Fred whistled to himself in expression of astonishment from time to time as he put his horse in the barn and gave it a charge of the hay cut, as he well knew, from the very land he expected soon to take possession of as his own.
"You go on up to the house and see her, Ed," he insisted, gravely. "I'll nose up a can of salmon and root me up some crackers—that's good enough for a feller like me."
"She wants you, too. Didn't you hear her ask you?"
"She asked me, but she don't want me," the wise poet returned. "Three's a crowd, as it used to say on the candy hearts. You go on up."
Fred was not to be shaken from his can of salmon cand crackers, hard as Barrett tried to bend him.
"No, you go on up there by your lonesome and have it out with her," he said. "Maybe she wants to marry you, Ed. I'd be a purty lookin' feller hangin' around in a case of that kind, wouldn't I now?"
"Come on, you old fool!"
"Not for all the gold of Gopher!" Fred declared, with great solemnity, only to break out the next breath with a loud, unpoetic laugh, slap his young friend on the back and push him off toward the house.
There was no supper spread for him when Barrett returned to the house. Alma had forgotten her obligation of hospitality while listening to Manuel's recital of what had taken place at Eagle Rock camp.
They stood outside the kitchen door, Alma, Teresa and Manuel, the old man's horse close by. Manuel was making his report in Spanish, a language strange to
