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"This was a pretty fair catch, for a change," thought Ralph Kenyon, as he tied the limp animal to his pack-saddle, and reset the trap, hoping next time to catch the dead mink's larger mate. He ran a quick, appraising eye over the load slung across Keno's broad back. "Pretty good, eh, old boy?" he added aloud, stroking the velvety nose of his dumb companion on many a solitary hunt.
Keno's pie was there, together with a mighty stack of doughnuts, plates on plates of pickles, cans of fruit preserves, a mighty pan of cold baked beans, and a fine array of biscuits big as a man's two fists. From time to time the carpenter, who had saved up his appetite for nearly twenty-four hours, went back to the table and feasted his eyes on the spread. At length he took and ate a pickle.
The distance was not great little more than half a mile but when he swung from the saddle in the square blotch of shade east by the little, red station house upon the parched sand and cinders, Keno's flanks were heaving like the silent sobbing of a woman with the pace his master's spurred heels had required of him.
That's the word for it; she let go all holts an' dropped, gatherin' him up in her arms. "'What did you say, Willie? she asks. "'Hoor-rash-o! says the Major. 'A-kissh-uuu! ha-ha-hrrrum-pah! A-ketcheer! Aketcher-hisssh-hoor-rash-o! "Now, Hadds, when he see the lady weepin' that way, was all broke up. He didn't know about Keno's goblet full of whiskey, so he thought it was genuine emotion.
Peppajee, he told himself when he reached his horse, was particularly foolish sometimes. With that in his mind, he mounted and turned Keno's head toward Hartley.
From that, at length, his gaze went longingly to Keno's pie. How one little pie could do any good to a score or so of men he failed to see. At last, in his hunger, he could bear the temptation no longer. He descended on the pie. But how it came to be shied through the window, practically intact, half a moment later, was never explained to the waiting crowd.
It was not words that she wanted. He swung his heels against Keno's flanks, and rode home. Evadna rallied him upon his moodiness at breakfast, pouted a little because he remained preoccupied under her teasing, and later was deeply offended because he would not tell her where he had been, or what was worrying him.
"No, I don't know you," Ralph replied truthfully, "and I can't guess how you knew I was up here in the hills." "Your ma told me. I stopped at your shack, about two hours ago, an' she told me you was out lookin' after your traps. Any luck?" "Not much." Ralph did not wish the man to observe either the location of the traps or the valuable mink that dangled from Keno's saddle.
He could presently wait no longer, either for Keno's return or for anything else. He caught up two of the blankets from the bed, and, wrapping them eagerly, swiftly about the moaning little man, left his cabin standing open and hastened down the white declivity as fast as he could go, Tintoretto, with puppy whinings of concern, closely tagging at his heels.
He showered sharp epithets upon the absent pony, until he remembered the probability that Keno's return without him would be the means of sending some one to the rescue. This was some consolation, though it was but cold comfort in view of the fact that, had Keno not bolted, this mishap would not have occurred. However, there was no help for it now.
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