“By––James!” vowed Knowles, when she had finished. “Any man on the Western Slope say that boy’s not acclimated, he’d better look for another climate himself.”
“Gentleman,” the sheriff addressed the exclaiming crowd, “you heard tell what the little lady had to say about her husband and this Lafe Ashton going down into Deep Cañon, where no man ever went before. Now Miss Chuckie has told us again how Ashton climbed up here, where no man in this section had a notion anything short of a mountain sheep could climb. Well, what does the gritty kid do but turn round and climb down again––in the dark, mind you! They’re down there now, both of them––down in the bottom of Deep Cañon. We called them tenderfeet, that day when Mr. Blake honored our county seat by sidetracking his palatial car. Boys, down there in that hole are the two nerviest men I ever heard tell about. One of ’em has a broken leg. The other has broke the trail for us. I ask for volunteers to go down with me and yank ’em up out of there. Gentlemen, who offers?”
Instantly the crowd surged forward. Every man shouted, whooped, struggled to thrust himself ahead 380 of the others and force the acceptance of his services on the sheriff.
“Hold on, boys!” he remonstrated. “Just hold your hawsses. I didn’t ask for a stampede. You can’t all go down. Last man over might get in a hurry to catch the first, and start a manslide.”
“I vote we set a thirty-year limit,” put in one of the younger punchers.
This raised a clamor of dissent from the older men.
“Tell you what,” shouted another. “Let Miss Chuckie cut out the lucky ones.”
“That’s the ticket––Now you’re talking!” Every man shouted approval, and fell silent as Isobel sprang up from beside Genevieve.
“Friends!” she exclaimed, her eyes radiant, “it’s such times as these that makes life grand! I believe six of you would be enough, but I’ll make it ten. First, I’m going to bar everyone who has a wife or children.”
“That doesn’t include me, honey,” hastily protested her father.