“Where’s the folks?” he asked.

“Ma’s sick, a little, and didn’t get up to-day.  Pa’s down to the corral, cussing mad.  But I can cook you up some chow.”

“All right son.  I got a dollar here that’ll buy you a pretty good store knife.”

The boy flushed so red that by contrast his straw coloured hair seemed positively white.

“Maybe you want to pay me?” he suggested fiercely.  “Maybe you think we’re squatters that run a hotel?”

Recognizing the true Western breed even in this small edition, Nash grinned.

“Speakin’ man to man, son, I didn’t think that, but I thought I’d sort of feel my way.”

“Which I’ll say you’re lucky you didn’t try to feel your way with pa; not the way he’s feelin’ now.”

In the shack of the house he placed the best chair for Nash and set about frying ham and making coffee.  This with crackers, formed the meal.  He watched Nash eat for a moment of solemn silence and then the foreman looked up to catch a meditative chuckle from the youngster.

“Let me in on the joke, son.”

“Nothin’.  I was just thinkin’ of pa.”

“What’s he sore about?  Come out short at poker lately?”

“No; he lost a hoss.  Ha, ha, ha!”

He explained:  “He’s lost his only standin’ joke, and now the laugh’s on pa!”

Nash sipped his coffee and waited.  On the mountain desert one does not draw out a narrator with questions.

“There was a feller come along early this mornin’ on a lame hoss,” the story began.  “He was a sure enough tenderfoot—­leastways he looked it an’ he talked it, but he wasn’t.”

The familiarity of this description made Steve sit up a trifle straighter.

“Was he a ringer?”

“Maybe.  I dunno.  Pa meets him at the door and asks him in.  What d’you think this feller comes back with?”

The boy paused to remember and then with twinkling eyes he mimicked:  “’That’s very good of you, sir, but I’ll only stop to make a trade with you—­this horse and some cash to boot for a durable mount out of your corral.  The brute has gone lame, you see.’

“Pa waited and scratched his head while these here words sort of sunk in.  Then says very smooth:  ’I’ll let you take the best hoss I’ve got, an’ I won’t ask much cash to boot.’

“I begin wonderin’ what pa was drivin’ at, but I didn’t say nothin’—­jest held myself together and waited.

“‘Look over there to the corral,’ says pa, and pointed.  ’They’s a hoss that ought to take you wherever you want to go.  It’s the best hoss I’ve ever had.’

“It was the best horse pa ever had, too.  It was a piebald pinto called Jo, after my cousin Josiah, who’s jest a plain bad un and raises hell when there’s any excuse.  The piebald, he didn’t even need an excuse.  You see, he’s one of them hosses that likes company.  When he leaves the corral he likes to have another hoss for a runnin’ mate and he was jest as tame as anything.  I could ride him; anybody could ride him.  But if you took him outside the bars of the corral without company, first thing he done was to see if one of the other hosses was comin’ out to join him.  When he seen that he was all laid out to make a trip by himself he jest nacherally started in to raise hell.  Which Jo can raise more hell for his size than any hoss I ever seen.