Johnny considered, and chuckled. "Huh!" he snorted. "He's plumb late. _I_ saw them before he did, an' know all about 'em. You stuck a couple of jabs into me about bein' lazy, an' likin' to set around all day doin' nothin'. Any chump can wear out cayuses ridin' around discoverin' things, but th' wise man is th' feller that can set around all day, lazy an' no-account, an' figger things out. I don't have to go prowlin' around to find out things. I just set in th' shade of th' house, roll cigarettes an' hold pow-wows with my medicine bag. You'd be surprised if you knowed what I got in that bag, an' what I can get _out_ of it. You shore would." McCullough looked at him with an expression which tried to express so many uncomplimentary things at once that the composite was almost neutral; at least, it was somewhat blank. "Ye-ah?" he drawled, his inflection in no way suggesting anything to Johnny's credit. "Ye-ah," repeated the medicine man somewhat belligerently. "Oh," said the trail-boss, eyeing his victim speculatively. "You know all about 'em, huh?" "Everythin'," placidly replied Johnny, rolling another cigarette. "I wish to heaven you'd quit smokin' them cussed things around here," said McCullough plaintively. "Yo're growed up now, purty near; an' you _ain't_ no Greaser. I'll buy you a pipe if you'll promise to smoke it." "Pipes, judgin' from yourn," sweetly replied Johnny, calmly lighting the cigarette, "are dangerous, unless a man hangs around th' house _all_ th' time. When I used to go off scoutin', I allus wished th' other fellers smoked pipes, corncob pipes, like Mister McCullough carries around. Why, cuss it, I could smell 'em out, _up_-wind, if they did. It would 'a' saved me a lot of crawlin' an' worryin'. I knowed you was comin' back ten minutes before I saw you. Now, you can't blame a skunk--he was born that way, an' he's got good reasons for keepin' on th' way he was born. But a human, goin' out of his way, to smell like _some_ I knows of," he broke off, shrugging his shoulders expressively. McCullough slowly produced the corncob, blew through the stem with unnecessary violence, gravely filled and lit it, his eyes twinkling. "Takes a _man_, I reckon, to enjoy it's aromer," he observed. "Goin' back to yore medicine bag, let's see what you can get out of it," he challenged. Johnny drew out his buckskin tobacco pouch, placed it on the floor, covered it with his sombrero and chanted softly, his eyes fixed on the hat. "I smell a trail-boss an' his pipe. They went to th' bend of th' crick, an' they says to Pete Holbrook, who rides that section, that he ought to ride on th' other side of th' crick after dark." He was repeating information which he had chanced to overhear near the small corral the night before; when he had passed unobserved in the darkness. McCullough favored the hat with a glance of surprise and Johnny with a keen, prolonged stare.