It was arranged that Roderick and Grant should have an hour or two to themselves and then call later in the evening on the Major.
Roderick was half irritated to find no letter at the post office from Stella Rain. In point of fact, during the past two months, he had been noticing longer and longer gaps in her correspondence. Sometimes he felt his vanity touched and was inclined to be either angry or humiliated. But at other times he just vaguely wondered whether his loved one was drifting away from him.
CHAPTER XII—THE MAJOR’S FIND
WHEN Grant Jones and Roderick arrived at the Major’s home that evening they found other visitors already installed before the cheerful blaze of the open hearth. These were Tom Sun, owner of more sheep than any other man in the state; Boney Earnest, the blast furnace man in the big smelting plant; and Jim Rankin, who had joined his two old cronies after unharnessing the horses from the sleigh.
Cordial introductions and greetings were exchanged. Although Roderick had shaken hands before with Boney Earnest, this was their first meeting in a social way. And it was the very first time he had encountered Tom Sun. Therefore the fortuitous gathering of his father’s three old friends came to him as a pleasant surprise. He was glad of the chance to get better acquainted.
While the company were settling themselves in chairs around the fireplace, Jim Rankin seized the moment for a private confabulation with Roderick. He drew the young man into a corner and addressed him in a mysterious whisper: “By gunnies, Mr. War-field, it sure is powerful good to have yer back agin. It’s seemed a tarnation long winter. But you bet I’ve been keepin’ my mind on things—our big secret—you know.”
Roderick nodded and Rankin went on: “I’ve been prognosticatin’ out this here way and then that way on a dozen trips after our onderstandin’, searchin’ like fur that business; but dang my buttons it’s pesterin’ hard to locate and don’t you forgit it. Excuse us, gentlemen, we are talkin’ about certain private matters but we don’t mean ter be impolite. I’m ‘lowin’ it’s the biggest secret in these diggin’s—ain’t that right, Roderick?”
Rankin laughed good-humoredly at his own remarks as he took out his tobacco pouch of fine cut and stowed away a huge cud. “You bet yer life,” he continued between vigorous chews, “somebody is nachurlly going to be a heap flustrated ‘round here one of these days, leastways that’s what we’re assoomin’.”