“Jest so.”
Toby grinned.
“You’re a bright one, Sunny. You’re so bright, you dazzle my eyes,” he cried.
But Sunny was absorbed in a thought that was hazily hovering in the back of his brain, and let the insult pass.
“How ken I tell jest wot we’re goin’ to do,” he cried. “Wot we want to do is to kind o’ help that pore crittur Zip out first. Ther’ he is wi’ two kids to see to, which is sure more than one man’s work, an’ at the same time he’s got to dig up that mudbank claim of his. He don’t see the thing’s impossible, ’cos he’s that big in mind he can’t see small things like that. But I ain’t big that aways, an’ I ken see. If he goes on diggin’ wot’s his kids goin’ to do, an’ if he don’t dig wot’s they goin’ to do anyways. We’ll hev to form a committee––”
“Sort o’ trust,” grinned Toby.
But Sunny passed over his levity and seized upon his suggestion.
“I ’lows your fool head’s tho’t somethin’ wiser than it guessed,” he said. “That’s just wot we need. Ther’ should be a trust to see after him. An’ after it’s got his kids fixed right––”
Sunny broke off as the tall figure of Wild Bill threw its shadow across the window of the store. The next moment the man himself entered the room.
He nodded silently, and was about to fling himself into one of the chairs, when Toby, in jocular anticipation, threw Sunny’s proposition at him.