CHAPTER XXX
The unexpected return of the "Governor," as the Englishmen had named Bull Langdon, was an exciting event in their hitherto pleasant lives. He arrived late on a March afternoon, the snort of his engine and the honk of his horn arousing the "hands" from a siesta, where, stretched before a raging wood fire, they drowsily smoked and read.
They dressed leisurely in warm fur coats and overshoes, before answering his impatient summons, and sauntering out in their own good time, smiled good-humoredly at the shouting cowman.
"Here, you! Take this in. Ain't no fire to the house. Want it thawed out."
The first of the Englishmen, whose long name need not appear here—"Bo" is what Bull Langdon called him—took the bundle in his hands and then almost dropped it, for something moved inside it, and a sound that was like a suffocated moan arose from its mysterious depths.
"My word! The thing's alive, d'you know," exclaimed the startled Englishman. "Hang it all, man, I believe it's a baby."
"Take it to the bunkhouse," roared the Bull, backing into the garage. "Thaw it out."
Gingerly carried into the bunkhouse by the amazed "Bo" and deposited upon the cot that he himself had but recently reposed upon, the baby continued its low, moaning cries. Both the little bare feet had kicked out from the sheepskin coat, and were frozen stiff. One minute fist stuck out of the coat, and there was a great swelling on the forehead, where he had fallen off the seat of the car to the floor. Its whole body, in fact, was bruised from the cruel bumping of that long mad ride from Yankee Valley, a distance of thirty-five miles.
"Cutie," the name sneeringly imposed upon the other Englishman by Bull Langdon, because of his natty dress and his monocle, now stuck that despised piece of glass in his right eye, and surveyed the child with amazement. Its cries were growing fainter, and a kind of frozen rigor was creeping over it.
"Well, what're you gapin' at?" Bull Langdon was glowering in the doorway.