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The pardners were returning from their last trip to Drumwell with bones. They had cleared up the wreckage of the great winter kill on the Block E ranch; the homesteaders had scoured the neighboring territory, picking up the last bleached rib. So far as the partnership was concerned, that business was closed.

It had turned out a profitable venture for all involved, in spite of its painful beginning. They had made a handsome profit on the bones bought and shipped, winning wide confidence and friendship through their promptness and inflexible honesty. There never had been any hedging, once their word was passed, a thing so remarkable in those lean homesteaders' experience as to cause them to remember the bone firm with deep gratitude.

Waco and Tom, homeward bound from completing the last car they were to undertake, had made camp for the night in their most favored spot, the wooded bank of a little stream about fifteen miles from Drumwell. It was a soft warm evening late in March; the frost had been out of the ground for two weeks or more, drawing out so gradually as to leave the roads in good condition, the fields mellow to the plow. Frogs were trying out their voices for the first time since frost drove them deep into the mud; the quickening influence of springtime was in the air.

The friends were smoking by their little fire, supper