Ross sent his cap spinning into the air once more. "I’ll risk you! You’re not as soft as you were six weeks ago! Not by half! When can you come?"
Leslie considered. "Wilson says he’ll go below to the coal claims in a couple of weeks. I’ll talk it over with him and let you know."
"Come to-morrow, if you can," Ross shouted back as he slid down to the trail.
Work went easily for a few days in view of Leslie’s coming. The thought of his companionship robbed the prospective loneliness of Meadow Creek Valley of its terrors. He whistled and sang about the shack as he hunted up the material out of which to make a third bunk. He was hammering away on this the second evening after his talk with Leslie, when the McKenzies dropped in. They had been over on the Divide hunting and had been out of Ross’s sight and mind since his talk with Leslie. Not until Sandy pushed the door open unceremoniously and walked in did Ross recall the comments that had so disturbed him and wondered once more to whom they had referred, himself or Leslie, and what the reference meant.
"Hello, Grant!" Sandy exclaimed, stopping abruptly just inside the door. "What’s up? Why another bunk? Goin’ t’ take boarders? Any relations droppin’ in t’ attend our festivities up here?"
Ross looked over his shoulder laughingly. "Nope. Give another guess."
Sandy came nearer. Waymart shut the door and sat down beside the stove. Weimer turned his back on "dem darned McKenzies," and put on his goggles that he might not be tormented by a view of their faces. It was a never-ending source of vexation to him that they came sociably to his shack.
"I haven’t any more guesses in stock," declared Sandy, but the smile on his face was succeeded by a frown and he bit his red beard restlessly.
"Hired man is coming to-morrow," Ross formed him as the hammer sent another nail home in the side wall.
"Hired man!" exploded Sandy. "Where the deuce will you get a hired man?"