LIN McLEAN

By Owen Wister

DEDICATION

MY DEAR HARRY MERCER: When Lin McLean was only a hero in manuscript, hereceived his first welcome and chastening beneath your patient roof. Bynone so much as by you has he in private been helped and affectionatelydisciplined, an now you must stand godfather to him upon this publicpage. 

Always yours, OWEN WISTER

Philadelphia, 1897

HOW LIN McLEAN WENT EAST

In the old days, the happy days, when Wyoming was a Territory with afuture instead of a State with a past, and the unfenced cattle grazedupon her ranges by prosperous thousands, young Lin McLean awaked earlyone morning in cow camp, and lay staring out of his blankets upon theworld. He would be twenty-two this week. He was the youngest cow-puncherin camp. But because he could break wild horses, he was earning moredollars a month than any man there, except one. The cook was a moreindispensable person. None save the cook was up, so far, this morning. Lin's brother punchers slept about him on the ground, some motionless, some shifting their prone heads to burrow deeper from the increasingday. The busy work of spring was over, that of the fall, or beefround-up, not yet come. It was mid-July, a lull for these hard-ridingbachelors of the saddle, and many unspent dollars stood to Mr. McLean'scredit on the ranch books. 

"What's the matter with some variety?" muttered the boy in his blankets. 

The long range of the mountains lifted clear in the air. They slantedfrom the purple folds and furrows of the pines that richly cloaked them, upward into rock and grassy bareness until they broke remotely intobright peaks, and filmed into the distant lavender of the north and thesouth. On their western side the streams ran into Snake or into GreenRiver, and so at length met the Pacific. On this side, Wind River flowedforth from them, descending out of the Lake of the Painted Meadows. Amere trout-brook it was up there at the top of the divide, with easyriffles and stepping-stones in many places; but down here, outsidethe mountains, it was become a streaming avenue, a broadening course, impetuous between its two tall green walls of cottonwood-trees. And soit wound away like a vast green ribbon across the lilac-gray sage-brushand the yellow, vanishing plains. 

"Variety, you bet!" young Lin repeated, aloud. 

He unrolled himself from his bed, and brought from the garments thatmade his pillow a few toilet articles. He got on his long boy legs andlimped blithely to the margin. In the mornings his slight lameness wasalways more visible. The camp was at Bull Lake Crossing, where thefork from Bull Lake joins Wind River. Here Lin found some convenientshingle-stones, with dark, deepish water against them, where he plungedhis face and energetically washed, and came up with the short curly hairshining upon his round head. After enough looks at himself in the darkwater, and having knotted a clean, jaunty handkerchief at his throat, hereturned with his slight limp to camp, where they were just sitting atbreakfast 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, "hasjuicier prospects than that rat-eaten catastrophe of last year's haywhich wanders out of your face. "

"Why, you'll soon be talking yourself into a regular man, " said theother. 

But the camp laugh remained on the side of young Lin till breakfast wasended, when the ranch foreman rode into camp. 

Him Lin McLean at once addressed. "I was wantin' to speak to you, " saidhe. 

The experienced foreman noticed the boy's holiday appearance. "Iunderstand you're tired of work, " he remarked. 

"Who told you?" asked the bewildered Lin. 

The foreman touched the boy's pretty handkerchief. "Well, I have a wayof taking things in at a glance, " said he. "That's why I'm foreman, Iexpect. So you've had enough work?"

"My system's full of it, " replied Lin, grinning. As the foreman stoodthinking, he added, "And I'd like my time. "

Time, in the cattle idiom, meant back-pay up to date. 

"It's good we're not busy, " said the foreman. 

"Meanin' I'd quit all the same?" inquired Lin, rapidly, flushing. 

"No--not meaning any offence. Catch up your horse. I want to make thepost before it gets hot. "

The foreman had come down the river from the ranch at Meadow Creek, and the post, his goal, was Fort Washakie. All this part of the countryformed the Shoshone Indian Reservation, where, by permission, pasturedthe herds whose owner would pay Lin his time at Washakie. So the youngcow-puncher flung on his saddle and mounted. 

"So-long!" he remarked to the camp, by way of farewell. He mightnever be going to see any of them again; but the cow-punchers were notdemonstrative by habit. 

"Going to stop long at Washakie?" asked one. 

"Alma is not waiter-girl at the hotel now, " another mentioned. 

