The Old Man grumbled hypocritically at them from his big chair, and named their faults in the tone that transmuted them into virtues.
The Little Doctor heard about Miss Allen and her three partners, who were building a four-room shack on the four corners of four claims, and how Irish had been caught more than once in the act of staring fixedly in the direction of that shack.

She heard a good many things, and she guessed a good many more.
By mid afternoon the Old Man was fifty per cent brighter and better than he had been in the morning, and he laughed and bullied them as of old.
When they left he told them to clear out and stay out, and that if he caught them hanging around his ranch, and making it look as if he were backing them and trying to defraud the government, he'd sic the dog onto them.

Which tickled the Kid immensely, because there wasn't any dog to sic..