o Johnny thought--one brief glance coming to them, under the
circumstances.

Hales pitched his voice low.

"You was lying about them bears, of course?"

"Got to keep boys in their place," said Johnny in the same guarded
undertone. "If them bears had really been pets do you suppose I'd ever
have opened my head about it?"

"It went down easy." Hales grinned his admiration. "You taken one
chance though--about his night horse."

"Not being scared, you mean? Well, he hasn't mentioned any horse
having a fit. And I reckoned maybe he hadn't kept up any night horse.
Really nothing much for him to do. Except cooking."

"He does seem to have a right smart of company," agreed Hales.

Bob returned with the last comer--a gaunt, brown man with a gift for
silence.

"My friend, Mr. Jones," Bob explained gravely. "He stakes his horse
on that hilltop. Bully grass there. And quiet. He likes quiet. He
doesn't care for strangers a-tall--not unless I stand good for 'em."

The camp--a single room, some fourteen feet by eighteen, flat roofed,
made of stone with a soapstone fireplace--was built in a fenced yard
on a little low red flat, looped about by the canyon, pleasant with
shady cedars, overhung by a red and mighty mountain at the back, faced
by a mightier mountain of white limestone. The spring gushed out at
the contact of red and white.

The bunch of saddle horses was shut up in the water pen. Preparation
for dinner went forward merrily, not without favorable comment from
Mr. Smith for Bob's three bearskins, a proud carpet on the floor. Mr.
Jones had seen them before; Hales and Johnny kept honorable silence on
that theme. Hales and Mr. Smith set a good example by removing belt
and gun; an example followed by Bob, but by neither Johnny nor Mr.
Jones. The latter gentleman indeed had leaned his rifle in the corner
beyond the table. But while the discussion of bearskins was most
animated, Johnny caught Mr. Jones' eye, and arched a brow. Johnny
next took occasion to roll his own eye slowly at the unconscious
backs of Mr. Hales and Mr. Smith--and then transferred his gaze, very
pointedly, to the long rifle in the corner. Shortly after, Mr. Jones
rose and took a seat behind the table, with the long rifle at his
right hand.

"Well, Mr. Bob," said Hales when dinner was over, "here's your thirty
dollars. You give Smith a bill of sale and get your pardner to witness
it. Me, I'm telling you good-by. I'm due to lead Smith's discard pony