"If there's a new girl, " said a third, "kiss her one for me, and tellher I'm handsomer than you. "

"I ain't a deceiver of women, " said Lin. 

"That's why you'll tell her, " replied his friend. 

"Say, Lin, why are you quittin' us so sudden, anyway?" asked the cook, grieved to lose him. 

"I'm after some variety, " said the boy. 

"If you pick up more than you can use, just can a little of it for me!"shouted the cook at the departing McLean. 

This was the last of camp by Bull Lake Crossing, and in the foreman'scompany young Lin now took the road for his accumulated dollars. 

"So you're leaving your bedding and stuff with the outfit?" said theforeman. 

"Brought my tooth-brush, " said Lin, showing it in the breast-pocket ofhis flannel shirt. 

"Going to Denver?"

"Why, maybe. "

"Take in San Francisco?"

"Sounds slick. "

"Made any plans?"

"Gosh, no!"

"Don't want anything on your brain?"

"Nothin' except my hat, I guess, " said Lin, and broke into cheerfulsong:

 "'Twas a nasty baby anyhow, And it only died to spite us; 'Twas afflicted with the cerebrow Spinal meningitis!'"

They wound up out of the magic valley of Wind River, through thebastioned gullies and the gnome-like mystery of dry water-courses, upward and up to the level of the huge sage-brush plain above. Behindlay the deep valley they had climbed from, mighty, expanding, its treeslike bushes, its cattle like pebbles, its opposite side towering alsoto the edge of this upper plain. There it lay, another world. One stepfarther away from its rim, and the two edges of the plain had flowedtogether over it like a closing sea, covering without a sign or ripplethe great country which lay sunk beneath. 

"A man might think he'd dreamed he'd saw that place, " said Lin to theforeman, and wheeled his horse to the edge again. "She's sure there, though, " he added, gazing down. For a moment his boy face grewthoughtful. "Shucks!" said he then, abruptly, "where's any joy inmoney that's comin' till it arrives? I have most forgot the feel o'spot-cash. "

He turned his horse away from the far-winding vision of the river, andtook a sharp jog after the foreman, who had not been waiting for him. Thus they crossed the eighteen miles of high plain, and came down toFort Washakie, in the valley of Little Wind, before the day was hot. 

His roll of wages once jammed in his pocket like an old handkerchief, young Lin precipitated himself out of the post-trader's store and awayon his horse up the stream among the Shoshone tepees to an unexpectedentertainment--a wolf-dance. He had meant to go and see what the newwaiter-girl at the hotel looked like, but put this off promptly toattend the dance. This hospitality the Shoshone Indians were extendingto some visiting Ute friends, and the neighborhood was assembled towatch the ring of painted naked savages. 

The post-trader looked after the galloping Lin. "What's he quitting hisjob for?" he asked the foreman. 

"Same as most of 'em quit. "

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. "

"Been satisfactory?"

"Never had a boy more so. Good-hearted, willing, a plumb dare-devil witha horse. "

"And worthless, " suggested the post-trader. 

"Well--not yet. He's headed that way. "

"Been punching cattle long?"

"Came in the country about seventy-eight, I believe, and rode for theBordeaux Outfit most a year, and quit. Blew in at Cheyenne till he wentbroke, and worked over on to the Platte. Rode for the C. Y. Outfit mosta year, and quit. Blew in at Buffalo. Rode for Balaam awhile on ButteCreek. Broke his leg. Went to the Drybone Hospital, and when thefracture was commencing to knit pretty good he broke it again at thehog-ranch across the bridge. Next time you're in Cheyenne get Dr. Barkerto tell you about that. McLean drifted to Green River last year and wentup over on to Snake, and up Snake, and was around with a prospectingoutfit on Galena Creek by Pitchstone Canyon. Seems he got interestedin some Dutchwoman up there, but she had trouble--died, I think theysaid--and he came down by Meteetsee to Wind River. He's liable to go toMexico or Africa next. "

"If you need him, " said the post-trader, closing his ledger, "you canoffer him five more a month. "

"That'll not hold him. "

"Well, let him go. Have a cigar. The bishop is expected for Sunday, andI've got to see his room is fixed up for him. "

"The bishop!" said the foreman. "I've heard him highly spoken of. "

"You can hear him preach to-morrow. The bishop is a good man. "

