"Hosses seems to be his failin'," said the big man.
"So some folks say. I'm one of 'em."
"How are the folks up Antelope way?"
"Kinda permanent, as usual. I hear Panhandle's drifted south again. Wishful, he shoots craps, reg'lar."
Scott nodded, shifted the coffee-pot and sat down on the edge of his bunk. "Got any smokin'?" he queried presently.
Bartley offered the miner a cigar. "I'm afraid it's broken," apologized Bartley.
"That's all right. I was goin' to town this mornin', to get some tobacco and grub. But this will help." And doubling the cigar Scott thrust it in his mouth and chewed it with evident satisfaction.
The gray edge of dawn crept into the room. Scott blew out the light and opened the door.
Bartley felt suddenly sleepy and he drowsed and nodded, realizing that Scott and Cheyenne were talking, and that the faint aroma of coffee drifted toward him, mingling with the chill, fresh air of morning. He pulled himself together and drank the coffee and ate some bacon. From time to time he glanced at Scott, fascinated by the miner's tremendous forearms, his mighty chest and shoulders. Even Cheyenne, who was a fair-sized man, appeared like a boy beside the miner. Bartley wondered that such tremendous strength should be isolated, hidden back there behind the foothills. Yet Scott himself, easy-going and dryly humorous, was evidently content right where he was.
Later the miner showed Bartley about the diggings, quietly proud of his establishment, and enthusiastic about the unfailing supply of water--in fact, Scott talked more about water than he did about gold. Bartley realized that the big miner would have been a misfit in town, that he belonged in the rugged hills from which he wrested a scant six dollars a day by herculean toil.