“Lady,” interrupted Sig, “that hombre can forget anything. I’m th’ brains of our outfit, and if yuh wants an intelligent favor done, jist ask me. Sabe?”
“I don’t know whether you gentlemen are in earnest or not. Do you mean everything you say to each other?”
“I do,” replied Sig, with a bow, “but Mr. Merton here never meant anything he ever said. He’s notorious fer jist talkin’. As I orates before, Miss Reynolds, if there is anything I can do fer yuh, why——”
“I do wish we could get Oscar,” she replied reflectively. “There goes poor old Nortie up the hill with a broken heart, and I know that Jack Markham is awfully put out about it too. You see we’ve simply got to have a cougar or we can’t finish the picture. I wonder if you could catch Oscar? He’s as tame as a kitten and has never been wild. The company raised him—got him from a zoo when he was a little yellow kitten. I know that Mr. Norton would be willing to pay you well if you would catch him.”
“Miss Reynolds, we ain’t mercenary thataway,” replied Sig. “I ain’t wastin’ no love on that Norton person, and I don’t rassel no cougar fer his money, but if you really wants that cat, I’m promisin’ it to yuh.”
“That’s awfully kind of you,” she cooed. “If you could catch him and bring him back here tomorrow, I could just love you both. Then we could finish that picture. Really, he is as tame as a kitten.”
“Consider him caught,” boasted Sig. “Me and Ren will bring him to yore house tomorrow mawnin’. Uh course I could git him alone, but bein’ as Ren is with me I’ll let him help.”
“Meanin’,” drawled Ren, “that I ropes that cat and ties him up fer shipment, and Sig writes th’ address.”
Miss Reynolds insisted on shaking hands with both of them again, and her smile left them both unable to roll a cigarette.
“We’re living in those cabins up there in the pines,” she explained, “and probably will be there for a few days. You can bring him right up there.”