“Then what does he want uv him?” queried Slim Sam.

“Somethin’ mean an’ underhand, for certain,” said the colonel, “and the boy must be purtected.  And I hereby app’int this whole crowd to keep an eye on Grump, an’ see he don’t make a slave of the boy, an’ don’t rob him of dust.  An’ I reckon I’ll take one of yer with me, an’ keep watch of the old rascal to-night.  I don’t trust him wuth a durn.”

That night the boys at the saloon wrinkled their brows like unto an impecunious Committee of Ways and Means, as they vainly endeavored to surmise why Grump could want that young man as a lodger.  Men who pursued wittling as an aid to reason made pecks of chips and shavings, and were no nearer a solution than when they began.

There were a number of games played, but so great was the absentmindedness of the players, that several hardened scamps indulged in some most unscrupulous “stocking” of the cards without detection.  But even one of these, after having dealt himself both bowers and the king, besides two aces, suddenly imagined he had discovered Grump’s motive, and so earnest was he in exposing that nefarious wretch, that one of his opponents changed hands with him.  Even the barkeeper mixed the bottles badly, and on one occasion, just as the boys were raising their glasses, he metaphorically dashed the cup from their lips by a violent, “I tell you what” and an unsatisfactory theory.  Finally the colonel arose.

“Boys,” said he, in the tone of a man whose mind is settled, “’tain’t ’cos the youngster looked like lively comp’ny, fur he didn’t.  ’Taint ’cos Grump wanted to do him a good turn, fur ’tain’t his style.  Cons’kently, thar’s sumthin’ wrong.  Tom, I reckon I take you along.”

And Tom and the colonel departed.

During the month which had elapsed since his advent, Grump had managed to build him a hut of the usual mining pattern, and the colonel and Tom stealthily examined its walls, front and rear, until they found crevices which would admit the muzzle of a revolver, should it be necessary.  Then they applied their eyes to the same cracks, and saw the youth asleep on a pile of dead grass, with Grump’s knapsack for a pillow, and one of Grump’s blankets over him.  Grump himself was sitting on a fragment of stone, staring into the fire, with his face in his hands.

He sat so long that the worthy colonel began to feel indignant; to sit in a cramped position on the outside of a house, for the sake of abused human nature, was an action more praiseworthy than comfortable, and the colonel began to feel personally aggrieved at Grump’s delay.  Besides, the colonel was growing thirsty.

Suddenly Grump arose, looked down at the sleeping youth, and then knelt beside him.  The colonel briskly brought his pistol to bear on him, and with great satisfaction noted that Tom’s muzzle occupied a crack in the front walls, and that he himself was out of range.

A slight tremor seemed to run through the sleeper; “and no wonder,” said the colonel, when he recounted the adventure to the boys; “anybody’d shiver to hev that catamount glarin’ at him.”