“Shoo! I didn't get up that thing. They had it when I came. Never looked at it. Frogs?” He went down the steps very slowly, with a long frown. Reaching the ground, he shook his head. “That man's trail is surely hard to anticipate,” he said. “But I must hurry up that fire. For his appearance has given me encouragement,” Scipio concluded, and became brisk. Shorty helped him, and I brought wood. Trampas and the other people strolled off to the station, a compact band.
Our little fire was built beside the caboose, so the cooking things might be easily reached and put back. You would scarcely think such operations held any interest, even for the hungry, when there seemed to be nothing to cook. A few sticks blazing tamely in the dust, a frying-pan, half a tin bucket of lard, some water, and barren plates and knives and forks, and three silent men attending to them—that was all. But the travellers came to see. These waifs drew near us, and stood, a sad, lone, shifting fringe of audience; four to begin with; and then two wandered away; and presently one of these came back, finding it worse elsewhere. “Supper, boys?” said he. “Breakfast,” said Scipio, crossly. And no more of them addressed us. I heard them joylessly mention Wall Street to each other, and Saratoga; I even heard the name Bryn Mawr, which is near Philadelphia. But these fragments of home dropped in the wilderness here in Montana beside a freight caboose were of no interest to me now.
“Looks like frogs down there, too,” said Scipio. “See them marshy sloos full of weeds?” We took a little turn and had a sight of the Virginian quite active among the ponds. “Hush! I'm getting some thoughts,” continued Scipio. “He wasn't sorry enough. Don't interrupt me.”
“I'm not,” said I.
“No. But I'd 'most caught a-hold.” And Scipio muttered to himself again, “He wasn't sorry enough.” Presently he swore loud and brilliantly. “Tell yu'!” he cried. “What did he say to Trampas after that play they exchanged over railroad improvements and Trampas put the josh on him? Didn't he say, 'Trampas, I thought you'd be afraid to do it?' Well, sir, Trampas had better have been afraid. And that's what he meant. There's where he was bringin' it to. Trampas made an awful bad play then. You wait. Glory, but he's a knowin' man! Course he wasn't sorry. I guess he had the hardest kind of work to look as sorry as he did. You wait.”
“Wait? What for? Go on, man! What for?”
“I don't know! I don't know! Whatever hand he's been holdin' up, this is the show-down. He's played for a show-down here before the caboose gets off the bridge. Come back to the fire, or Shorty'll be leavin' it go out. Grow happy some, Shorty!” he cried on arriving, and his hand cracked on Shorty's shoulder. “Supper's in sight, Shorty. Food for reflection.”
“None for the stomach?” asked the passenger who had spoken once before.
“We're figuring on that too,” said Scipio. His crossness had melted entirely away.
“Why, they're cow-boys!” exclaimed another passenger; and he moved nearer.