"He's better than that; he's a man, " stated the foreman--"at least sothey tell me. "

Now, saving an Indian dance, scarce any possible event at the Shoshoneagency could assemble in one spot so many sorts of inhabitants as avisit from this bishop. Inhabitants of four colors gathered to view thewolf-dance this afternoon--red men, white men, black men, yellow men. Next day, three sorts came to church at the agency. The Chinese laundrywas absent. But because, indeed (as the foreman said), the bishop wasnot only a good man but a man, Wyoming held him in respect and wentto look at him. He stood in the agency church and held the Episcopalservice this Sunday morning for some brightly glittering army officersand their families, some white cavalry, and some black infantry; theagency doctor, the post-trader, his foreman, the government scout, threegamblers, the waiter-girl from the hotel, the stage-driver, who wasthere because she was; old Chief Washakie, white-haired and royal inblankets, with two royal Utes splendid beside him; one benchful ofsquatting Indian children, silent and marvelling; and, on the backbench, the commanding officer's new hired-girl, and, beside her, LinMcLean. 

Mr. McLean's hours were already various and successful. Even at thewolf-dance, before he had wearied of its monotonous drumming andpageant, his roving eye had rested upon a girl whose eyes he caughtresting upon him. A look, an approach, a word, and each was soon contentwith the other. Then, when her duties called her to the post from himand the stream's border, with a promise for next day he sought the hoteland found the three gamblers anxious to make his acquaintance; for whena cow-puncher has his pay many people will take an interest in him. Thethree gamblers did not know that Mr. McLean could play cards. He leftthem late in the evening fat with their money, and sought the tepees ofthe Arapahoes. They lived across the road from the Shoshones, and amongtheir tents the boy remained until morning. He was here in church now, keeping his promise to see the bishop with the girl of yesterday; andwhile he gravely looked at the bishop, Miss Sabina Stone allowed his armto encircle her waist. No soldier had achieved this yet, but Lin was thefirst cow-puncher she had seen, and he had given her the handkerchieffrom round his neck. 

The quiet air blew in through the windows and door, the pure, lightbreath from the mountains; only, passing over their foot-hills it hadcaught and carried the clear aroma of the sage-brush. This it broughtinto church, and with this seemed also to float the peace and greatsilence of the plains. The little melodeon in the corner, played by oneof the ladies at the post, had finished accompanying the hymn, and nowit prolonged a few closing chords while the bishop paused before hisaddress, resting his keen eyes on the people. He was dressed in aplain suit of black with a narrow black tie. This was because the UnionPacific Railroad, while it had delivered him correctly at Green River, had despatched his robes towards Cheyenne. 

Without citing chapter and verse the bishop began:

"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great wayoff, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on hisneck and kissed him. "

The bishop told the story of that surpassing parable, and then proceededto draw from it a discourse fitted to the drifting destinies in whosepresence he found himself for one solitary morning. He spoke unlike manyclergymen. His words were chiefly those which the people round him used, and his voice was more like earnest talking than preaching. 

Miss Sabina Stone felt the arm of her cow-puncher loosen slightly, andshe looked at him. But he was looking at the bishop, no longer gravelybut with wide-open eyes, alert. When the narrative reached the elderbrother in the field, and how he came to the house and heard sounds ofmusic and dancing, Miss Stone drew away from her companion and let himwatch the bishop, since he seemed to prefer that. She took to readinghymns vindictively. The bishop himself noted the sun-browned boy faceand the wide-open eyes. He was too far away to see anything but thealert, listening position of the young cow-puncher. He could not discernhow that, after he had left the music and dancing and begun to drawmorals, attention faded from those eyes that seemed to watch him, andthey filled with dreaminess. It was very hot in church. Chief Washakiewent to sleep, and so did a corporal; but Lin McLean sat in the samealert position till Miss Stone pulled him and asked if he intended tosit down through the hymn. Then church was out. Officers, Indians, andall the people dispersed through the great sunshine to their dwellings, and the cow-puncher rode beside Sabina in silence. 

"What are you studying over, Mr. McLean?" inquired the lady, after ahundred yards. 

"Did you ever taste steamed Duxbury clams?" asked Lin, absently. 

"No, indeed. What's them?"

"Oh, just clams. Yu' have drawn butter, too. " Mr. McLean fell silentagain. 

