The boss of the outfit came in leisurely after the rush. He brought a guest with him and they sat down at the end of the table.
“Beans!” demanded a line man, his mouth full.
“Headed for you!” promised the flunkey.
The guest of the boss was a big rangy fellow in the early forties. Bob heard the boss call him “Jake,” and later “Houck.” As soon as the boy had a moment to spare he took a good look at the man. He did not like what he saw. Was it the cold, close-set eyes, the crook of the large nose, or the tight-lipped mouth gave the fellow that semblance to a rapacious wolf?
As soon as Bob had cleaned up the dishes he set off up the creek to meet June. The boy was an orphan and had been brought up in a home with two hundred others. His life had been a friendless one, which may have been the reason that he felt a strong bond of sympathy for the lonely girl on Piceance. He would have liked to be an Aladdin with a wonder lamp by means of which he could magically transform her affairs to good fortune. Since this could not be, he gave her what he had—a warm fellow-feeling because of the troubles that worried her.
He found June waiting at their usual place of meeting. Pete Tolliver’s forty-four hung in a scabbard along the girl’s thigh. Bob remembered that she had spoken of seeing a rattlesnake on the trail yesterday.
“’Lo, boy,” she called.
“’Lo, June. I met yore friend.”
“What friend?”
“Jake Houck. He was down at the camp for dinner to-day—came in with the boss.”