in
Barnriff, and all the bachelors had their meals there.

He was never leisurely. He believed himself to be too busy for
leisure. Just now he was concentrated upon the side issues of a great
irrigation scheme that had occupied his small head for at least
twenty-four hours, and thus it happened that he ran full tilt into
Peter Blunt before he was aware of the giant's presence. He rebounded
and came to, and hurled a savage greeting at him.

"Wher' you goin'?" he demanded.

"Don't seem to be your way," the large man vouchsafed, with quiet
good-nature.

"No," was the surly response.

"Kind of slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyes
twinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed is
mighty bad for your business schemes."

"Schemes? Gee! I was around at half after five, man! Lying a-bed?
Say, you don't know what business means." The little man sniffed
scornfully.

"Maybe you're right," Peter responded. He hunched his great loose
shoulders to shift the position of a small sack of stuff he was
carrying.

He was a man of very large physique and uncertain age. He possessed a
burned up face of great strength, and good-nature, but it was so
weather-stained, so grizzled, that at first sight it appeared almost
harsh. He was an Englishman who had spent years and years of hardy
life wandering over the remotenesses of the Western plains of America.
Little was known of him, that is to say, little of that life that must
once have been his. He was well educated, traveled, and possessed an
inexhaustible fund of information on any subject. But beyond the fact
that he had once been a soldier, and that a large slice of his life
had been lived in such places as Barnriff, no one knew aught of him.
And yet it was probable that nobody on the Western prairies was better
known than Peter Blunt. East and west, north and south, he was known
for a kindly nature, and kindly actions. These things, and for a
devotion to prospecting for gold in what were generally considered to
be the most unlikely places.

"Right? Why o' course I'm right. Ef you'se folk jest got busy around
here, we'd make Barnriff hum an elegant toon. Say, now I got a dandy
scheme fer irrigatin' that land back there----"

"Yep. You gave me that yesterday. It's a good scheme." The giant's
eyes twinkled. "A great scheme. You're a wonder. But say, all you told
me that day has set my slow head busy. I've been thinking a heap
since on wha