know in the morning. This being as nearly a direct answer as could be expected of a sheepman, Rawlins was satisfied.
Tippie appeared to be an austere and unfriendly man. He was somewhere between fifty and sixty, a dark, sinewy man of medium stature, his corduroy pantaloons, laced into knee boots, bagging like a zouave's. It might have been that whiskers were bringing forty dollars, where wool brought forty cents, a pound, judging by the closely shaved appearance of Tippie's lean, brown, tough-skinned face.
He wore a black leather coat that appeared to be made of whaleskin, or the skin of some creature that lived in water, it was so oily and glistening. Tippie scarcely opened his thin lips when he spoke, his words coming out with a nosy, surly sound. He gave the impression of a man who had been cheated early in life, and never had ceased brooding over it.
The two drivers kindled a fire by the creek, dipping water from it for their coffee, neither invited to their employer's table nor expecting to be. Rawlins stood watching them while Tippie talked in the kitchen door with Mrs. Duke, wondering how he should take to that sort of life, and whether the social distinction that appeared to bar them from the ranch-house table would be enforced in his case when he put on a duck coat with sheepskin collar and became the warder of sheep on the dusty hills.
A long table stood in the big kitchen, room at it for a dozen men, one end, only, being prepared for use of the present company. Mrs. Duke sat at the top, Tippie at one hand, Dowell Peck across from him. Edith
