The man laughed—or, rather, he smiled. It was really a kind of inside laugh, noiseless. Even his voice was low, so you had to listen sharply to hear what he was saying.
“They’ll eat the clothes off your back if you let ’em,” said he.
“But why do they eat such—such dry stuff? It’s worse than patent breakfast food without cream,” said Joe.
“Salt,” the man replied. “They’ll eat anything a man or a horse has touched, to get it salty with perspiration—an axe handle, for instance. I knew a lumber jack once who had a grudge against a feller, so he put salt on his cabin roof, and the porcs came in the night and ate the roof most off. There come a rain the next day, too.”
The boys laughed. They wanted to ask their visitor who he was, but didn’t see quite how to bring it about. Finally Tom said, “Won’t—won’t you have some breakfast?”
“Had mine,” the man answered. “Might take a cup of coffee, though. Yours smells good.”
He sat down on the log which was serving the boys as a chair, first easing his belt holster, which held a 38-calibre automatic.
“He must be a Park Ranger,” Tom whispered to Joe. “Nobody else can carry arms in the Park, they say.”
Joe brought him a cup of coffee, and as he took it, he said, “Well, boys, I hear you’re goin’ to look after the tepee camp. Thought I’d come down to inspect you. I’m the Ranger for this district. Mills is my name. My cabin’s just up the trail a piece toward Swift Current. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Joe. “Some time, if you—you’d——”