"I have not, and I never will, so long as that ornery Centipede outfit has got it on us."
"Nonsense, Stover!"
"What have they done?" inquired Miss Blake, curiously. "I haven't heard about any foot-race."
"You tell her," said the man, with another sigh, and a hopeless gesture that told the depth of his feelings.
"Why, Stover hired a fellow a couple of months ago as a horse-wrangler. The man said he was hungry, and made a good impression, so we put him on."
Here Stover slowly raised one booted foot and kicked his other calf. "The boys nicknamed him Humpy Joe—"
"Why, poor thing! Was he humpbacked?" inquired Helen.
"No," answered Still Bill. "Humpback is lucky. We called him Humpy Joe because when it came to running he could sure get up and hump himself."
"Soon after Joseph went to work," Jean continued, "the Centipede outfit hired a new cook. You know the Centipede Ranch—the one you see over yonder by the foot-hills."
"It wasn't 'soon after,' it was simuletaneous," said Stover, darkly. "We're beginnin' to see plain at last." He went on as if to air the injury that was gnawing him. "One day we hear that this grub-slinger over yonder thinks he can run, which same is as welcome to us as the smell of flowers on a spring breeze, for Humpy Joe had amused us in his idle hours by running jack-rabbits to earth—"