Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/51

Rh bench outside the bunkhouse door, the row of buckets in which the boys had their morning plunge. The sleeping arrangements at Silver Ranch being rather primitive, Tom and Bob had elected to join the cowboys in the big bunkhouse, and they had risen as early as the punchers and made their own toilet in the buckets, too. The sheet-iron chimney of the chuckhouse kitchen was smoking, and frying bacon and potatoes flavored the keen air for yards around.

Bashful Ike, the foreman, met the Eastern girl at the corner of the corral fence. He was a pleasant, smiling man; but the blood rose to the very roots of his hair and he got into an immediate perspiration if a girl looked at him. When Ruth bade him good-morning Ike's cheeks began to flame and he grew instantly tongue-tied! Beyond nodding a greeting and making a funny noise in his throat he gave no notice that he was like other human beings and could talk. But Ruth had an idea in her mind and Bashful Ike could help her carry it through better than anybody else.

"Mr. Ike," she said, softly, "do you know about this man they say probably set the fire last night?"

Ike gulped down something that seemed to be choking him and mumbled that he supposed he had seen the fellow "about once."