"Yes, I do," emphatically.
The present tense of the reply did not escape the listener’s attention.
"Weimer has tried to hire," volunteered Steele; "but it’s no use."
"Why not?" demanded the boy.
"Well, in the first place, as I said, there hain’t enough men to supply the demand; and, in the second place, no man in his senses is going away over on the Creek, where he’ll be shut in for months, when he can just as well stay down in Camp, and get the same wages."
"Shut in for months?" repeated Ross slowly.
Andy explained. "Along about first of February ye’re shut in fer sartain. Trail fills up, and there’s apt to be snowslides any time on old Crosby."
Ross sat with widening eyes staring out into the moonlight, and wondering with tightening muscles what he was "up against." The vagueness of his father’s knowledge concerning Weimer’s work had not counted in New York. But here, swinging along toward Miners’ Camp with two-thirds of the width of the continent between himself and his friends, Ross realized that this vagueness had put him at a disadvantage.
The two men behind him began discussing the cattle market, and the stage slid down the side of the first mesa of the Wyoming bad lands and into the coulee, or dry creek, at the bottom. The level road was left behind. Up hill and down plunged the horses ahead of the rocking, tipping stage. There was no regular road. A dozen tracks showed the differing routes of as many drivers. To Ross it seemed as if destruction were imminent every time they came to the top of one of the short, steep hills. But Andy jammed on the brake hard, and, giving a peculiar little whistle, yelled carelessly, "Git out of this."
Presently Andy took advantage of the rattle of wheels and hoofs to say to Ross: "Steele is boss of the Gale’s Ridge work up to Camp. They keep open all winter; t’other company shuts down."