The marshal admitted that he never had. "But you're a rare man," he said.
Pop shook his head. "When I was a boy like you," he said, "I wasn't nothin' to be passed up too quick. But a man's young only once, and that's a short time—and he's old for years and years and years, Dozier." He added, for fear that he might have depressed his guest, "But me and Jud team it, you see. I'm extra old and Jud's extra young—so we kind of hit an average."
He touched the shoulder of the boy and there was a flash of eyes between them, the flicker of a smile. Hal Dozier drew a breath. "I got no kids of my own," he declared. "You're lucky, friend. And you're lucky to have this neat little house."
"No, I ain't. They's no luck to it, because I made every sliver of it with my own hands."
An idea came to the deputy marshal.
"There's a place up in the hills behind my house, a day's ride," he said, "where I go hunting now and then, and I've an idea a little house like this would be just the thing for me. Mind if I look it over?"
Pop tamped his pipe.
"Sure thing," he said. "Look as much as you like."
He stepped to a corner of the room and by a ring he raised a trapdoor. "I got a cellar 'n' everything. Take a look at it below."
He lighted the lantern, and Hal Dozier went down the steep steps, humming. "Look at the way that foundation's put in," said the old man in a loud voice. "I done all that, too, with my own hands."