', Don. You're the brains of this
here outfit, an' 'thout you say the word, I'll behave. But when the time
comes and you want a fightin' man, just let me at him! When you want to
run some of these here crooks outer the country, you whisper quiet like
to old Bill Santry. Until then, I'll wait. That is--" He waved a warning
finger at Wade.--"That is, up to a certain point! We don't want war,
that is to say, to want it, you understand me! But by the great horned
toad, I ain't a-goin' to let no lousy, empty headed, stinkin',
sheepherdin' Swede wipe his feet on me. No, siree, not by no means!"

Wade made no reply to this, and with a further admonitory shake of his
grizzled head, the old man resumed his cooking.

"You're sure that Chink'll be over in the mornin'?" he asked anxiously,
after a little; and Wade nodded abstractedly. "Cookin' ain't no job for
a white man in this weather. Breakin' rock in Hell would be plumb cool
alongside of it." He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of
his hand. "Say, do you remember them biscuits you made over in the
Painted Rock country? The batch I et ain't digisted yet.

"Every time I cook a meal," he went on, chuckling, "I think about the
time Flour Sack Jim hired out to wrastle grub for that Englishman. Flour
Sack was one of your real old timers, rough and ready, with a heart as
big as a bucket, but he wouldn't bend his knee to no man livin'. The
English jasper was all kinds of a swell, with money enough to burn a wet
dog. For family reasons, he'd bought him a ranch and started to raise
hosses. He wore one of these here two-peaked hats, with a bow on top,
and he always had an eyeglass screwed into one eye.

"The first night after Flour Sack come on his job, he got up a mess of
jack-rabbit stew, and stickin' his head out the door, yelled in real
round-up style--'Come and git it!' Then he piled up his own plate and
started in ter eat. In about ten minutes, in walks the English dude, and
when he seen the cook eatin' away, he rares back and says,
haughty-like--'Bless me soul, I cawn't eat with me servants, doncher
know.' Flour Sack never bats an eye, but says, with his mouth full 'Take
a cheer,' he says, 'an' wait until I git through.'"

Although Wade had heard the story before, he laughed pleasantly as
Santry began to dish up the food; then the latter summoned the hired
men.

"Mind, now, Bill," Wade admonished. "Not a word about the sheep."

The next morning, after a restle