Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/309

 might be added a few ranchers somewhere in the neighborhood.

The staff bunked in a room over the station, and the men had their quarters in the roundhouse, but one and all they ate at Dutchy's counter. Sinkers and coffee, apple pie and sandwiches they stood as a steady diet for a month after he had appeared upon the scene, and then a delegation waited upon him and demanded dishes more substantial.

"You can make meat pies and chicken stew and all that sort of thing, can't you?" they demanded.

"Sure!" said Dutchy. "But dot iss expensive."

Money was no object, they assured him, and thereupon proceeded to fix a schedule of prices—fifteen cents for a meat pie; twenty cents for a chicken stew—with two slices of bread and butter thrown in for good measure.

"Vell" said Dutchy, "so iss it."

And a few nights later, true to his promise, they got their chicken stew—canned chicken stew.

The huge pot, full to the brim, had been emptied, and Dutchy, his face beaming with smiles, had bustled into the back room for a further supply, when MacDonald's voice rose plaintively:

"It's—it's chicken, isn't it?"

The crowd looked inquiringly at the dispatcher.

"Because," went on MacDonald softly, "I—never heard of any chickens in Dry Notch."

And then, amid the laughter that ensued, Thornley rose dramatically from his seat, and, picking up a bone from his plate, waved it aloft.