aying that tune,' he says. 'Them frogs got so homesick they
started right out for Arkansaw--and every one perished on the desert.'"

"Huh!" grunted Big Boy, who had been listening intolerantly. "Say, is
that all you do--sit around and tell stories for a living? Why the hell
don't you git out and work?"

"Well, you got me again, kid," admitted Old Bunk mournfully, "I'm sure
sorry I made you that talk. But I was so doggoned sore at that pardner
of yours that I kinder went out of my head."

"Well, all right," conceded Big Boy, "if that's the way you feel about
it there's no use rubbing it in, but you certainly lost out with me. My
hands may be big, but I never broadened my knuckles by battering on
other people's back doors. At the same time if I have to ask a man for a
meal I expect to be treated civil. When I'm working around town and a
miner strikes me for a stake I give him a dollar to eat on, and if I
happen to be broke when I land in a new camp I work my face the same
way. That's the custom of the country, and when a man asks me why I
don't work----"

"Aw, forget it!" pleaded Bunker, "didn't I ask your pardon? Didn't my
wife tell you why I said it? But I'll bet you, all the same, if you'd
fed as many as I have you'd throw a fit once in a while, yourself.
Here's the whole camp shut down, only one outfit working and they're
just running a diamond drill--and at the same time I have to feed every
hobo that comes through, whether he's got any money or not. How'd you
like to buy your grub at these war-time prices and run a hotel for
nothing, and at the same time keep up the assessment work on fifteen or
twenty claims? Maybe you'd get kind of peevish when a big bum laid in
his blankets and wouldn't even get up for breakfast!"

"Ah, that man Meacham!" burst out Big Boy scornfully. "Say do you know
what that yap did to me? We were drilling pardners in the double-jack
contest--it was just yesterday, over in Globe--and in the last few
minutes he began to throw off on me, so I had to win the money myself.
Practically did all the work, and while they were giving me a rub-down
afterwards he collected the money and beat it. I'd put up every dollar I
had in side bets, and the first prize was seven hundred dollars; but he
collected it all and then, when I began looking for him, he took out
over this trail. Well, I was so doggoned mad when I found out what he'd
done that I didn't even stop to eat, and I followed him on the run unti