"What I'm looking for is a chance to make some money without any chance of spending it.
Lead me to this said mountain with the seventy-dollar job holding down the peak." Ross looked at him dubiously as though he detected a false note somewhere.

Good looking young fellows with the tangible air of the towns and easy living did not, as a rule, take kindly to living alone on some mountain peak.

He stared up into Jack's face unwinkingly, seeking there the real purpose behind such easy acceptance.
Jack stared back, his eyes widening and sobering a little as he discovered that this man was not so easily put off with laughing evasion.

He wondered if Ross had read the papers that morning, and if he, like the tall man at the postoffice, was mentally fitting him into the description of the auto bandit that was being trailed.
Instinctively he rose to the new emergency.
"On the level, I want work and I want it right away," he said.

"Being alone won't bother me--I always get along pretty well with myself.