Just before daybreak Cheyenne turned from the road and picked his way through the scattered brush to a gulch in the western foothills. Cheyenne's horses seemed to know the place, when they stopped at a narrow, pole gate across the upper end of the gulch, for on beyond the gate the horses again stopped of their own accord. Bartley could barely discern the outlines of a cabin. Cheyenne hallooed.
A muffled answer from the cabin, then a twinkle of light, then the open doorway framing a gigantic figure.
"That you, Shy?" queried the figure.
"Me and a friend."
"You're kind of early," rumbled the figure as the riders dismounted.
"Shucks! You'd be gettin' up, anyway, right soon. We come early so as not to delay your breakfast."
In the cabin, Cheyenne and the big man shook hands. Bartley was introduced. The man was a miner, named Joe Scott.
"Joe, here, is a minin' man--when he ain't runnin' a all-night lunch-stand," explained Cheyenne. "He can't work his placer when it's dark, but he sure can work a skillet and a coffee-mill."
"What you been up to?" queried the giant slowly, as he made a fire in the stove, and set about getting breakfast.
"Up to Clubfoot Sneed's place, to get a couple of hosses that belonged to me. He was kind of hostile. Followed us down to San Andreas and done spoiled our night's rest. But I got the hosses."