"Where did you get 'em?" queried Collie, adjusting the length of a pair
of stirrup-leathers.
"These?" And Overland spread his coat-tails and ruffled. "Why, out of
the old Mojave. Dug 'em up with a little pick and shovel."
"You said in your letter you found the claim."
"Uhuh. Almost fell over it before I did, though. We never found the
other things, by the track. New ties. No mark. Say, that Billy Winthrop
I writ about is the brother of them folks stayin' here! What do you
think!"
"Wish I was out there with you fellows," said Collie.
"You're doin' pretty good right here, kiddo. The boss don't think you're
the worst that ever came acrost, and I expect the ladies can put up with
havin' you on the same ranch by the way they talk. Got a hoss of your
own yet?"
"Nope. I got my eye on one, though. Say, Red, this is the best place to
work. The boss is fine. I'm getting forty a month now, and savin' it.
The boys are all right, too. Brand Williams, the foreman--"
"Brand who?"
"Williams. He came from Wyoming."
"Well, this here's gettin' like a story and not like real livin'. Why, I
knowed old Brand in Mex. in the old days when a hoss and a gun was about
all a guy needed to set up housekeepin'.
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