"All right, I will. That would just suit me. To-morrow?"
"Yes, come up to-morrow, if you like. I'll be on the lookout for you. I suppose you are going home now," he continued, as we rose to our feet. "If I were you, I'd keep up here on the side of the mountain—the street will be full of yellow-jackets—and then, when you come opposite the assayer's house, make a bolt for his back door, or some of them may get you yet."
"That's a good idea. I'll do it. Well, good-bye. I'll come up to-morrow then, if I can."
CHAPTER II Sheep and Cinnamon
"That was the funniest thing I ever saw," exclaimed Uncle Tom, laughing in spite of himself, while at the same time, with a comically rueful twist of his countenance, he rubbed the back of his neck where one of the wasps had "got" him. "The way poor Tim bolted out of his stronghold after defying the whole population to come and get him out, was the very funniest thing I ever did see. That was a smart trick of that young rascal; though I wish he had given me notice beforehand of what he intended to do. I'd have started to run a good five minutes earlier if I'd known what was coming. Who is the boy, Warren?"
"Well, that is not easy to say," replied our host, "for, as a matter of fact, he does not know himself. His history, what there is of it, is a peculiar one. He lives up here at the head of the cañon with an old German named Bergen—commonly known as the Professor—and his Mexican servant, a man of forty whom the professor brought up with him from Albuquerque, I believe. If Frank's object in coming here was to rub up against all sorts and conditions of men, he could hardly have chosen a better place. Certainly he cannot expect to find a more remarkable character than the professor.
"The old fellow is regarded by the people here as a harmless lunatic—which, in a community like this, where muscle is at a premium and scientific attainments at a discount, is not to be wondered at—for it is incomprehensible to them that any man in his right mind should spend his life as the professor spends his.
"The old gentleman is an enthusiastic naturalist. He is making a collection of the butterflies, beetles and such things, of the Rocky Mountain region, and with true German thoroughness he has spent years in the pursuit. Choosing some promising spot, he builds a log cabin, and there he stays one year—or two if necessary—until that district is 'fished out,' as you may say, when he packs up and moves somewhere else, to do the same thing over again."