"Thank Dick, you mean. I'll tell you what, Frank," he continued, leaning down and whispering; Dick having walked on toward the house: "that's an uncommonly fine young fellow, in my opinion. His coming down in the storm last night to tell me that you were all safe was a thing that few boys of his age would have done and fewer still would have thought of doing. Ah! This is the professor, I suppose. Why, I've seen him before!"
So saying, Uncle Tom jumped to the ground, and hastening forward, held out his hand, exclaiming:
"How are you, Herr Bergen? I'm glad to meet you again. We are old acquaintances, though I had forgotten your name, if I ever heard it."
"I believe you are right, Mr. Allen," responded the professor. "Your face seems familiar, though I am ashamed to say I cannot recall when or where we met."
"I can remind you," said Uncle Tom. "It was at Fort Garland, six or seven years ago. I was on my way to investigate an alleged gold discovery in the Taos mountains, when you rode into the fort to ask the cavalry vet to give you something to dress the wounds of a burro which had been clawed by a mountain-lion. I got into conversation with you, and learning that you also wanted some cartridges for a little Ballard rifle, I gave you a box of fifty. Do you remember?"
"I remember very well," replied the professor. "The cartridges were for Dick: he learned to shoot with a Ballard. Well, this is a great pleasure to meet an old acquaintance like this. Come in out of the cold. Romero will take your pony."
Soon we were all seated before the fire, Uncle Tom puffing away his aches and pains with the smoke of the inevitable cigar, when the professor, turning to him, asked:
"And how long do you intend to stay in camp, Mr. Allen? Will this snow drive you out?"
"Not at all," replied Uncle Tom. "I expect to be here a couple of weeks, in spite of the snow. The drifts will settle in a day or two, and the miners will break trails to their claims, and then I shall be able to get about—there won't be any difficulty. Though if it were going to be as hard work as it was coming up here this morning I might as well go home again at once—it took us an hour to make the one mile from town."