OLD MAN EEED 153 



sides and counters, and before long I was so lame 

 that I could hardly walk. Though I made what 

 speed I could it was long after supper time before 

 I finished my day's work and started for camp. 



On the way home I passed by Eeed 's ranch. The 

 hermit was seated on the wooden steps of his cabin, 

 smoking a corncob pipe. He insisted on my stop- 

 ping for a "bite," and afterward we sat in his little 

 front room for his was a four-room edifice and 

 talked an hour or more away. That is to say, the 

 old man talked and I listened. He was quite deaf, 

 and as a rule spoke in answer to the suggestions of 

 his own thoughts rather than to another's ques- 

 tions. 



"I had a partner once," he announced, after a 

 short period of rumination. 



I nodded my interest in the fact. 



"Ye-es," continued the old homesteader, "an* 

 Jake was a purty good sort of feller purty good. 

 He was a worker, too, best I ever saw. But tetchy 

 awful! Nobody couldn't never pass no remarks 

 about Jake's doin's or Jake hisself, withouten he'd 

 up and git plumb ornery about it. Said he didn't 

 see no call for nobody t'git curyus as to what a man 

 was a-goin' to do or not goin' to do or why he 

 done it, neither. 



"I reck'nised Jake's failin' all right, but I was 

 never one to humour a man over much, and Jake 

 an' me used to have some right smart spats some- 

 times." The hermit smiled, gleefully reminiscent. 



