my money.”