Keep your seats.
I'll just drop my coat and sit down with you."

He was so distinctly a man of remarkable quality that Curtis stared at
him in deep surprise. He had expected to see a loose-jointed, slouchy
man of middle-age, but Joseph Streeter was plainly a man of decision and
power. His white hair did not betoken weakness or age, for he moved like
one in the full vigor of his late manhood. To his visitors he appeared
to be a suspicious, irascible, and generous man.

"Hello!" he called, jovially, "biscuit! Cal, you didn't do these, nor
Hosy, neither."

Cal grinned. "Well, not by a whole row o' dogs. This--lady did 'em."

Streeter turned his vivid blue eyes on Jennie. "I want to know! Well,
I'm much obliged. When did you come?" he asked of Curtis.

"About an hour ago."

"Goin' far?"

"Over to the agency."

"Friend of the agent?"

"No, but I have a letter of introduction to him."

Streeter seemed to be satisfied. "You'll find him a very accommodating
gentleman."

"So I hear," said Curtis, and some subtle inflection in his tone caused
Streeter to turn towards him again.

"What did I understand your name was?"

"Curtis."

"Where from?"

"San Francisco."

"Oh yes. I think I heard Sennett speak of you. Those biscuit are mighty
good. I'll take another. Couldn't persuade you to stay here, could I?"
He turned to Jennie.

Jennie laughed. "I'm afraid not--it's too lonesome."

Cal seized the chance to say: "It ain't so lonesome as it looks now.
We're a lively lot here sometimes."

Streeter gave him a glance which stopped him. "Cal, you take Hosy and go
over to the camp and tell the boys to hustle in two hundred steers. I
want to get 'em passed on to-morrow afternoon, or next day sure."

Calvin's face fell. "I don't think I need to go. Hosy can carry the
orders just as well as me," he said, boyishly sullen.

"I want _you_ to go!" was the stern answer, and it was plain that
Streeter was commander even of his reckless son.

As he rose from the table, Calvin said, in a low voice, to Jennie, "I'll
be here to breakfast all right, and I'll see that you get over to the
agency."

Streeter the elder upon reflection considered that his guests had not
sufficiently accounted for themselves, and, after Calvin left, again
turned a penetrating glance on Curtis, saying, in a peculiar way, "Where
did you say you were from?"

"San Francisco," replied Curtis, promptly, and cut in ahead with a
question of his own. "Y