"I guess I'll be late for settin' the colonel's table. Good-bye, " saidSabina, quickly, and swished her whip across the pony, who scamperedaway with her along the straight road across the plain to the post. 

Lin caught up with her at once and made his peace. 

"Only, " protested Sabina, "I ain't used to gentlemen taking me outand--well, same as if I was a collie-dog. Maybe it's Wind Riverpoliteness. "

But she went riding with him up Trout Creek in the cool of theafternoon. Out of the Indian tepees, scattered wide among the flatlevels of sage-brush, smoke rose thin and gentle, and vanished. Theysplashed across the many little running channels which lead waterthrough that thirsty soil, and though the range of mountains came nonearer, behind them the post, with its white, flat buildings and greentrees, dwindled to a toy village. 

"My! but it's far to everywheres here, " exclaimed Sabina, "and it'slittle you're sayin' for yourself to-day, Mr. McLean. I'll have to dothe talking. What's that thing now, where the rocks are?"

"That's Little Wind River Canyon, " said the young man. "Feel like goin'there, Miss Stone?"

"Why, yes. It looks real nice and shady like, don't it? Let's. "

So Miss Stone turned her pony in that direction. 

"When do your folks eat supper?" inquired Lin. 

"Half-past six. Oh, we've lots of time! Come on. "

"How many miles per hour do you figure that cayuse of yourn can travel?"Lin asked. 

"What are you a-talking about, anyway? You're that strange to-day, " saidthe lady. 

"Only if we try to make that canyon, I guess you'll be late settin' thecolonel's table, " Lin remarked, his hazel eyes smiling upon her. "Thatis, if your horse ain't good for twenty miles an hour. Mine ain't, Iknow. But I'll do my best to stay with yu'. "

"You're the teasingest man--" said Miss Stone, pouting. "I might haveknowed it was ever so much further nor it looked. "

"Well, I ain't sayin' I don't want to go, if yu' was desirous of campin'out to-night. "

"Mr. McLean! Indeed, and I'd do no such thing!" and Sabina giggled. 

A sage-hen rose under their horses' feet, and hurtled away heavily overthe next rise of ground, taking a final wide sail out of sight. 

"Something like them partridges used to, " said Lin, musingly. 

"Partridges?" inquired Sabina. 

"Used to be in the woods between Lynn and Salem. Maybe the woods aregone by this time. Yes, they must be gone, I guess. "

Presently they dismounted and sought the stream bank. 

"We had music and dancing at Thanksgiving and such times, " said Lin, hiswiry length stretched on the grass beside the seated Sabina. He was notlooking at her, but she took a pleasure in watching him, his curly headand bronze face, against which the young mustache showed to its fulladvantage. 

"I expect you used to dance a lot, " remarked Sabina, for a subject. 

"Yes. Do yu' know the Portland Fancy?"

Sabina did not, and her subject died away. 

"Did anybody ever tell you you had good eyes?" she inquired next. 

"Why, sure, " said Lin, waking for a moment; "but I like your color best. A girl's eyes will mostly beat a man's. "

"Indeed, I don't think so!" exclaimed poor Sabina, too much expectantto perceive the fatal note of routine with which her transient admirerpronounced this gallantry. He informed her that hers were like the sea, and she told him she had not yet looked upon the sea. 

"Never?" said he. "It's a turruble pity you've never saw salt water. It's different from fresh. All around home it's blue--awful blue inJuly--around Swampscott and Marblehead and Nahant, and around theislands. I've swam there lots. Then our home bruck up and we went toboard in Boston. " He snapped off a flower in reach of his long arm. Suddenly all dreaminess left him. 

"I wonder if you'll be settin' the colonel's table when I come back?" hesaid. 

Miss Stone was at a loss. 

"I'm goin' East to-morrow--East, to Boston. "

Yesterday he had told her that sixteen miles to Lander was the farthestjourney from the post that he intended to make--the farthest from thepost and her. 

"I hope nothing ain't happened to your folks?" said she. 

"I ain't got no folks, " replied Lin, "barring a brother. I expect he istaking good care of himself. "

"Don't you correspond?"

"Well, I guess he would if there was anything to say. There ain't beennothin'. "

Sabina thought they must have quarrelled, but learned that they had not. It was time for her now to return and set the colonel's table, so Linrose and went to bring her horse. When he had put her in her saddle shenoticed him step to his own. 

