Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/24

8 Sun man. High cost of living and all that sort of thing, you know, has stirred a tremendous interest in all kinds of rural production. If he is the Sun man he's out here doing a detail of all western ranching."

"What makes you think he's with the Sun?"

"I'm the ," grinned young Enright. "First, we'd heard they were sending out a man. Second, he had a Sun in his pocket and had been reading a report on California mining and timber lands."

"Come in, boys," said Stanton, dropping the subject abruptly. "I'm pretty busy this morning, but we'll round up Bradford and get something to drink. Oh, Steele," he called, "join us over a bottle?"

William Steele turned without removing the pipe-stem from between his strong white teeth which shone cleanly as he answered. Across the brief distance separating him from the four men there came with the look of his eyes a sense of ineffable and unruffled good humour. Be he whatever else time and circumstance might prove him, one had but to look into the merry eyes, note the humorous mouth, mark the vigorous carriage of head and shoulders to write him down a man who drank deep of the sheer joy of life.

"No, thanks." The deep toned voice in harmony with the bigness of his bulk was also in tune with the atmosphere he created, richly good-natured. "I'm drinking my fill of the cocktail of the morning. Mix those old cliffs yonder with the white of the river and the green of the valley, put in a dash of the pine in the air, sprinkle with blue sky and sunshine and ... Say,