Contentment increased in the Judge's face. “Trampas a good boy too?”
But this time the Bengal tiger did not smile. He sat with his eye fastened on his employer.
The Judge passed rather quickly on to his next point. “You've brought them all back, though, I understand, safe and sound, without a scratch?”
The Virginian looked down at his hat, then up again at the Judge, mildly. “I had to part with my cook.”
There was no use; Ogden and myself exploded. Even upon the embarrassed Virginian a large grin slowly forced itself. “I guess yu' know about it,” he murmured. And he looked at me with a sort of reproach. He knew it was I who had told tales out of school.
“I only want to say,” said Ogden, conciliatingly, “that I know I couldn't have handled those men.”
The Virginian relented. “Yu' never tried, seh.”
The Judge had remained serious; but he showed himself plainly more and more contented. “Quite right,” he said. “You had to part with your cook. When I put a man in charge, I put him in charge. I don't make particulars my business. They're to be always his. Do you understand?”
“Thank yu'.” The Virginian understood that his employer was praising his management of the expedition. But I don't think he at all discerned—as I did presently—that his employer had just been putting him to a further test, had laid before him the temptation of complaining of a fellow-workman and blowing his own trumpet, and was delighted with his reticence. He made a movement to rise.
“I haven't finished,” said the Judge. “I was coming to the matter. There's one particular—since I do happen to have been told. I fancy Trampas has learned something he didn't expect.”