“A thousand times,” returned Smithy in a bored tone.
“Well, Steve and Andy was perky as blackbirds in a strawyard that spring. ’Twas twenty years back. They hid out their camp somewhere near town that time. I always figgered they had a good prospect below there, in the canyon. ’Twas even reported that they took a sample of the right stuff to the assayer’s office. But they was as close mouthed as twin clams in the last stages of hydrophoby.
“Then come the slide. Most of us that was yere then didn’t think of much for a week or two but whether Canyon Pass was goin’ to be left on the map or not. Our stake was yere, and the slide acted like a stopper in Runaway River—like to plugged the old canyon for fair.
“Howsumever, when the channel was more or less clear again and we could come down off the roofs of our shacks, Steve and Andy showed up, but from different directions, as sore at each other as two carbuncles, and they ain’t never been knowed to speak to one another since. Won’t even drink at the same bar. The only time they come into the Three Star together is the morning they pull stakes for the desert.”
Smithy yawned again. Steve Siebert and Andy McCann had now disappeared beyond outcropping warts of rock at the foot of the canyon walls.
Down the street from the direction of the mining shafts sunk in the heights behind the town strode a well-proportioned young man whose bootsoles rang on the patches of earth out of which the frost had not yet thawed. He was cleanly shaved and clean-looking, and stood more than six feet tall, with an air of frank assertiveness even in his carriage. He owned a high color under the wind-tan of his countenance, sandy hair, and brown eyes with golden flecks in them when he was amused or when he was angry.
And Joe Hurley was usually swayed by one emotion or the other. Now he appeared to be amused as he came abreast of the Three Star Grocery.
“What’s got you and Smithy up so early, Bill?” he asked.
“Dad burn it, Joe! Don’t you know spring has came?”
“Pshaw! I thought I heard a tree-frog last night. So Steve Siebert and Andy McCann have lit out same as usual? We shall miss Steve at the Great Hope.”