And Sandy’s answer, "For sure, now! What’s eatin’ you, Mart? Doc’s got a good head on ’im."
"Entirely too good fer us, mebby!" growled Waymart; and Ross smiled in satisfaction, thinking they referred to his work in the tunnel.
Just before supper, the door of Weimer’s shack unceremoniously opened, and Waymart’s arm was thrust in. "Here," his voice said roughly, "take this here elk steak."
Ross relieved the arm of its burden, and the door closed sharply. It was a sirloin steak, the juiciest and most tender in the animal which the brothers had brought into the valley the day before. Sandy had often brought them venison before, but never Waymart; and Ross was pleased.
"While Sandy is entertaining," Ross had told Steele, "and Waymart seldom says two sentences at one sitting, and next to never meets my eye, yet, if it came right down to a choice, I believe I’d rather travel along with Waymart than with Sandy."
"Your choice is all right," Steele had replied. "If Waymart would cut loose from Sandy, he’d earn an honest living. It’s Sandy that’s the head, though. It’s Sandy that plans; Waymart furnishes the feet and arms. Sandy’s good company, but I wouldn’t trust him with my pocketbook around the corner. Not," Steele added, "that he’d steal it in such a way that the law could touch him. No, he’d have the pocketbook, but it ’ud leave him free to look any jury in the eye and to shake hands with me afterward."
The new sled made its first journey down into Miners’ Camp one Sunday in December two weeks after Ross had ridden down with the sheriff. Waymart went ahead with one of the leading-ropes over his shoulder, and Sandy behind, steadying the empty vehicle around the shoulder of Crosby. Waymart led because he was the heaviest, and there was a deep fall of snow to contend against except around the shoulder, where, fortunately, the wind had swept the mountain clean.
As the trail broadened beyond, Waymart paused to survey the low-hanging clouds. Ross, in the rear, stopped and studied the mountains which Nature had in ages past taken in her gigantic hands and flung into the cañon between Dundee and Crosby, compelling Wood River to crawl and worm and wind and cut its way deep and narrow down into Miners’ Camp.
"I wonder," exclaimed Ross suddenly to Sandy, "what is beyond that conglomeration of peaks."
"Wood River cañon still, clean over on top of the Divide, and you can follow it on horseback right through. Part of the time up there," waving his hand toward the jumble of mountains which seemingly ended the cañon, "it’s pretty rocky trailin’, especially in winter, but it can be done."