The culprits exchanged swift glances of astonishment. Eve blushed, but it was Jim who answered him.
“Guess you see things easy, Peter,” he said. “But you aren’t as glad as I am.”
“We are,” corrected Eve.
Peter bent over his work again, smiling at the friendly pan with renewed interest. He scraped some long congealed black grease from its shoulder and gazed at it ruefully.
“Look at that,” he said, with his quaint smile, holding 414 up the knife with the unwholesome fat sticking to it. “Guess your pans won’t get like that, eh, Eve?” Then he added with a sigh, “It’s sure time I hit the trail. It’s been accumulating too long already. Y’see,” he went on simply, “it’s a good thing moving at times. Things need cleaning once in a while.”
He threw the pan into the wagon-box with a sigh of relief, and turned again to his two friends.
“I’d ask you to sit,” he began. But Jim cut him short.
“There’s no need, old friend. We’ve just come over to say we, too, are going to hit the trail. We’re going to hit it together.”
Peter nodded.
“We’re going to get the parson to marry us,” Jim went on eagerly, “and then we’re going to hit out for Canada––Edmonton––and start up a bit of a one-eyed ranch.”