man, son, I didn't think that, but I thought I'd sort
of feel my way."

"Which I'll say you're lucky you didn't try to feel your way with pa;
not the way he's feelin' now."

In the shack of the house he placed the best chair for Nash and set
about frying ham and making coffee. This with crackers, formed the meal.
He watched Nash eat for a moment of solemn silence and then the foreman
looked up to catch a meditative chuckle from the youngster.

"Let me in on the joke, son."

"Nothin'. I was just thinkin' of pa."

"What's he sore about? Come out short at poker lately?"

"No; he lost a hoss. Ha, ha, ha!"

He explained: "He's lost his only standin' joke, and now the laugh's on
pa!"

Nash sipped his coffee and waited. On the mountain desert one does not
draw out a narrator with questions.

"There was a feller come along early this mornin' on a lame hoss," the
story began. "He was a sure enough tenderfoot--leastways he looked it
an' he talked it, but he wasn't."

The familiarity of this description made Steve sit up a trifle
straighter.

"Was he a ringer?"

"Maybe. I dunno. Pa meets him at the door and asks him in. What d'you
think this feller comes back with?"

The boy paused to remember and then with twinkling eyes he mimicked:
"'That's very good of you, sir, but I'll only stop to make a trade with
you--this horse and some cash to boot for a durable mount out of your
corral. The brute has gone lame, you see.'

"Pa waited and scratched his head while these here words sort of sunk
in. Then says very smooth: 'I'll let you take the best hoss I've got,
an' I won't ask much cash to boot.'

"I begin wonderin' what pa was drivin' at, but I didn't say
nothin'--jest held myself together and waited.

"'Look over there to the corral,' says pa, and pointed. 'They's a hoss
that ought to take you wherever you want to go. It's the best hoss I've
ever had.'

"It was the best horse pa ever had, too. It was a piebald pinto called
Jo, after my cousin Josiah, who's jest a plain bad un and raises hell
when there's any excuse. The piebald, he didn't even need an excuse. You
see, he's one of them hosses that likes company. When he leaves the
corral he likes to have another hoss for a runnin' mate and he was jest
as tame as anything. I could ride him; anybody could ride him. But if
you took him outside the bars of the corral without company, first thing
he done was to see if one of the other hosses was comin' out to join
him