"Why, I didn't know you were lame!" cried she. 

"Shucks!" said Lin. "It don't cramp my style any. " He had sprung onhis horse, ridden beside her, leaned and kissed her before she got anymeasure of his activity. 

"That's how, " said he; and they took their homeward way galloping. "No, "Lin continued, "Frank and me never quarrelled. I just thought I'd havea look at this Western country. Frank, he thought dry-goods was goodenough for him, and so we're both satisfied, I expect. And that's a lotof years now. Whoop ye!" he suddenly sang out, and fired his six-shooterat a jack-rabbit, who strung himself out flat and flew over the earth. 

Both dismounted at the parade-ground gate, and he kissed her again whenshe was not looking, upon which she very properly slapped him; and hetook the horses to the stable. He sat down to tea at the hotel, andfound the meal consisted of black potatoes, gray tea, and a gutteringdish of fat pork. But his appetite was good, and he remarked to himselfthat inside the first hour he was in Boston he would have steamedDuxbury clams. Of Sabina he never thought again, and it is likely thatshe found others to take his place. Fort Washakie was one hundred andfifty miles from the railway, and men there were many and girls werefew. 

The next morning the other passengers entered the stage withresignation, knowing the thirty-six hours of evil that lay before them. Lin climbed up beside the driver. He had a new trunk now. 

"Don't get full, Lin, " said the clerk, putting the mail-sacks in at thestore. 

"My plans ain't settled that far yet, " replied Mr. McLean. 

"Leave it out of them, " said the voice of the bishop, laughing, insidethe stage. 

It was a cool, fine air. Gazing over the huge plain down in which liesFort Washakie, Lin heard the faint notes of the trumpet on the paradeground, and took a good-bye look at all things. He watched the Americanflag grow small, saw the circle of steam rising away down by the hotsprings, looked at the bad lands beyond, chemically pink and rose amidthe vast, natural, quiet-colored plain. Across the spreading distanceIndians trotted at wide spaces, generally two large bucks on one smallpony, or a squaw and pappoose--a bundle of parti-colored rags. Presidingover the whole rose the mountains to the west, serene, lifting into theclearest light. Then once again came the now tiny music of the trumpet. 

"When do yu' figure on comin' back?" inquired the driver. 

"Oh, I'll just look around back there for a spell, " said Lin. "About amonth, I guess. "

He had seven hundred dollars. At Lander the horses are changed; andduring this operation Lin's friends gathered and said, where was anysense in going to Boston when you could have a good time where youwere? But Lin remained sitting safe on the stage. Toward evening, at thebottom of a little dry gulch some eight feet deep, the horses decidedit was a suitable place to stay. It was the bishop who persuaded themto change their minds. He told the driver to give up beating, andunharness. Then they were led up the bank, quivering, and a broken tracewas spliced with rope. Then the stage was forced on to the level ground, the bishop proving a strong man, familiar with the gear of vehicles. They crossed through the pass among the quaking asps and the pines, and, reaching Pacific Springs, came down again into open country. Thatafternoon the stage put its passengers down on the railroad platformat Green River; this was the route in those days before the mid-wintercatastrophes of frozen passengers led to its abandonment. The bishop wasgoing west. His robes had passed him on the up stage during the night. When the reverend gentleman heard this he was silent for a very shortmoment, and then laughed vigorously in the baggage-room. 

"I can understand how you swear sometimes, " he said to Lin McLean; "butI can't, you see. Not even at this. "

The cow-puncher was checking his own trunk to Omaha. 

"Good-bye and good luck to you, " continued the bishop, giving his handto Lin. "And look here--don't you think you might leave that 'gettingfull' out of your plans?"

Lin gave a slightly shamefaced grin. "I don't guess I can, sir, " hesaid. "I'm givin' yu' straight goods, yu' see, " he added. 

"That's right. But you look like a man who could stop when he'd hadenough. Try that. You're man enough--and come and see me whenever we'rein the same place. "

He went to the hotel. There were several hours for Lin to wait. Hewalked up and down the platform till the stars came out and the brightlights of the town shone in the saloon windows. Over across the waypiano-music sounded through one of the many open doors. 

