Then he laughed in such a way that Tom knew his job was safe.
Meanwhile Joe divided his day between cooking the meals for Tom and himself, building a lean-to kitchen and dining-room for rainy weather, rigging up a porcupine-proof pantry with some old chicken wire he found behind the hotel chicken yards, and feeding and riding the Ranger’s horse. Twice a day he took Popgun out for a spin, going down below the hotel to the level meadows where the packhorses and saddle-horses rented to the tourists were pastured at night, and there he galloped, trotted, and jumped logs till he felt sure of himself, and all his saddle soreness wore off. Sometimes, after the guests at the camp were gone, and no new party had yet arrived, Tom took a try in the saddle, too, and both of them, with packs made of their blankets and an old mattress, practiced throwing a diamond hitch, while Popgun, who was being used for the experiment, stood still, but looked around at them with a comical, grieved expression, as much as to say, “What do you think I am, just an old packhorse?”
The Ranger did not return for five days, and Joe was sorely tempted to ride Popgun up one of the trails again, to the high places which lured him—to Iceberg Lake, for instance, only six miles away, which everybody talked about as being so beautiful. But he remembered what the Ranger had said, and he never went more than a mile or two from camp. It was certainly hard, with a good horse under you, and a bright sky overhead, and the great towering red mountains all around, not to ride on and on, higher and higher, into those wonderful upland meadows, and then on some more to the sky-flung bridge of the Great Divide!
On the sixth morning, as Joe drew near the Ranger’s cabin to feed and water Popgun, he saw smoke coming out of the chimney. The door was open, and inside he saw Mills just getting breakfast.
“Hello,” he called.
“Oh, it’s you,” Mills answered, looking out. “Come make me some coffee, will you?”
Joe entered, and Mills shook hands. “Glad to see you,” he said. “I’d be glad to see anybody, so don’t get flattered. I’ve been five days alone in the woods, cuttin’ out fallen trees from the trail. Last winter was a bad one.”
“I s’pose there’s a lot of snow here in winter,” said Joe, as he set about making the coffee.
“Last winter there was ten feet on the level in the woods, and the drift piled up against Many Glacier Hotel out there till all you could see was the peak of the roof.”
“What!” Joe cried. “Why, that’s five stories high!”