It was broad daylight when Creed pulled the team up before a tumbled-down stable in the rear of one of the outstraggling cabins at the end of Hilarity's single street. Hastily he unhitched and led the horses through the door.
As he disappeared Bill slipped from under the canvas and limped stiffly around the corner of the stable, and none too soon, for as Creed returned to the sled for the oats and blankets the cabin door opened, and a tall, angular woman appeared, carrying an empty water-pail.
"So ye've come back, hev ye?" she inquired in a shrewish voice. "Well, ye're jest in time to fetch the water an' wood. Where d'ye git that rig?" she added sharply, eying the sled.
"None o' yer damn business! An' you hurry up an' cook breakfast ag'in' I git back from Burrage's, er I'll rig you!"
"Yeh, is that so? Jest you lay a finger on me, you damn timber-thievin' boot-legger, an' I'll bust you one over the head with the peaked end of a flatiron! Where ye goin' ter hide when the owner of them team comes a huntin' of 'em? Ha, ha, ha!"
"Shet up!" growled the man so shortly that the woman, eying him narrowly, turned toward the rickety pump, which burbled and wheezed as she worked the handle, filling the pail in spasmodic splashes.
"One of Moncrossen's teamsters got burnt up in the shack at Melton's No. 8, an' I found the team in the stable an' druv 'em in," he vouchsafed as he brushed by the woman on his way to the street. "'Twouldn't look right if I shet up about it; I'll be back when I tell Burrage."
"Fetch some bacon with ye," called the woman as she filled her dirty apron with chips. She paused before lifting the pail from the spout of the wooden pump and gazed speculatively at the tote-sled.
"He's lyin'," she said aloud. "He's up to some fresh devilment, an' 'pears like he's scairt. Trouble with Creed is, he ain't got no nerve—he's all mouth. I sure was hard up fer a man when I tuk him—but he treats me middlin' kind, an' I'd kind of hate to see him git caught—'cause he ain't no good a liar, an' a man anyways smart'd mix him up in a minit."
She lifted the pail and pushed through the door of the cabin.