his way. I've got twelve hundred
friends in Arizona that's worth a dollar apiece a year; but this danged
job only pays seventy-five a month--I'd be losing three hundred a year."

"Huh, huh," grunted Big Boy, picking up some folded tarts, "your mind
seems to be took up with hoboes."

"Them's my wife's pay-streak biscuits," grinned Bunker Hill, "or at
least, that's what I call 'em. The bottom crust is the foot-wall, the
top is the hanging-wall, and the jelly in the middle is the pay streak."

"Danged good!" pronounced the hobo licking the tips of his fingers and
Old Bunk tapped him on the knee.

"Say," he said, "seeing the way you whipped that jasper puts me in mind
of a feller back in Texas. He was a big, two-fisted hombre, one of these
Texas bad-men that was always getting drunk and starting in to clean up
the town; and he had all the natives bluffed. Well, he was in the saloon
one day, telling how many men he'd killed, when a little guy dropped in
that had just come to town, and he seemed to take a great interest. He
kept edging up closer, sharpening the blade of his jack-knife on one of
these here little pocket whetstones, until finally he reached over and
cut a notch in the bad man's ear.

"There," he says, "you're so doggoned bad--next time I see you I'll know
you!"

"Yeh, some guy," observed Big Boy, "and I see you're some story-teller,
but what's all this got to do with me?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," answered Old Bunk hastily, "only I thought while
you were eating----"

"Yes, you told me two stories about a couple of hoboes and then another
one about taming down a bad man; but I want to tell you right now,
before you go any further, that I'm no hobo nor bad man neither. I'm a
danged good miner--one of the best in Globe----"

"Aw, no no!" burst out Bunker holding up both hands in protest, "you've
got me wrong entirely."

"Well, your stories may be all right," responded Big Boy shortly, "but
they don't make a hit with me. And I've took about enough, for one day."

He started back up the trail and Bunker Hill rode along behind him going
over the events of the day. Some distinctly evil genius seemed to have
taken possession of him from the moment he got out of bed and, try as he
would, it seemed absolutely impossible for him to square himself with
this Big Boy.

"Hey, git on and ride," he shouted encouragingly, but Big Boy shook his
head.

"Don't want to," he answered and once more Bunker Hill was left