The Highgrader | Page 3

and crinkled at times to mirth.
"First call to dinner in the dining-car," he boomed out in a heavy bass.
Two men lounging under a cottonwood beside the river showed signs
of life. One of them was scarcely more than a boy, perhaps twenty, a
pleasant amiable youth with a weak chin and eyes that held no steel.
His companion was nearer forty than thirty, a hard-faced citizen who
chewed tobacco and said little.
"Where you going to fish to-night, Crumbs?" the cook asked of the man
busy with the tackle.
"Think I'll try up the river, Colter--start in above the Narrows and work
down, mebbe. Where you going?"
"Me for the Meadows. I'm after the big fellows. Going to hang the
Indian sign on them with a silver doctor and a Jock Scott. The kid here
got his three-pounder on a Jock Scott."
The man who had been called Crumbs put his rod against the side of
the house and washed his hands in a tin pan resting on a stump. He was
a slender young fellow with lean, muscular shoulders and the bloom of
many desert suns on his cheeks and neck.
"Going to try a Jock Scott myself after it gets dark."
The boy who had come up from the river's bank grinned. "Now I've
shown you lads how to do it you'll all be catching whales."
"Once is a happenstance, twice makes a habit. Do it again, Curly, and
we'll hail you king of the river," Colter promised, bringing to the table
around which they were seating themselves a frying pan full of trout
done to a crisp brown. "Get the coffee, Mosby. There's beer in the
icebox, kid."
They ate in their shirtsleeves, camp fashion, on an oil cloth scarred with
the marks left by many hot dishes. They brought to dinner the appetites

of outdoors men who had whipped for hours a turbid stream under an
August sun. Their talk was strong and crisp, after the fashion of the
mining West. It could not be printed without editing, yet in that
atmosphere it was without offense. There is a time for all things, even
for the elemental talk of frontiersmen on a holiday.
Dinner finished, the fishermen lolled on the grass and smoked.
A man cantered out of the patch of woods above and drew up at the
cabin, disposing himself for leisurely gossip.
"Evening, gentlemen. Heard the latest?" He drew a match across his
chaps and lit the cigarette he had rolled.
"We'll know after you've told us what it is," Colter suggested.
"The Gunnison country ce'tainly is being honored, boys. A party of
effete Britishers are staying at the Lodge. Got in last night. I seen them
when they got off the train--me lud and me lady, three young ladies that
grade up A1, a Johnnie boy with an eyeglass, and another lad who
looks like one man from the ground up. Also, and moreover, there's a
cook, a hawss wrangler, a hired girl to button the ladies up the back,
and a valley chap to say 'Yes, sir, coming, sir,' to the dude."
"You got it all down like a book, Steve," grinned Curly.
"Any names?" asked Colter.
"Names to burn," returned the native. "A whole herd of names, honest
to God. Most any of 'em has five or six, the way the Denver Post tells it.
Me, I can't keep mind of so many fancy brands. I'll give you the A B C
of it. The old parties are Lord James and Lady Jim Farquhar, leastways
I heard one of the young ladies call her Lady Jim. The dude has
Verinder burnt on about eight trunks, s'elp me. Then there's a Miss
Dwight and a Miss Joyce Seldon--and, oh, yes! a Captain Kilmeny, and
an Honorable Miss Kilmeny, by ginger."
Colter flashed a quick look at Crumbs. A change had come over that

young man's face. His blue eyes had grown hard and frosty.
"It's a plumb waste of money to take a newspaper when you're around,
Steve," drawled Colter, in amiable derision. "Happen to notice the color
of the ladies' eyes?"
The garrulous cowpuncher was on the spot once more. "Sure, I did,
leastways one of them. I want to tell you lads that Miss Joyce Seldon is
the prettiest skirt that ever hit this neck of the woods--and her eyes, say,
they're like pansies, soft and deep and kinder velvety."
The fishermen shouted. Their mirth was hearty and uncontained.
"Go to it, Steve. Tell us some more," they demanded joyously.
Crumbs, generally the leader in all the camp fun, had not joined in the
laughter. He had been drawing on his waders and buckling on his creel.
Now he slipped the loop of the landing net over his head.
"We