The greetings came simultaneously. The next instant Big Brother Bill flung out of the saddle, and stood wringing his brother’s hand with great force.
“Gee! It’s good to see you, Charlie,” he cried joyously.
“Good? Why, it’s great, and—and I took you for one of the damned p’lice.”
Charlie’s face was wreathed in such a smile of welcome and relief, that all Big Brother Bill’s doubts in that direction were flung pell-mell to the winds.
Charlie caught something of the other’s beaming enthusiasm.
“Why, I’ve been expecting you for days, old boy. Thought maybe you’d changed your mind. Say, where’s your baggage? Coming on behind? You haven’t lost it?” he added anxiously, as Bill’s face suddenly fell.
“I forgot. Say, was there ever such a tom-fool trick?” Bill cried, with a great laugh at his own folly. “Why, I left it checked at Moosemin—without instructions.”
Charlie’s smiling eyes suddenly widened.
“Moosemin? What in the name of all that’s——?”
“I’ll have to tell you about it later,” Bill broke in hastily. “I’ve had one awful journey. If it hadn’t been for a feller I met on the road I don’t know when I’d have landed here.”