It was a very different crowd that now set out for the town, and yet it was the same lot of men. Nine months' heavy, open-air work had dispelled weakness and brought strength, had replaced bad temper with cheerfulness, and had, moreover, filled pockets with Uncle Sam's good coin.
Frank and John, his chum, again sat on the scraper that trailed behind a wagon, not now for fear of contact with ill-tempered, almost desperate men, but for the sake of comparative quiet and to escape the practical jokes that none in the wagon could avoid.
"Well," said Frank, "would you rather wrestle dishes in Helena or wrangle horses in the open?"
"I'd rather wrangle than wrestle," said John, taking the cue with a laugh, "weather or no; and I'd like to go out again soon."
On reaching town the men parted company, each to seek the pleasure that most attracted him. John at once hunted up Tom Malloy, who was still prosperous and evidently glad to see him.
"Well, kid, how did you get along?" he said, in his old, familiar, kindly way. The boy first paid him for the saddle he had borrowed, to which he had become accustomed and attached, and then told in detail of his experiences.
"Do you want to get back to pot-wrestling?" asked Molloy at length.
"No; not on your life!" and John told him of his liking for work in the open and his distaste for town life.
"Right you are, kid," said Tom encouragingly, "the town's no place for you, or for me, either," he added rather sadly. "I'll be done up some day"—a prophecy which proved but too true.