"Say, stranger, you ain't much on the conversation, be yer?"
"Never am when I don't know who I be talking to," retorted Cal. The boys expected to see the other get angry, but instead he broke into a laugh.
"You're a Westerner all right," he said. "I thought everybody knew me. I'm Jeb Scantling, the sheep herder from Alamos. I'm looking fer some grass country."
"Bin havin' trouble with the cattlemen?" inquired Cal.
"Some," was the non-committal rejoinder.
"Wall, then you'd better not go through that way," enjoined Cal, "there's a bunch of cattle right through the forest thar."
"Thar is?" was the somewhat alarmed rejoinder, "then I reckon it's no place fer me."
"No, you'd better try back in the mountains some place," advised Cal.
"I will. So long."