“What are we going to do with them?” wondered Tom Gray frowningly.
“Keep them, of course,” answered Grace. “Tom, they are a real treat, but if Stacy and Emma do not stop stirring them up we may have to send for the sheriff of the county. Just look at them now,” she added laughingly.
Jim and Sam were sitting back to back unrolling packs, each man muttering to himself his opinion of the other. Later in the evening the Overlanders got them talking and drew the guides out. It developed that the pair had been prospectors nearly all their lives; that they had loved and fought each other for so many years that they had lost count of them, and when their halting story had finally been finished, the Overland Riders looked upon Jim-Sam with new appreciation. Emma Dean characterized them as a pair of “beloved vagabonds.”
This having been their first day in the saddle since the previous season, the Overlanders were saddle-weary, and some of them were sore and lame. Miss Briggs hobbled about painfully and complainingly, and Nora Wingate lay by the little campfire rolled in her blanket, the picture of woe. Emma and Grace, however, appeared not to be suffering the slightest degree of discomfort.
Jim cooked the supper, and it was a good one, for he made biscuits and served them hot, soaked in bacon gravy, a luxury to which the Riders had not been accustomed. They made the most of their opportunity, and Stacy Brown’s appetite, as usual, was not fully satisfied until some time after his companions had finished supper. Then all hands gathered about the fire for a chat.
“Samuel, do you ever dream?” questioned Emma after thoughtfully regarding the old guide for some moments.
“Sure I do, Missie. I dreamed last night that that critter—that ornery mule o’ Jim’s—kicked the everlasting daylight out o’ me,” growled Sam.
“Oh, you don’t mean it? That was fine,” glowed Emma.
“Eh?” Sam’s whiskers stood out belligerently. The old guide’s whiskers could express varying shades of emotion.
“Your dream means that you are going to have good luck—the best ever. Perhaps you are about to discover a gold mine or a hole in the ground where one has been, or something like that,” bubbled Emma.