“I believe I’ll take that sweater for ma,” he said awkwardly. After a while his fancy became more practical, and he bought warm hoods, pieces of flannel, gingham, and calico.
At last all the bundles were wrapped and loaded on the wagon with the provisions that he had purchased for the winter. Jack was standing in a store entrance, trying to remember whether he had forgotten anything, when up the street rode half a dozen Burnt Fork boys, with their “chaps” flapping and their spurs jangling merrily. They shouted a greeting when they caught sight of Jack. Jack watched them canter up the street with foreboding in his heart.
It was already late in the afternoon, but he decided to start on the return trip to his ranch immediately for he did not enjoy the thought that the “boys” might discover how he had been spending his time in Green River.
Sunset of the following day saw him nearing home, but trouble had sat with him all the way. He could imagine what “fun” there would be at the ranch if those boys found out his poor secret. What could he do with all the things he had bought for his imaginary family? If he took them home, there was John Enderly to be reckoned with.
Finally a solution occurred to him—he would throw them into Henry’s Fork. He knew where he could find an air hole. By driving across the ice below the regular crossing, he hoped to avoid discovery, and so, leaving the road, he turned down the long cañon that led out on the plateau on which the Culberson cabin stood. When he came in sight of the little log building he gave a whistle of surprise, for he had not known that anyone lived there. As he approached the cabin he hallooed, and getting no answer, was about to drive on, when he noticed that smoke was coming from the stove-pipe.
He decided to go in and warm his feet; but when he entered the cabin, he found himself more interested in the evidences of poverty than in the stove. A box nailed to the wall served as a cupboard. He lifted the flour-sack curtain before it, and peeped within; he saw the bacon sliced for the Christmas dinner; he saw all the scanty preparations.
“Huh!” he grunted. “Cake with no eggs! I’ve made it; I know what it’s like!”
Dropping the curtain, he glanced about the room. “No chairs,” he commented. “Must be mighty poor. Kids in the bunch, too.” Then he noticed a cap hanging on a peg. “Boy among ’em. By heck, I guess I’m in time to beat Santy Claus, but I didn’t buy anything for a boy.”
For an hour Jack worked busily and happily. All that he had bought for his “family” he carried into the cabin; then, opening cases of his own supplies, he carried in canned goods, dried fruit, a ham, some sugar, coffee, and a package of tea. When he had finished, he gazed about the little room and smiled. “Mighty near filled the cabin,” he said. “Reckon some flour won’t be amiss, and I’ve a good notion to fill that new lamp and leave it on the table, lighted. They’re coming back soon, or they wouldn’t have left fire. There’s the coat and the lamp for the woman; candy, nuts and dolls for the kids; provisions for ’em all, but not a thing for that boy. I just can’t do him that way. He can have my new gun.”
Jack went out to the wagon and brought in the shotgun, and hanging the cap on the muzzle, leaned it against the wall. Then he put his boxes of ammunition on the floor beside it. Finally, he filled the stove full of wood, and closing it carefully, left the cabin.