The first thing Weimer did when he arose was to go to the door and survey sky and mountains with practiced eye, as he sniffed the bracing air. The sky was overcast and lowering, while a sharp wind drove the snow in eddies and drifts through the valley.
"Der vill pe a pig storm mit us," he prophesied; "it ist on its vay. It vill get here in dree, four days."
"Hear that, Less?" shouted Ross at the new bunk. "You turn out and we’ll be off. We’ve got to unearth that dynamite before any more snow piles up here around us."
Leslie left his bunk with a bound. "I’m good for it. How’s breakfast? When I filled up last night I thought I’d never need anything more and here I am as hollow as a drum!"
At the breakfast table, he suddenly bethought himself of the question he had meant to ask the previous night. "I say, Doc," he exclaimed, "who was the third man with the McKenzies yesterday? My cabin wasn’t near enough the trail so that I could see."
Ross hesitated and Weimer answered, "Dot vas a cousin of the McKenzies, name of Lon Veston."
There was a clatter and a fall as knife and fork slipped out of Leslie’s hands. "Lon Weston!" he ejaculated. "Lon Weston here? A cousin of the McKenzies?"
"Know him?" asked Ross.
Leslie picked up his fork. "Know Lon? Well, I should say so. He’s made trouble enough at home––" He bit his lips suddenly and stopped, adding, "He was foreman on a ranch near North Bend for a couple of years. He–he used to come to our house a good deal."
In a flash Ross recalled the photo that had dropped out of Weston’s pocket at Sagehen Roost, the pretty girl face, and instantly he knew why Hank had said of Leslie when he rode away with Wilson, "Seems as if I’d seen that there young feller before."