"You'll learn me nothing," returned the young miner contemptuously and gathered up the spoils of battle. CHAPTER III HOBO STUFF "Young man," began Bunker Hill after a long and painful silence in which Big Boy completely ignored him, "I want to ask your pardon. And anything I can do----" "I'm all right," cut in the hobo wiping the blood out of one eye and feeling tenderly of a tooth, "and I don't want nothing to do with you." "Can't blame ye, can't blame ye," answered Old Bunk judicially. "I certainly got you wrong. But as I was about to say, Mrs. Hill sent this lunch and she said she hoped you'd accept it." He untied a sack from the back of his saddle, and as he caught the fragrance of new-made doughnuts Big Boy's resolution failed. "All right," he said, making a grab for the lunch. "Much obliged!" And he chucked him a bill. "Hey, what's this for?" exclaimed Bunker Hill grievously. "Didn't I ask your pardon already." "Well, maybe you did," returned the hobo, "but after that call down you gave me this morning I'm going to pay my way. It's too danged bad," he murmured sarcastically as he opened up the lunch. "Sure hard luck to see a good woman like that married to a pennypinching old walloper like you." "Oh, I don't know," observed Old Bunk, gazing doubtfully at the bill, but at last he put it in his pocket. "Yes, that's right," he agreed with an indulgent smile, "she's an awful good cook--and an awful good woman, too. I'll just give her this money to buy some little present--she told me I was wrong, all the time. But I want to tell you, pardner--you can believe it or not--I never turned a man down before." The hobo grunted and bit into a doughnut and Bunker Hill settled down beside him. "Say," he began in an easy, conversational tone, "did you ever hear about the hobo that was walking the streets in Globe? Well, he was broke and up against it--hadn't et for two days and the rustling was awful poor--but as he was walking along the street in front of that big restaurant he saw a new meal ticket on the sidewalk. His luck had been so bad he wouldn't even look at it but at last when he went by he took another slant and see that it was good--there wasn't but one meal punched out." "Aw, rats," scoffed Big Boy, "are you still telling that one? There was a miner came by just as he reached down to grab it and punched out every meal with his hob-nails."