Bud, his sleeves rolled up, his hair rumpled and the perspiration
standing thick on his forehead, stood over him with his hands on his
hips, the picture of perturbed helplessness.
"You doggone little devil!" he breathed, his mind torn between amusement
and exasperation. "If you was my own kid, I'd spank yuh! But," he added
with a little chuckle, "if you was my own kid, I'd tell the world you
come by that temper honestly. Darned if I wouldn't."
Cash, sitting dejected on the side of his own bunk, lifted his head, and
after that his hawklike brows, and stared from the face of Bud to
the face of Lovin Child. For the first time he was struck with the
resemblance between the two. The twinkle in the eyes, the quirk of
the lips, the shape of the forehead and, emphasizing them all, the
expression of having a secret joke, struck him with a kind of shock. If
it were possible... But, even in the delirium of fever, Bud had never
hinted that he had a child, or a wife even. He had firmly planted in
Cash's mind the impression that his life had never held any close
ties whatsoever. So, lacking the clue, Cash only wondered and did not
suspect.
What most troubled Cash was the fact that he had unwittingly caused all
the trouble for Lovin Child. He should not have tried to scrub the floor
with the kid running loose all over the place. As a slight token of his
responsibility in the matter, he watched his chance when Bud was busy at
the old cookstove, and tossed a rabbit fur across to Lovin Child to play
with; a risky thing to do, since he did not know what were Lovin Child's
little peculiarities in the way of receiving strange gifts. But he was
lucky. Lovin Child was enraptured with the soft fur and rubbed it over
his baby cheeks and cooed to it and kissed it, and said "Ee? Ee?" to
Cash, which was reward enough.
There was a strained moment when Bud came over and discovered what it
was he was having so much fun with. Having had three days of experience
by which to judge, he jumped to the conclusion that Lovin Child had been
in mischief again.
"Now what yuh up to, you little scallywag?" he demanded. "How did you
get hold of that? Consarn your little hide, Boy..."
"Let the kid have it," Cash muttered gruffly. "I gave it to him." He got
up abruptly and went outside, and came in with wood for the cookstove,
and became exceedingly busy, never once looking toward the other end of
the room, where Bud was sprawled upon his back on the bunk, with Lovin
Child astride his middle, having a high old time with a wonderful new
game of "bronk riding."