“Hell! there’s nothin’ to drivin’ nowadays,” replied Smeaton. “Any kid can turn the trick with a good man to tell him what to do. ’Sides, Andy’s ole man is jobbin’ fur the Comp’ny and Andy’s got to work the same as any of us. He won’t work fur the ole man, so he gits him a job with the Great Western to be shet of him.”
“Pull?” queried Avery.
Smeaton winked suggestively.
“Wisht I knowed jest when they was goin’ to run ’em through. My gal Swickey’s got a camera what Dave Ross sent her and she’s jest dyin’ to take some pictures of the drive. She writ me about it, and I sent word by Jim thet I’d let her know in time so’st she could come along up with the picture-machine.”
“I’m thinkin’ of goin’ over to ‘Fifteen-Two,’ to-morrow, and I’ll find out what I kin ’bout the drive,” said Smeaton.
“I’m obleeged to you, Joe. They ain’t no rush about it, howcome I reckon you’re gettin’ lonesome-like fur the boys.”
Smeaton leaned on the hoe he had been scraping clean with his foot. “No, I hain’t. What I’m gettin’ lonesome fur is a pay-check what’s comin’ and a chanct to make a leetle more drivin’, and then I’m goin’ to pay Hoss Avery what I owes him, includin’ the skins I tuk, and put the rest in a piece of land and farm it. No more lumberin’ fur mine.”
“If you can hold your lady friend off a spell, mebby I kin give you a job on the asbestos. They’s a expert and some city-folks comin’ up in June and look around this here asbestos diggin’s. When we git started it’ll beat farmin’ all to shavin’s.”
“Say, Hoss, you’re whiter than a skunk’s necktie, you are. By hokey, I’m haffen a mind to go you on thet.”
Visions of a cabin and a grass-plot, with a certain dark-eyed young woman keeping house, fired Smeaton’s inflammable imagination. He secretly vowed that Hoss would make the “all-firedest, plumb-squardest” father-in-law this side of a place frequently mentioned in his daily conversation.