He unrolled himself from his bed, and brought from the garments that made
his pillow a few toilet articles. He got on his long boy legs and limped
blithely to the margin. In the mornings his slight lameness was always
more visible. The camp was at Bull Lake Crossing, where the fork from
Bull Lake joins Wind River. Here Lin found some convenient
shingle-stones, with dark, deepish water against them, where he plunged
his face and energetically washed, and came up with the short curly hair
shining upon his round head. After enough looks at himself in the dark
water, and having knotted a clean, jaunty handkerchief at his throat, he
returned with his slight limp to camp, where they were just sitting at
breakfast to the rear of the cook-shelf of the wagon.

"Bugged up to kill!" exclaimed one, perceiving Lin's careful dress.

"He sure has not shaved again?" another inquired, with concern.

"I ain't got my opera-glasses on," answered a third.

"He has spared that pansy-blossom mustache," said a fourth.

"My spring crop," remarked young Lin, rounding on this last one, "has
juicier prospects than that rat-eaten catastrophe of last year's hay
which wanders out of your face."

"Why, you'll soon be talking yourself into a regular man," said the
other.

But the camp laugh remained on the side of young Lin till breakfast was
ended, when the ranch foreman rode into camp.