"Wonder if the professor's there yet?" said Lin, and he went across therailroad tracks. The bartender nodded to him as he passed through intothe back room. In that place were many tables, and the flat clicking andrattle of ivory counters sounded pleasantly through the music. Lindid not join the stud-poker game. He stood over a table at which sat adealer and a player, very silent, opposite each other, and whereon werepainted sundry cards, numerals, and the colors red and black in squares. The legend "Jacks pay" was also clearly painted. The player placed chipson whichever insignia of fortune he chose, and the dealer slid cards(quite fairly) from the top of a pack that lay held within a skeletoncase made with some clamped bands of tin. Sometimes the player's pile ofchips rose high, and sometimes his sumptuous pillar of gold pieces waslessened by one. It was very interesting and pretty to see; Lin hadmuch better have joined the game of stud-poker. Presently the eye ofthe dealer met the eye of the player. After that slight incident theplayer's chip pile began to rise, and rose steadily, till the dealermade admiring comments on such a run of luck. Then the player stopped, cashed in, and said good-night, having nearly doubled the number of hisgold pieces. 

"Five dollars' worth, " said Lin, sitting down in the vacant seat. Thechips were counted out to him. He played with unimportant shiftingsof fortune until a short while before his train was due, and then, singularly enough, he discovered he was one hundred and fifty dollarsbehind the game. 

"I guess I'll leave the train go without me, " said Lin, buying fivedollars' worth more of ivory counters. So that train came and went, removing eastward Mr. McLean's trunk. 

During the hour that followed his voice grew dogged and his remarksbriefer, as he continually purchased more chips from the now surprisedand sympathetic dealer. It was really wonderful how steadily Linlost--just as steadily as his predecessor had won after that meeting ofeyes early in the evening. 

When Lin was three hundred dollars out, his voice began to clear of itshuskiness and a slight humor revolved and sparkled in his eye. When hisseven hundred dollars had gone to safer hands and he had nothing left atall but some silver fractions of a dollar, his robust cheerfulness wasall back again. He walked out and stood among the railroad tracks withhis hands in his pockets, and laughed at himself in the dark. Then hisfingers came on the check for Omaha, and he laughed loudly. The trunk bythis hour must be nearing Rawlins; it was going east anyhow. 

"I'm following it, you bet, " he declared, kicking the rail. "Not yetthough. Nor I'll not go to Washakie to have 'em josh me. And yonder laysBoston. " He stretched his arm and pointed eastward. Had he seen anotherman going on in this fashion alone in the dark, among side-trackedfreight cars, he would have pitied the poor fool. "And I guess Boston'llhave to get along without me for a spell, too, " continued Lin. "A mandon't want to show up plumb broke like that younger son did after eatin'with the hogs the bishop told about. His father was a Jim-dandy, thathog chap's. Hustled around and set 'em up when he come back home. Frank, he'd say to me 'How do you do, brother?' and he'd be wearin' a good suito' clothes and--no, sir, you bet!"

Lin now watched the great headlight of a freight train bearing slowlydown into Green River from the wilderness. Green River is the end of adivision, an epoch in every train's journey. Lanterns swung signals, the great dim thing slowed to its standstill by the coal chute, itslocomotive moved away for a turn of repose, the successor backedsteaming to its place to tackle a night's work. Cars were shifted, heavily bumping and parting. 

"Hello, Lin!" A face was looking from the window of the caboose. 

"Hello!" responded Mr. McLean, perceiving above his head Honey Wiggin, agood friend of his. They had not met for three years. 

"They claimed you got killed somewheres. I was sorry to hear it. " Honeyoffered his condolence quite sincerely. 

"Bruck my leg, " corrected Lin, "if that's what they meant. "

"I expect that's it, " said Honey. "You've had no other trouble?"

"Been boomin', " said Lin. 

From the mere undertone in their voices it was plain they were goodfriends, carefully hiding their pleasure at meeting. 

"Wher're yu' bound?" inquired Honey. 

"East, " said Lin. 

"Better jump in here, then. We're goin' west. "

"That just suits me, " said Lin. 

The busy lanterns wagged among the switches, the steady lights of thesaloons shone along the town's wooden facade. From the bluffs thatwall Green River the sweet, clean sage-brush wind blew down in currentsfreshly through the coal-smoke. A wrench passed through the train fromlocomotive to caboose, each fettered car in turn strained into motionand slowly rolled over the bridge and into silence from the steam andthe bells of the railroad yard. Through the open windows of the caboosegreat dull-red cinders rattled in, and the whistles of distant UnionPacific locomotives sounded over the open plains ominous and long, likeships at sea. 

