The exhausted ranchman kept his feet as long as he could, but when the first rays of the morning sun cast purple shadows into the depths of the hole, he could no longer keep awake. With his hands, he drifted the loose sand about him, as travelers do when exposed to a snow-blizzard, and slept until Goat Neale aroused him, in broad daylight. The Texan performed this service by deftly dropping a small stone upon the sleeping man's face.
"I just stepped over to inquire what you-all'd like for breakfast this mornin'," he said with a grin. "Not that it matters much, 'cause the dumb-waiter down to where you be ain't waitin' to-day, but it's manners, kinder, to ask."
Wade looked up at him grimly, but said nothing. Just awake as he was, his healthy stomach clamored for food, but since none would be given him, he knew that he might as well try to be patient.
"Mebbe you'd like to step over to our hotel an' take your meals, eh?" The Texan went on, after a short pause. "I've got a pot of coffee bilin' an' a mess o' bacon fryin'. No?" He grinned sardonically. "How'd you like me to give you some o' this here cabareet stuff, while you're waitin'? I ain't no great shucks as a entertainer, but I'll do what I can. Mebbe, you'd like to know how I happened to catch you that clump on the head yesterday. Huh?
"I was up in the low branches of a thick pine, where you was moseyin' along. You was that busy watchin' the ground, you never thought to raise them eyes o' yourn. I just reached down and lammed you good with a piece of stick, an' here you be, safe an' sound as a beetle in a log. Here you'll stay, too, likely, on-less you get some sense, and I don't know when that there dumbwaiter'll get to runnin'. It's a shame, too, if you ask me, 'cause a man needs his three or four squares a day in this here climate."
"How much do you want to give me a hand out of here, Neale?" the cattleman demanded abruptly, tired of listening to the fellow's monotonous drawl; and after all the chance was worth taking.
The eyes of the Texan glittered.
"Got the money on you?"
"You'd get the money all right."