“Doggone your onery soul, I’m gitting tired of this kinda performance!  You can tromp on me just so fur and no further, now I’m a-tellin’ yuh.  That there tail of yourn needs a fresh rag tied to it, and some salve.  But I ain’t the burrowin’ kind of animal, and I ain’t comin’ in under there after yuh.  Come, kitty-kitty-kitty!  Come on outa there ’fore I send a charge of birdshot in after yuh!” His voice changed to a tremulous chant of rising anger.  “You wall-eyed, mangy, rat-eatin’ son of a gun, what have I been feedin’ yuh fur all these years?  You come outa there!  If it wasn’t for the love uh God I got in my heart, I’ll fill yuh so full of holes the coyotes’ll have to make soup of ye!  I’ll sure spread yuh out so thin your hide’ll measure up like a mountain lion!  Don’t yuh yowl at me like that!  Come, kitty-kitty-kitty—­ni-ice kitty!  Come to your old pard what ketched yuh the fattest young dog on the flat for your dinner.  Come on, now; you ain’t skeered uh me, shorely!  Come on, Compadre—­ni-ice kitty!”

“Let me try!” cried Rosemary behind him, her voice startling old Applehead so that he knocked his head painfully on the rock foundation as he jerked himself into a more dignified posture.  His eyes widened at the size of the audience grouped behind him, but he had faced more amazing sights than that in his eventful career.  He got stiffly to his feet and bowed, the prairie dog dangling limply from his hand.

“Howdy!  Howdy!  Pleased to meet yuh,” he greeted them dazedly.  Then he spied Luck standing half behind Weary’s tall form, and his embarrassed smile changed to a joyful grin.  “Well, danged if it ain’t Luck!  How are yuh, boy?  I was jest thinkin’ about you right this morning.  What wind blowed you into camp?  Come right on in, folks.  If you’re friends of Luck’s, yuh don’t need no interduction in this camp.  Luck and me’s et outa the same skillet months on end together.  Come on in.  I’ve et, but they’s plenty left.”  His blue eyes twinkled quizzically over the Happy Family and then went to Luck.  “What yuh up to this time, boy?  ’Nother wild-west show?”

While they were waiting for coffee to boil, Luck told him what he was up to this time.  Told him what it was he meant to do in the way of making a Western picture that should be worthy the West.  He did not say a word about needing Applehead’s assistance; he did not need to say a word about that.  Applehead himself saw where he would fit into the scheme, and he seemed to take it for granted that Luck saw it also.

“Got all your stuff out from town?” he asked, while he was hunting cups enough to go around.  “If yuh ain’t, you can send a couple of the boys in with a four-horse team after dinner.  I d’no about beds, unless yuh got your own beddin’-rolls with yuh.  The missus, she can have a room, and the rest of yuh will have to knock some bunks together.  Mebby we can clean out the ‘ketch-all’ and turn that into a bunk house.  One I had, it burnt down last winter; some darn-fool Mexicans got to fightin’ in there and kicked the lamp over.  It could have a new roof put on, I reckon; the walls is there yet.  You can take a look around after you eat, and see what all there is to do.  Well, set up, folks; ain’t much, but I’ve throwed my feet under the table fer less and was thankful to git it, now I’m a-tellin’ yuh!”