and the first big drink from the cold spring.

Mintie was about to enter the house, when she saw down the road a tiny
reek of white dust. "Gee!" she exclaimed for the second time.

"Who's this?"

Being summer, the hauling had not yet begun. Mintie, who had the
vision of a turkey-buzzard, stared at the reek of dust.

"Smoky Jack, I reckon," she said disdainfully. Nevertheless, she went
into the house, and when she reappeared a minute later her hair
displayed a slightly more ordered disorder, and she had donned a clean
apron.

She expressed surprise rather than pleasure when a young man rode up,
shifted in his saddle, and said:--

"How air you folks makin' it?"

"Pretty fair. Goin' to town?"

"I thought, mebbe, of goin' to town nex' week. I come over jest to
pass the time o' day with the old man."

"Rode ten miles to pass the time o' day with--Pap?"

"Yas."

"Curiously fond men air of each other!"

"That's so," said Smoky admiringly. "An' livin' alone puts notions o'
love and tenderness into my head that never comed thar when Maw was
alive an' kickin'. I tell yer, its awful lonesome on my place."

He sat up in his saddle, a handsome young fellow, the vaquero rather
than the cowboy, a distinction well understood in California. John
Short had been nicknamed Smoky Jack because of his indefatigable
efforts to clear his own brush-hills by fire. Across his saddle was a
long-barrelled, old-fashioned rifle. Mintie glanced at it.

"Was that you who fired jest now?"

"Nit," said Smoky. "I heard a shot," he added. "'Twas the old man. I'd
know the crack of his Sharp anywheres. 'Tis the dead spit o' mine.
There'll be buck's liver for supper sure."

"Why are you carryin' a gun?"

"I thought I might run acrost a deer."

"No other reason?"

Beneath her steady glance his blue eyes fell. He replied with
restraint--

"I wouldn't trust some o' these squatters any further than I could
sling a bull by the tail. Your Pap had any more trouble with 'em?"

Mintie answered savagely:--

"They're a-huntin' trouble. Likely as not they'll find it, too."

Smoky grinned. Being the son of an old settler, he held squatters in
detestation. Of late years they had invaded the foothills. Pap Ransom
was openly at feud with them. They stole his cattle, cut his fences,
and one of them, Jake Farge, had dared to take up a claim inside the
old man's back-pasture.

Smoky stared at Mintie. Then he said abruptly--

"You look kinder pea