"Chief, when the time comes, there's going to be about a gallon of tears in my eyes."
So Drew left him to complete the other arrangements. If Bard reached the house he must be requested to stay, and if he stayed he must be fed and entertained. The difficulty in the way of this was that the servants in the big ranchhouse were two Chinese boys. They could never be trusted to help in the deception, so Drew summoned two of his men, "Shorty" Kilrain and "Calamity" Ben.
Calamity had no other name than Ben, as far as any one on the range had ever been able to learn. His nickname was derived from the most dolorous face between Eldara and Twin Rivers. Two pale-blue eyes, set close together, stared out with an endless and wistful pathos; a long nose dropped below them, and his mouth curled down at the sides. He was hopelessly round-shouldered from much and careless riding, and in attempting to straighten he only succeeded in throwing back his head, so that his lean neck generally was in a V-shape with the Adam's apple as the apex of the wedge.
Shorty Kilrain received his early education at sea and learned there a general handiness which stood him in stead when he came to the mountain-desert. There was nothing which Shorty could not do with his hands, from making a knot to throwing a knife, and he was equally ready to oblige with either accomplishment. Drew proposed that he take charge of the kitchen with Calamity Ben as an assistant. Shorty glowered on the rancher.
"Me!" he said. "Me go into the galley to wait on a blasted tenderfoot?"
"After he leaves you'll have a month off with full pay and some over,
Shorty."
"Don't want the month off."
Drew considered him thoughtfully, following the precept of Walpole that every man has his price.
"What do you want, Shorty?"
The ex-sailor scratched his head and then rolled his eyes up with a dawning smile, as one who sees a vision of ultimate bliss.