“Well,” he said, “I don’t know who ye be, but yer welcome as long as ye behave yerself.”
“Waugh! Who ever hearn tell o’ ole Nick Nomad doin’ anything else but behavin’? Stranger, yer better look ergin. Mebbeso ye can see a ombray what is some tired an’ more er less hungry—mostly more.”
“Climb down, old Nick Nomad, or the Old Nick hisself—neither of ye’ll ever be turned away from Jasp Avery’s door hungry. Git down, old man, an’ come right in; I’ll tend to yer hoss, same as if he be my own.”
“Jasp Avery, I likes ther way ye holds yer mouth an’ swings yer under jaw. So off I comes, an’ hyar’s my hand.”
Nomad went with the cowman, and saw that the “faithful” Hide-rack didn’t accept an opportunity to plant a pair of steel-shod heels in the anatomy of the stranger who was offering hospitality.
Inside the home of the herdsman Nomad was introduced to “Father Avery,” who was lying on a rudely constructed lounge and emitting occasional groans.
The story of an attack by Indians the previous night soon came out, and Nomad heard of the climax with satisfaction.
The younger Avery explained that he had foreseen trouble with the Indians and had sent his wife and children to Fort Sarpy a month previous. His cowpunchers, four of them, were all far back where they had gone with the stock to find better grazing. He and his father were alone, but they were well fortified and had plenty of rifles and ammunition.
The house had been constructed with an eye to possible hostilities, and resembled a miniature fort, out of which led an underground passage to a dugout that was concealed underground and ventilated by an opening into an almost impenetrable thicket of willow and sage brush.
The arrangement was well calculated to give a strong band of attacking Indians a warm reception and a mystery to wind it up, if they overpowered the settler and set fire to the ranch house.