“Shake,” said Jeff.  “I like you, Bud.”

The two shook hands solemnly.

“Although I am a city boy,” said Bud.

“But it beats me what yer doing—­here?”

“Just camping.  Dad’s a botanist and an entomologist.”

“Is that so?” Jeff’s face shone.  The presence of these strangers in the wild foothills was adequately explained.  Then he laughed, showing strong, even teeth.  “I’d like to meet your dad first-rate, and, Bud, I’d like even better to meet your sister.”

He punched the boy in the ribs, chuckling to himself.  The boy laughed too, freshly and frankly.

“Something like you, I reckon,” said Jeff, “only cleaner and——­”

“I’m as clean as they make ’em,” Bud declared angrily.

“Keep your hair on, sonny.  I’ll allow yer as clean as they make boys, mebbee cleaner, but we’re speaking o’ girls.  Have ye got her picture?”

“Whose picture?”

“Your sister’s.”

“Well, I declare!  How do you know I’ve got a sister?”

“I know it,” said Jeff.  “Call it instinct.  Didn’t I tell ye that in my business I’ve got to jest naturally know things?  I jump, Bud, where the ordinary citizen might, so ter speak, crawl.”

The boy laughed gaily.  Then he ran off, returning in a minute with a small leather case.  Out of this he took a cabinet photograph, which he handed to Jeff.  That gentleman became excited at once.

“I knew it—­I knew it!” he exclaimed.  “She’s a—­peach!  Bud, I’m mighty glad ye showed me this.  Jee—­whiz!  Yes, and like you, only ten thousand times better-lookin’.  What’s her name, Bud?”

“You don’t want to know her name.”

“I want to—­the worst kind.  My!  Look at that cunning little curl!  And her shape!  You know nothing o’ that yet, Bud, but I tell ye, sir, yer sister is put up just right according to my notions.  Not too tall.  Them strung-out, trained-to-a-hair, high-falutin girls never did fetch me.  I like ’em round, and soft, and innocent.  What’s her name, sonny?”

“Sarah.”

“Sairy!  Bud, I don’t believe that.  Sairy!  I never did cotton to Sairy.  Yer pullin’ my leg, ye young scallywag.  The nerve!  No—­ye don’t.”

Jeff had stretched out a long, lean arm, and seized the boy by the shoulder in a grasp which tightened cruelly.

“Oh—­oh!”

“Tell me her right name, ye little cuss, or I’ll squeeze ye into pulp.”

“Lemmee go!  Dad calls her Sadie.”

Jeff released the shoulder, grinning.

“Sadie—­that’s a heap better.  I—­I could love to—­to distraction a girl o’ the name o’ Sadie.”

“If Sadie were here——­” Bud had removed himself to a respectful distance, and was now glaring at Jeff, and rubbing his bruised shoulder.

“I wish she was, I wish she was.  You were saying, Bud——­”

“I was saying that if Sadie were here, she’d fix you mighty quick.”