less from the two somewhat bewildered countenances confronting him than from the situation itself, greeted them with a second volley of laughter.
"I wouldn't have missed this for a house and lot," he choked.
"What's that?" demanded the other, failing to catch the words and naturally suspicious of their portent. "If you think you can guy me, why damn you, just you try it on an' see."
"Wait a minute before you sail into me," chuckled Steele. "It's funny, only you don't see the funny part yet. You will in a minute. You order me off and that's what I was getting ready to do for you! As you show up I'm saying to myself: 'They're two real nice looking boys, but I want the woods to myself a little. They'll just have to move on!' And before I can get the words out you're wanting me to clean out!"
Even with the explanation before them they did not appear to laugh with him. A score of paces away they frowned against the sun, staring at him, entirely out of harmony with his mood.
"We ain't got all night to chin in," offered the man who as yet had not spoken. "Suppose you take your traps an' beat it back to where your horse is. We're gettin' ready to make a fire an' eat."
"Well," rejoined Steele, safe again in his serene good humour, "you'd better hurry. For if you eat your own cooking tonight it'll be back at the Little Giant. I'm strong for two things: first, staying just exactly where I am, second, being alone. Don't like to appear inhospitable, but since you've started it, you've got to skip out. And say, you Bill Rice, you tell Ed Hurley for me he ought to know better than to try an old game of bluff on me."
"Huh!" said Bill Rice, the bulkier, squattier of the two, who still stood a pace in the fore. "Know me, do you? I ain't got you, though, stranger."
"Come a little closer, Bill," laughed Steele. "And get the sun out of your eyes."
Rice did both, moving slowly, curiosity in his eyes. Suddenly an amazed grunt broke from him, followed by a wide grin and an extended hand that was gripped hard in Steele's.
"Bill Steele, by God!" he cried warmly. "Why, you ol' son of a gun! Say, you fit in a man's eyes nice as a new bottle o' hootch! I had the notion you was dead down in Mexico an' your bones picked over by a coyote. You ol' son of a gun, you! 'Member when me an' you, jus' two U. S. Bills, stood 'em off down to Dos Hermanas?"
"You sawed-off, hammered-down old rock of ages, of course I remember. Only four years ago, after all, Bill. Who's your friend?"
"Turk Wilson," answered Bill Rice. "Step up, Turk, an' shake hands with Mr. Steele, Bill Steele that I've tol' you about more'n once when you an' me was both drunk."
Turk, whose name smacking of the oriental was obviously bestowed to him for the fiery red of his complexion, came forward much after the fashion of an old bear with the rheumatism, grasped Steele's hand and said, "Howdy."
"If you boys haven't eaten," suggested Steele, "why not take chuck with me? I was just going to get a fire started."
"Sure," agreed Rice heartily. "If you got plenty?"
"You start the fire, Bill," said Steele, kneeling beside his saddle, his fingers busy with the thongs about his rod. "Open my roll of blankets and you'll find coffee and the Hibernian fruit and some flour and stuff. Give me ten minutes and I'll bring in the trout. There's the spot handy where I can get 'em any time, day or night."
"Go to it, Bill," retorted Rice. "I'm listenin'. … Ol' Bill Steele, by gravy!"
Then as Steele slipped away among the great boulders, seeking a pool whose memory had been a bit of treasure carried long, Bill Rice squatted on the ground and slowly a wide grin stretched his mouth.
"Orders to chuck a man off the ranch," he beamed upon his friend Turk Wilson, "an' that man turns out to be ol' Bill Steele. The son of a gun! Can you beat it, eh, Turk? Haw!"
Turk Wilson, content to watch Rice working with the blanket roll, made himself comfortable with his broad back to a tree and with big knotted hands set about cutting himself a chew from a slab of plug tobacco.
"Hurley tol' me we was lookin' for a man name of Steele mos'ly," he admitted slowly. Not a man given to much talk, Turk Wilson drew out what few words he used drawlingly, "to make 'em go as far as possible," as Bill Rice had remarked about him.
"You di'n't say so to me," grunted Rice.
"Nope," responded Turk.
"If you had," resumed the man, who now had the roll open and was sorting out the medley of its contents, "I wouldn't of come. I'd of tol' Ed to get some other guy on the job."
Turk shut his monster pocket knife and put it away, replacing what he had left of the plug in a hip pocket.
"’Cause," resumed Bill Rice thoughtfully, "Bill Steele's as good a frien' as I ever had."
Turk scratched his head, nodded and seemed on the verge of drowsing.
"Bacon an' spuds," said Rice. "Onions an' cawffy. Sugar, I guess. Prunes. Say, I tol' you already, didn't I, about me an' Bill mixin' with them ginks down to Dos Hermanas?"
"Can't say as you have," returned the non-committal Turk.
"It was this way: You see I was carryin' a reglar pay day load an' when I'm that-away I don't like a man to talk the lingo like he's makin' fun o' me. So I get somethin' started with the Mex barkeep an' some frien's of his'n. In about a minute, before I good an' got started, we'd busted some chairs an' bottles an' furniture an' things, about a hundred dollars' worth, Mexican money. There was seven or eleven of them dark, han'some little gents pokin' knives at me when ol' Bill Steele walks in. Say, Turk, you oughta heard him war-whoop when he sees it's one white man an' that white man me, stacked up against that congregation of greasers! Nex' thing anybody knows … Say, for the love of Mike, Turk, are you jus' goin' to squat there all night waitin' fer me to peel the spuds an' make the hot cakes an' cawffy an' things? Get a fire goin', can't you?"
Turk sighed, bestirred himself and began to gather dry sticks for the evening blaze. Fifteen minutes later through the little staccato noises of a further lot of fuel snapping in his big hands and the booming of the waters of Hell's Goblet, there came the sound of Steele's voice, lifted mightily. Turk paused in his labours and cocked his head to one side, listening. Bill Rice, laying knife blade to side of bacon, stopped and turned a little to hear better.
"Fell in, maybe," suggested Turk. "Can't he swim?"
"Fell in, nothin'," grunted Rice. "He's singin'. Lord, ain't that man got a voice!"
"The voice ain't so bad," remarked Turk. "But the tune is. He goes up when by rights he oughta come down."
Whereupon Turk began whistling softly, melodiously indicating just what notes were demanded by the composer of a very popular selection from Il Trovatore. He could whistle, could Turk Wilson, and beautifully.
"That's the way she goes by rights," he amended the procedure.
"Yes, sir, Bill Steele's got a voice a man might travel a mile to hear … if travellin' was necessary. Which it ain't. Why, Turk, I remember the time me an' Bill was prospectin' down in Arizona an' him an' me got separated an' Bill climbs up on a sand hill an' turns that ol' voice of his loose an' I hear him across five miles sand an' sage. Fact."
"Hm."
