The stable was a good one, better than usual in that country.  Dick saw stalls for four horses, but no horses.  They put his own horse in one of the stalls, and gave him corn and hay.  Then they walked back to the house, and entered a large room, where a stalwart woman of middle age had just finished cooking supper.

“Whew, but the night’s goin’ to be cold,” said Leffingwell, as he shut the door behind them, and cut off an icy blast.  “It’ll make the fire an’ supper all the better.  We’re just plain mountain people, but you’re welcome to the best we have.  Ma, this is Mr. Mason, who has been on lan’ business in the mountains, an’ is back on his way to his home at Pendleton.”

Leffingwell’s wife, a powerful woman, as large as her husband, and with a pleasant face, gave Dick a large hand and a friendly grasp.

“It’s a good night to be indoors,” she said.  “Supper’s ready, Seth.  Will you an’ the stranger set?”

She had placed the pine table in the middle of the room, and Dick noticed that it was large enough for five or six persons.  He put his saddle bags and blankets in a corner and he and the man drew up chairs.

He had seldom beheld a more cheerful scene.  In a great fireplace ten feet wide big logs roared and crackled.  Corn cakes, vegetables, and two kinds of meat were cooking over the coals and a great pot of coffee boiled and bubbled.  No candles had been lighted, but they were not needed.  The flames gave sufficient illumination.

“Set, young man,” said Leffingwell heartily, “an’ see who’s teeth are sharper, yourn or mine.”

Dick sat down gladly, and they fell to.  The woman alternately waited on them and ate with them.  For a time the two masculine human beings ate and drank with so much vigor that there was no time for talk.  Leffingwell was the first to break silence.

“I kin see you growin’,” he said.

“Growing?”

“Yes, growin’, you’re eatin’ so much, you’re enjoyin’ it so much, an’ you’re digestin’ it so fast.  You are already taller than you was when you set, an’ you’re broader ’cross the chest.  No, ’tain’t wuth while to ‘pologize.  You’ve got a right to be hungry, an’ you mustn’t forget Ma’s cookin’ either.  She’s never had her beat in all these mountains.”

“Shut up, Seth,” said Mrs. Leffingwell, genially, “you’ll make the young stranger think you’re plum’ foolish, which won’t be wide of the mark either.”

“I’m grateful,” said Dick falling into the spirit of it, “but what pains me, Mrs. Leffingwell, is the fact that Mr. Leffingwell will only nibble at your food.  I don’t understand it, as he looks like a healthy man.”

“’Twouldn’t do for me to be too hearty,” said Leffingwell, “or I’d keep Mandy here cookin’ all the time.”

They seemed pleasant people to Dick, good, honest mountain types, and he was glad that he had found their house.  The room in which they sat was large, apparently used for all purposes, kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and bedroom.  An old-fashioned squirrel rifle lay on hooks projecting from the wall, but there was no other sign of a weapon.  There was a bed at one end of the room and another at the other, which could be hidden by a rough woolen curtain running on a cord.  Dick surmised that this bed would be assigned to him.