"Got all your stuff out from town?" he asked, while he was hunting cups
enough to go around. "If yuh ain't, you can send a couple of the boys in
with a four-horse team after dinner. I d'no about beds, unless yuh got
your own beddin'-rolls with yuh. The missus, she can have a room, and the
rest of yuh will have to knock some bunks together. Mebby we can clean
out the 'ketch-all' and turn that into a bunk house. One I had, it burnt
down last winter; some darn-fool Mexicans got to fightin' in there and
kicked the lamp over. It could have a new roof put on, I reckon; the
walls is there yet. You can take a look around after you eat, and see
what all there is to do. Well, set up, folks; ain't much, but I've
throwed my feet under the table fer less and was thankful to git it, now
I'm a-tellin' yuh!"
Big Medicine bethought him of the remains of the train lunch which they
had frugally saved. He brought that and added it to Applehead's
impromptu meal. The sandwiches were mashed flat, and the pickles were
limp, and the cake much inclined to crumble, but Applehead gave one look
and took off his hat.
"I've et, but I can shore eat again when I git my eyes on cake," he
declared exuberantly, and pulled an empty box up to the table for a seat.
"I wisht Compadre could git a smell uh that there fried chicken; it would
put new life into him, which he needs after tangling with that there
coyote 'tother night."
"We ought to unhitch and give the horses a feed," Luck suggested. "Any
particular place?"
"Well, you know where to put them cayuses as well as I do," Applehead
mumbled, with his mouth full of cake. "I don't care what yuh do around
the danged place. Go along and don't bother me, boy; I'm busy."
"Didn't I tell you how it would be?" Luck reminded Andy and Weary when
they were outside. "That old boy is tickled to death to have us here. He
sure is a type, too. I'll be using him in the picture. And just tale a
look at that corral down there! We'll set up camp this afternoon and
round up some horses,--Applehead always keeps a bunch running back here
on the mesa,--and to-morrow morning we'll get to work. A couple of you
will have to take these teams back this afternoon, too. I'll let you
drive the four-horse in, Weary, and lead the other behind. And I'll send
the Native Son in with Applehead's team and wagon, so you can haul out a
thousand feet of lumber for a stage. Get it surfaced one
side,--fourteen-foot boards, sabe? And about twenty-five pounds of
eight-penny nails. We've got the tools in our outfit. I wonder which
pasture Applehead's team is running in. I'll have one of the boys get
them up, unless--"
"Luck Lindsay!" came Rosemary's high, clear treble. "Aren't you boys
going to eat any dinner?"
"We'll eat when we have more time!" Luck shouted back. "Send Applehead
out here, will you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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