"Where are you going to sleep?" Hapgood wanted to know.
"I had sorta planned some on sleepin' right here."
"Right here! You don't sleep on the ground?"
The red-headed man, drawing serenely at his cigarette, went about unharnessing his horses.
"Bein' as how I ain't et for some right smart time," he was saying as he came back from staking out his horses, "I'm goin' to chaw real soon. Has you gents et yet?"
They assured him that they had not.
"Then if you've got any chuck you want to warm up you can sling it in my fryin'-pan." He dragged a soap-box to the tail end of the buckboard and began taking out several packages.
"We didn't bring anything with us," Conniston told him. "We didn't think—"
The new-comer dropped his frying-pan, put his two hands on his hips, and stared at them. "You ain't sayin' you started out for the Half Moon, which is close on a hundred mile, an' never took nothin' along to chaw!"
Conniston nodded. The red-headed man stared at them a minute, scratched his head, removing his hat to do so, and then burst out: