They went straight to the blacksmith’s shop, where they were anxiously expected.

“Good Lord!” he said a little later, “it you fellers will talk one at a time, p’r’aps I can make out what’s happened.  Now, Sammy, sp’ose you do the speaking?”

Whereupon Sammy faithfully chronicled the events of the day.  The boys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of the common happening while they were with Red, being held up by a sense of pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, his picturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money around and the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day’s hard work, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very much excited.

“I’d like to know how many Injuns that feller’s killed!” piped up the youngest.  “My! he could grab hold of a man and wring his neck like a chicken.”

“Aw, tst!” remonstrated the blacksmith.  But the elders stood by the younker this time.

“Yes, he could, Mr. Farrel!” said they.  “You ought to seen him when he rolled up his sleeves!  He’s got an arm on him like the hind leg of a horse, and he uses an ax like a tack-hammer.  He got mad once when he pounded his thumb, and busted the post square in two with one crack.”

“Well, he looks like a husky man,” admitted the blacksmith.  “But why didn’t you boys take the extry dollar when he made the offer?  He ’pears to know what he was about and looks kind of foolish to say ‘no’ to it.”

There was a moment’s silence.  “We wanted to show him we were just as good as the folks he knew,” explained the eldest, somewhat shame-facedly.

The blacksmith straightened himself.  “Quite right, too,” said he.  “We air, when you come to that.”  A little pride is a wonderful tonic.  Each unit of that gathering felt himself the better for the display of it.

* * * * *

In the meantime, Red was repairing the ravages of the day opposite Miss Mattie at a supper table which was bountifully spread.  Miss Mattie put two and two together, and found they meant a larger sum of eatables than she had hitherto felt sufficient, and with a little pang at the thought of the inadequacy of her first offering to her cousin, provided such fatness as the land of Fairfield boasted.

They discussed the events of the day with satisfaction.

“My!” said Miss Mattie.  “You do things wholesale while you are about it, Will, don’t you?”

Red smiled in pleased acknowledgment.  “I’m no peanut stand, old lady,” said he.  “I like to see things move.”

Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering around ever since her guests had taken their leave.

“Do you think you’ll really go into business with that young man who was here to dinner?” she asked.

“Why, I think it’s kinder likely,” said Red.

“But you don’t know anything about him, Will,” she continued, putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest more securely if that stood the test.