"Don't know," answered the second, returning from the stove, where he had loaded his plate with a wonderful assortment of eatables and seated himself on a roll of bedding beside the first speaker. "Too bad he couldn't knock the roof off'n our heads. He's sure enough mad, just look at him!" he whispered, as Captain Bill Henry stooped his tall, lank frame to come into the tent. The men, sitting about inside, glanced up when he entered. Some of them grinned, others went on with their supper, but the "Cap" from under his bushy red eyebrows hardly noticed them as he took the necessary dishes from the mess-box and strode over to the stove, around which old Evans, the cook, moved in great concern. "Now just try some o' them beans. Regular Boston baked, Cap, they'll melt in your mouth. An' here's a kidney stew I've been savin' fer you," taking from the oven a well concealed stew-pan. "If any o' them boys 'ud a found it they'd made short work of it, I reckon." He removed the cover and held the dish under Bill Henry's nose. The "Cap" gave one sniff. "Phew! Take it away! Don't like the damn'd stuff, nohow!" A dazed look passed over old Evans' face, giving way to one of mortal injury. Not a man smiled, though several seemed about to collapse with a sudden spasm which they tried in vain to control. Away went the contents of the pan, leaving a streak of kidney-stew almost down to the horse ropes. "If it ain't good enough fer you, it ain't fer me," said the cook, his bald head thrown well back upon thin shoulders. The "Cap" glared at him as he poured out a generous measure of strong coffee into a large tin cup, then ran his eye about the tent for a possible seat. A quiet-looking fellow, a youth fresh from the East, got up, politely offering him the case of tomatoes upon which he had been sitting. Bill Henry refused it with a scowl, taking a seat upon the ground near the front of the tent, where he crossed his lank legs in front of him. The cow-puncher sank back upon his case of tomatoes while the "Cap" ate in great, hungry mouthfuls, soaking his bread in the sloppy beans and washing it down with frequent noisy sips of hot coffee. Finally he began to speak, with a full Missouri twang: