got to look after the boy. The old skinflint says
'No,' and this here, as I was sayin', is the only time that any one ever
turned down old Rifle-Eye."

"And what happened to the boy?" queried Wilbur.

"The old hunter tries to shame this here sheep-owner into doin' the
right thing, but he didn't have any more shame in him than a turkey
buzzard; an' then he tries to bluff him an' says he'll make him keep the
kid, but the old sinner jest whined around an' wouldn't give any sort o'
satisfaction at all. So Rifle-Eye, he shakes the dust o' that house
off'n his feet so good an' hard that he mighty nearly shakes the nails
out of his boot-heels, an' hunts up a legal shark. Then an' there he
adopts this half-witted youngster, an' has kep' him ever sence."

"How long ago was this?"

"Fifteen years an' more, I reckon. The kid's big now, an' strong as a
bull moose, but he's a long way from bein' right in his head. He lives
up in the woods, a piece back here, an' I reckon you'll find Rifle-Eye
there as often as you will at his own cabin further along the range,
although he never sleeps indoors at either place."

"Never sleeps indoors?"

"That's a straight string. He's got a decent enough shack where the boy
is, but as soon as it gits dark, old Rifle-Eye he jest makes a pile o'
cedar boughs, builds up a fire, an' goes to sleep. For fifty years he
ain't slept under a roof summer or winter, an' when once he was in a
town over-night, which was about the boy, as I was tellin' ye, he had to
get up an' go on the roof to sleep. Lucky," added Bob-Cat with a grin,
"it was a flat roof."

"Fifty years is a long time," commented the boy.

"Old Rifle-Eye ain't any spring chicken. He shouldered a musket in the
Civil War, an' durin' the Indian mix-ups was generally found floatin'
around wherever the fun was thickest. He was mighty close friends with
the Pacific scout, old 'Death-on-th'-Trail,' who handed in his time at
Portland not long ago."

"Handed in his time?" questioned Wilbur, then, as the meaning of the
phrase flashed upon him, "oh, yes, I see, you mean he died."

"Sure, pard, died. You ought ter git Rifle-Eye Bill to spin you some
yarns about 'Death-on-th'-Trail.' He'll deny that he's any shakes
himself, but he'll talk about his old campmate forever."

The cowboy pointed with his hand to a long, low group of buildings that
had just come within sight.

"See, Wilbur," he said, "there's the Double Bar J."

[Illustration: HOW