“Sure. But he won’t quit. Every day I practise on a new style of firin’ him. And what you just heard was what I’m framing up to tell him when he shows up again. We’ve done everythin’ except kill him outright, but he just grins and says:
“‘Das goot yoke. Ay am de cook, you bet.’”
Hashknife laughed joyfully. He liked Mrs. Snow because she could see the humor of life.
“Where is he now?” asked Sleepy.
Mrs. Snow shook her head slowly.
“I dunno. A few weeks ago he cooked up a big mess of prunes and forgot where he put ’em. Yesterday he drank the result, and lit out for Caldwell; singin’ somethin’ that didn’t sound like a Swedish church-hymn. I reckon he’s asleep in Casey McGill’s saloon now. He thinks Casey’s a Swede.”
“Much stock runnin’ in this Lodge-Pole country, ma’am?” asked the practical Sleepy.
“Ye-e-es—I reckon you’d say there was.”
“We’re lookin’ for jobs, ma’am,” explained Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy are what you’d call top-hands.”
“Never seen a puncher that wasn’t,” declared Mrs. Snow. “Frosty says there’s been a epidemic in the cow-country, which has made top-hands out of every danged buckaroo what has two legs to wear chaps.”