"Reckon you better have a bite with us," invited one of the men as he set the tin-can coffee pot upon the coals of their fire.
"Thet thar burro bin a pesterin' you?" asked the second man, fixing the burro with a searching gaze.
"Oh, no!" I denied, remembering my debt to the animal. "We put in the night together, and he even ate some of my hardtack this morning," I ended laughing.
"He's the tarnationist critter, always a galavantin' roun', an' a gittin' inter somebody's grub."
The burro chose to overlook these insults and drew near the fire, unostentatiously. The old prospector slipped him part of his breakfast.
"Which way you headin'?" asked the first man, plainly puzzled because I carried neither gun nor mining tools.
"To climb Arapahoe peak."
"Climb the peak," he repeated, much mystified.
"What's the idear?" the second wanted to know. "Goin' way off thar jes' to git up a mountain, when thar's plenty right hyar, higher ones too?" He indicated the ranges to the east.
"Any place up that way to get out of the rain?" I asked, for the clouds were dropping again with the threat of gathering storm.