“You bet I’d like to,” he answered. “Gee, you—you—you’ve been awful nice to me—kind of makes me homesick——”
He couldn’t finish, and Lucy gave his fingers a friendly little pressure, and turned away.
Joe got on Popgun again, still wondering where Bob was, and turned to depart, when with a “Hi, there—don’t go yet!” Bob burst from the hotel door.
He was bearing in one hand a jointed bamboo fish-pole, in the other a full box of tackle and flies.
“This is for you,” he said. “’Course, you can’t get a good, big fish without me to catch it for you, but you can cook what you do get O.K. And don’t let any more bears kiss you, and send a feller some snap shots when you have ’em developed, and here’s my address.”
Joe took the rod and tackle. “Gee, Bob, that’s white of you,” he said. “Guess I’ll never forget this trip.”
“Me, neither. Old Pennsylvania’s goin’ to look like a prairie when I get back. So long, Joe.”
“So long, Bob.”
He waved his hand to Alice and Lucy, who watched him from the doorway, and rode off behind Mills, dropped his dunnage bag at the camp, and took Popgun to the Ranger’s cabin.
“If you boys will let me, I’ll grub with you this noon. Not a thing in my shack,” the Ranger said.