"Perhaps he isn't, but you can't find anything else with a magnifying glass in this burg. Should you folks think best not to accept him, we'll go it alone. I've done the best I can. Remember, too, that I'm a sick man, that I've been mauled and keelhauled by a bunch of bandits and--"
"Do you speak English?" interrupted Grace Harlowe.
"You say his name is Woo Smith?" questioned Emma.
"The Honorable Woo Smith," Hippy informed her.
"What has he done in the way of mountain work?" persisted Grace.
"I am informed that he has made frequent journeys to the mountains with prospecting parties and hunters as cook, guide and general handy man. At one time he was out with a government survey party."
"As cook or guide?" interjected Nora Wingate.
"This outfit needs a good cook," suggested Chunky.
"Woo, do you know horses?" asked Tom Gray.
"That reminds me, Chunky, what have you done about the pack animals?" demanded Lieutenant Wingate.
"Got three dandies. I have learned that we must travel light. They say that the trails are very rough in the High Country, and further, that we must depend upon the country for our food, generally speaking. I don't know what Uncle Hip and I are going to do if it comes to short rations. Of course, as a last resort we can eat the pack-horses. They eat horses in France, so why shouldn't we do the same, if we're hungry enough."
"That reminds me. One of the men out with us on our search for Hippy declared that our ponies would not be suitable for this journey, and that it requires animals accustomed to the peculiarities of the Sierras," averred Tom Gray.
"Oh, pooh!" grunted the fat boy. "My pony could climb a tree."
"How much money do you wish, Woo?" questioned Tom.
"What do you say, good people?" asked Grace.
"I don't care what you do," exclaimed Hippy. "I want food and I want someone who knows how to cook it fit for human consumption, that's all."
"I second the motion," agreed Stacy. "We can't all live on soul-transmigration stuff. I'd get mental indigestion on that food in thirty seconds by the watch."
"We had a Chinaman on our journey across the Great American Desert, and he was an excellent man," declared Elfreda Briggs. "I move that we take this one."
The others agreed with her, and Grace, turning to Woo, told him that he was engaged.