Algy and Gettysburg got the impromptu breakfast together. The placer sluices outside were neglected. Nobody wished to shovel sand for gold when marvelous tales might be exchanged concerning the wind storm that had raged across the hills the day before.
Indeed, as Van and Beth sat together at the board, regaling themselves like the two famished beings they were, their three entertainers proceeded to liberate some of the tallest stories concerning storms that mortal ever heard.
Napoleon and Gettysburg became the hottest of rivals in an effort to deliver something good. Gettysburg furnished a tale of a breeze in the unpeopled wilds of Nebraska where two men's farms, fully twenty miles apart, had undergone an astounding experience whereby a complete exchange of their houses, barns, and sheds had been effected by a cyclone, without the slightest important damage to the structures.
When this was concluded, Napoleon looked pained. "I think you lie, Gett—metaphorical speakin'!" he hastened to add. "But shiver my bowsprit if I didn't see a ship, once, ten days overdue, jest snatched up and blowed into port two days ahead of time, and never touched nothing all the way, I remember the year 'cause that was the winter ma had twins and pa had guinea pigs."
"Wal," drawled Dave, who had all this time maintained a dignified silence, "I've saw some wind, in my time, but only one that was really a leetle mite too obstreperous. Yep, that was a pretty good blow—the only wind I ever seen which blew an iron loggin' chain off the fence, link by link."
Napoleon paid Dave a compliment. He said:
"You old son of a gun!"
Van thought the storms had raged sufficiently.
"Is work unpopular, or did the wind blow the water from the creek?"
"I like to work," admitted Gettysburg, "but it's fun to watch you epicures eatin'."