GUESTS OF THE FORESTS 51 



pointed. "I've been watchin' 'em an' they don' never seem to say much to 

 each other. Jist act glum." 



Every now and then someone coming back from the lake passed in the 

 dusk and called "hello" to Steve. He got up and put the potatoes on the fire. 



"Those guys oughta be comin' back soon. One of 'em's got a lot of 

 money, Barney we call 'im. Al, the other one's jist a friend of his. They like 

 to git away, but they don' like the dirty work so I come along an' pitch 

 camp an' cook for 'em. You'll like Barney." 



We could see the flickering light of the other fires around. A tall, 

 heavy man pushed into the circle of light around our fire. It was Barney, 

 and Al, slight and wiry, followed. They grinned at me and kidded Steve. 

 Barney sat his big frame down on the bench and sighed; he was tired. He 

 pulled his long rubber boots off slowly and his eyes twinkled at me across 

 the fire. They hadn't had much luck fishing and were thinking of leaving 

 in the morning. 



"Thick as thieves up the stream at the head of the lake," said Al."Catchin' 

 each other's lines instead of fish." 



I tried to find out what business Barney was in but he kidded me, saying 

 that he was a sheepherder. I asked him how he liked roughing it in the woods. 



"It's all right. This campin' racket, comin' out here 'n' sleeping, cold 'n' 

 gettin' wet; just a way of gettin' a change. That's all it is. It's just something 

 different." 



Steve scowled over his coffee cup. "No life for an old guy like me, goin' 

 on 74." 



Barney smiled. "Not like the good old days when you were running the 

 crack trains out of Denver, eh, Steve? He was the best engineer on the line, 

 Miss." 



"But we didn' have it soft like this when I was young. We took a train 

 or a stage as far as it would go an' then packed in, where there weren't any 

 dudes muckin' aroun'." 



We washed up and the men sat around and smoked and talked awhile. 

 Then Barney and Al went up to their tent to bed. Steve and I moved over 

 and sat on some big logs by the fire. It was colder and quiet except for the 

 wind in the pine tops and the stream falling close by. 



