“Nothin’.  You said Gary?”

“Yes.  Why?”

“I was jest thinkin’.”

Young Andy dried his face on the community towel, emptied the basin with a flourish which drenched the pup and sent him yelping toward the house, attempted to shy the basin so that it would land right-side up on the bench—­but the basin was wet and soapy and slipped.  It sailed through the door of the bunk-house and caromed off Bill Haskins’s head.  Andy saw what had happened and, seizing Pete’s arm, rushed him across the clearing and into the house, where he grabbed Ma Bailey and kissed her heartily, scrambled backward as she pretended to threaten him with the mammoth coffee-pot, and sat down at the table with the remark that he was “powerful tired.”

“You act like it,” scoffed Mrs. Bailey.

Bill Haskins, with a face like black thunder, clumped in and asked Mrs. Bailey if she had any “stickin’-plaster.”

“Cut you, Bill?”

“Bad!” said Bill, exhibiting a cut above the ear—­the result of Andy’s basin-throwing.

“Oh, you go ‘long!” said Mrs. Bailey, pushing him away.  “Askin’ for stickin’-plaster for a scratch like that!”

Bill Haskins growled and grumbled as he took his place at the table.  He kept shaking his head like a dog with a sore ear, vowing that if he found out “who thrun that basin” there would be an empty chair at the Concho board before many days had passed.

Andy White glanced at Pete and snickered.  Bill Haskins glowered and felt of his head.  “Liked to skelp me,” he asserted.  “Ma, I jest ask you what you would do now, if you was settin’ peaceful in the bunk-house pawin’ over your war-bag, lookin’ for a clean shirt, and all of a sudden whing! along comes a warsh-basin and takes you right over the ear.  Wouldn’t you feel like killin’ somebody?”

“Lookin’ for a clean shirt!” whispered Andy to Pete.  “Did you git that?”

Bill “got” it—­and flushed amazingly.  “I was meanin’ a clean—­clean dress, Mrs. Bailey.  A clean dress or stockin’s, mebby.”

“Bill was lookin’ for a clean dress,” snickered Andy.  Pete grinned.

“Bill, I reckon it ain’t your ear that needs that sticking-plaster.  A clean shirt, indeed!  I’m surprised at you, William.”

“Gee, Ma called him Willum!” whispered Andy.  “Bill better fade.”

The men tramped in, nodded to Mrs. Bailey, and sat down.  Eating was a serious matter with them.  They said little.  It was toward the end of the meal, during a lull in the clatter of knives and forks, that Andy White suggested, sotto voce, but intended for the assemblage, “That Bill always was scared of a wash-basin.”  This gentle innuendo was lost on the men, but Bill Haskins vowed mighty vengeance.

It was evident from the start that Pete and Andy would run in double harness.  They were the youngsters of the outfit, liked each other, and as the months went by became known—­Ma Bailey had read the book—­as “The Heavenly Twins.”  Bailey asked his good wife why “heavenly.”  He averred that “twins was all right—­but as for ’heavenly’—­”