Honey and Lin sat for a while, making few observations and far between, as their way is between whom flows a stream of old-time understanding. Mutual whiskey and silence can express much friendship, and eloquently. 

"What are yu' doing at present?" Lin inquired. 

"Prospectin'. "

Now prospecting means hunting gold, except to such spirits as the boyLin. To these it means finding gold. So Lin McLean listened to the talkof his friend Honey Wiggin as the caboose trundled through the night. Hesaw himself in a vision of the near future enter a bank and thump downa bag of gold-dust. Then he saw the new, clean money the man would handhim in exchange, bills with round zeroes half covered by being foldedover, and heavy, satisfactory gold pieces. And then he saw the bluewater that twinkles beneath Boston. His fingers came again on his trunkcheck. He had his ticket, too. And as dawn now revealed the gray countryto him, his eye fell casually upon a mile-post: "Omaha, 876. " He beganto watch for them:--877, 878. But the trunk would really get to Omaha. 

"What are yu' laughin' about?" asked Honey. 

"Oh, the wheels. "

"Wheels?"

"Don't yu' hear 'em?" said Lin. "'Variety, ' they keep a-sayin'. 'Variety, variety. '"

"Huh!" said Honey, with scorn. "'Ker-chunka-chunk' 's all I make it. "

"You're no poet, " observed Mr. McLean. 

As the train moved into Evanston in the sunlight, a gleam of dismay shotover Lin's face, and he ducked his head out of sight of the window, butimmediately raised it again. Then he leaned out, waving his arm with acertain defiant vigor. But the bishop on the platform failed to noticethis performance, though it was done for his sole benefit, nor would Linexplain to the inquisitive Wiggin what the matter was. Therefore, verynaturally, Honey drew a conclusion for himself, looked quickly out ofthe window, and, being disappointed in what he expected to see remarked, sulkily, "Do yu' figure I care what sort of a lookin' girl is stuck onyu' in Evanston?" And upon this young Lin laughed so loudly that hisfriend told him he had never seen a man get so foolish in three years. 

By-and-by they were in Utah, and, in the company of Ogden friends, forgot prospecting. Later they resumed freight trains and journeyednorth In Idaho they said good-bye to the train hands in the caboose, and came to Little Camas, and so among the mountains near Feather Creek. Here the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, andthe bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctuallywith the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of theprospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill makingmud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the washat that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover thenail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, hurrying to Obo, they made some more mud-pies. 

Now and then, eating their fat bacon at noon, Honey would say, "Lin, wher're yu' goin'?"

And Lin always replied, "East. " This became a signal for drinks. 

For beauty and promise, Nevada is a name among names. Nevada! Pronouncethe word aloud. Does it not evoke mountains and clear air, heightsof untrodden snow and valleys aromatic with the pine and musical withfalling waters? Nevada! But the name is all. Abomination of desolationpresides over nine-tenths of the place. The sun beats down as on a roofof zinc, fierce and dull. Not a drop of water to a mile of sand. Themean ash-dump landscape stretches on from nowhere to nowhere, a spotof mange. No portion of the earth is more lacquered with paltry, unimportant ugliness. 

There is gold in Nevada, but Lin and Honey did not find it. Prospectingof the sort they did, besides proving unfruitful, is not comfortable. Now and again, losing patience, Lin would leave his work and stalk aboutand gaze down at the scattered men who stooped or knelt in the water. Passing each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturnedpair of overalls the same label, "Levi Strauss, No. 2, " with a pictureof two lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainlystruggling to split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a labeljust like that too, and when he considered all things he laughed tohimself. Then, having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he wouldreturn to his ditch. As autumn wore on, his feet grew cold in the mushygravel they were sunk in. He beat off the sand that had stiffened on hisboots, and hated Obo, Nevada. But he held himself ready to say "East"whenever he saw Honey coming along with the bottle. The cold weatherput an end to this adventure. The ditches froze and filled with snow, through which the sordid gravel heaps showed in a dreary fashion; so thetwo friends drifted southward. 

Near the small new town of Mesa, Arizona, they sat down again in thedirt. It was milder here, and, when the sun shone, never quite froze. But this part of Arizona is scarcely more grateful to the eye thanNevada. Moreover, Lin and Honey found no gold at all. Some men near themfound a little. Then in January, even though the sun shone, it quitefroze one day. 

