"Well, yes; I must say you did, sort of. But of course when I heard that noise I knew something was bound to come of it. But I managed to save my appet.i.te."

"There is n't very much left to eat," she said seriously.

"Oh, I 've got a plenty to eat right there in my wagon. Pie is good enough for anybody. I 've got a real Northern pie."

He made a trip to the wagon and came back with the pie. He placed the pie in the middle of the repast and arranged knife and fork on their respective sides of it. Having it properly disposed and everything in readiness he invited her to join him. Janet, because she had had supper, was inclined to refuse. But there is something cordial about a pie's countenance, especially if it be a pie of one's own country, and still more especially if one has been living regularly on _frijole_ beans. She cut her regrets short and accepted. It seemed to her, though, that all human companionship was being rather strictly confined to the process of eating.

Plainly he considered her the guest; he took her cup and poured the coffee himself.

"It is a beautiful evening, is n't it," remarked Janet.

"I was just going to say it was a nice night. Quite a flock of stars out."

"A flock, did you say?"

"Well, sort of. I don't usually speak of them that way. Only on special occasions. Hasn't Steve got any sweetenin'?"

He had just rattled the spoon in the sugar bowl and found it empty.

Janet was sorry to say that she had poured out the last grain of it that very evening. She explained to him how the lamb had stepped into a bowlful and thus contributed to the present shortage.

"Ain't Steve got a jug of mola.s.ses? He ought to have some sweetenin'

somewheres."

"Why, I did see a jug of something under the bed. I don't know what is in it, though."

He went to investigate, getting down on the door-sill and entering the shack on his knees. Presently he reappeared, smelling the cork.

"It ain't anything more or less than mola.s.ses," he reported.

As he sat down, the off wheeler of the team, which had been drawn up a short distance from the fire, dropped on his paunch with a great rattling of chain and began placidly chewing his cud. Following his example, an ox in the middle of the string got down on his knees and began chewing. At the same moment the lamb, which had fallen out of bed and found his way out of the shack, announced himself with a bleat and went toddling off toward the darkness. Janet jumped up at once and went after him. Having captured him, she brought him back and stowed him comfortably in her lap, drawing the edge of her skirt up over him.

"I suppose you've noticed, Miss Janet," he remarked, as he again turned his attention to the jug, "that the animals out in these parts don't know very much. They make people lots of trouble."

"Oh, I don't mind the trouble at all. You see, I saved this one's life myself; that's why I am so interested in caring for him. He 's an orphan."

"So I see. There's liable to be plenty of them. Are you partial to orphans?"

"I could hardly help caring for him. Of course one naturally is."

Jonas again turned his attention to the jug, removing the cork and placing it upside down on the ground. Janet held a saucer to receive her share. The mola.s.ses was slow about making its appearance.

"This Golden Drip is a little late about coming. It's as stubborn as old Doc Wharton used to be."

"Was he stubborn?" Janet asked, keeping the saucer level.

"He wasn't much of anything else. He was so stubborn that when he drowned in the Comanche he floated upstream."

"Really?"

"Wasn't any doubt about it. Some people said that his foot must 'a'

been caught in the stirrup and the horse dragged him up that far from where he went in. But I always claimed it was just natural."

As the mola.s.ses had not yet responded, he up-ended the jug still farther and waited for results.

"I suppose," he queried, "that Steve has told you about things down home. And all about his mother?"

"He told me that he lost his mother last winter."

"Ye-e-e-es," he said reflectively, drawing the word out as a thick sluggish stream began to pile up in the saucer.

When she exclaimed "enough," he lowered the bottom of the jug and kept the mouth over the saucer as the mola.s.ses continued to run from it.

"You can't stop that stuff by saying _Wo_," he remarked, whirling the jug in his hands to stop the flow from the lip. "It is n't as thick, though, as some that I 've seen."

"No!"

"I don't suppose Steve told you about the mola.s.ses I had with the 'J.

K.' outfit one winter."

"No, he did n't tell me anything about it."

"Well, that mola.s.ses was so thick that when you got too much on a flapjack, all you had to do was to give the jug a few turns and wind the mola.s.ses right up into it again. You could wrap it around the neck of the jug till next time if you wanted to. If you 'll just excuse me a moment, Miss Janet, I 'll put this jug back in home, sweet home, again."

When he had put it where he found it, under the foot of the bed, he returned to his place and pa.s.sed the flapjacks. He insisted that she try one at least.

"So he told you about his mother. And maybe about his house?"

"He did n't tell me much about his house--just about his mother. He showed me the clipping about her. He did n't tell me anything in particular about her."

"Well, that's all the same. Just the same as if he told you."

Janet sampled the pancake and complimented him upon his cooking, in return for which he told her his recipe, which could be varied with water "according to taste." There came a pause in which Mr. Hicks seemed to be thinking.

"Can you play the piano?" he asked.

"I can play some," answered Janet. "But I am a little out of practice lately."

"You 'd soon enough pick that up, as long as you know how."

The first lot of pancakes having dwindled, he got up and put on the remainder of the batter.

As Janet declined his offer of more, he insisted that she start on the pie.

"Are you fond of piano music?" she inquired as he sat down.

"Most any kind suits me. I suppose you can play most any kind of a tune."

"Yes, mostly. As I say, I am a little out of practice lately. But my music always comes back to me suddenly after a day or two."