"We're seein' the country, anyway, " said Honey. 

"Seein' hell, " said Lin, "and there's more of it above ground than Ithought. "

"What'll we do?" Honey inquired. 

"Have to walk for a job--a good-payin' job, " responded the hopefulcow-puncher. And he and Honey went to town. 

Lin found a job in twenty-five minutes, becoming assistant to theapothecary in Mesa. Established at the drug-store, he made up thesimpler prescriptions. He had studied practical pharmacy inBoston between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, and, besides thisqualification, the apothecary had seen him when he first came into Mesa, and liked him. Lin made no mistakes that he or any one ever knew of;and, as the mild weather began, he materially increased the apothecary'sbusiness by persuading him to send East for a soda-water fountain. Theladies of the town clustered around this entertaining novelty, and whilesipping vanilla and lemon bought knickknacks. And the gentlemen ofthe town discovered that whiskey with soda and strawberry syrup wasdelicious, and produced just as competent effects. A group of them weregenerally standing in the shop and shaking dice to decide who shouldpay for the next, while Lin administered to each glass the necessaryingredients. Thus money began to come to him a little more steadily thanhad been its wont, and he divided with the penniless Honey. 

But Honey found fortune quickly, too. Through excellent card-playing hewon a pinto from a small Mexican horse-thief who came into town from theSouth, and who cried bitterly when he delivered up his pet pony to thenew owner. The new owner, being a man of the world and agile on hisfeet, was only slightly stabbed that evening as he walked to thedance-hall at the edge of the town. The Mexican was buried on the nextday but one. 

The pony stood thirteen two, and was as long as a steamboat. He hadwhite eyelashes, pink nostrils, and one eye was bright blue. If youspoke pleasantly to him, he rose instantly on his hind-legs and triedto beat your face. He did not look as if he could run, and that was whatmade him so valuable. Honey travelled through the country with him, andevery gentleman who saw the pinto and heard Honey became anxious to getup a race. Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place, and he soonopened a bank account, while Honey, besides his racing-bridle, bought asilver-inlaid one, a pair of forty-dollar spurs, and a beautiful saddlerichly stamped. Every day (when in Mesa) Honey would step into thedrug-store and inquire, "Lin, wher're yu' goin'?"

But Lin never answered any more. He merely came to the soda-waterfountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked seasonof fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hungheavily over man and beast. Many insects sat out in the sun rattlingwith joy; the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud, andshrank to a succession of standing pools; and the fat, squatting cactusbloomed everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in thesand. There were artesian wells in Mesa, and the water did not tastevery good; but if you drank from the standing pools where the riverhad been, you repaired to the drug-store almost immediately. A troop ofwandering players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa, played a brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerfuldrama of "East Lynne. " Then Mr. McLean thought of the Lynn marshes thatlie between there and Chelsea, and of the sea that must look so cool. He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel;but, going to bed in the back part of the drug-store, he remembered howhe used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water. 

"I'm goin', " he said. Then he got up, and, striking the light, heinspected his bank account. "I'm sure goin', " he repeated, blowing thelight out, "and I can buy the fatted calf myself, you bet!" for he hadoften thought of the bishop's story. "You bet!" he remarked once more ina muffled voice, and was asleep in a minute. The apothecary was sorry tohave him go, and Honey was deeply grieved. 

"I'd pull out with yer, " he said, "only I can do business round Yuma andwestward with the pinto. "

For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts ofplaces, where they were welcome, and once more Lin rode a horse andwas in his native element. Then he travelled to Deming, and so throughDenver to Omaha, where he was told that his trunk had been sold forsome months. Besides a suit of clothes for town wear, it had contained abuffalo coat for his brother--something scarce to see in these days. 

"Frank'll have to get along without it, " he observed, philosophically, and took the next eastbound train. 

If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, andwith a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirtinstead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft, gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but notthe majority. New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things. As Iowa, with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare alittle more, for you're getting near the East, where cow-punchers arenot understood. But in those days the line of cleavage came sharp-drawnat Chicago. West of there was still tolerably west, but east ofthere was east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next importantstopping-place. In Lin's new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, andsilence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Bostonwithout change. Had not home memories begun impetuously to floodhis mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous. Town clothes andconventions had their due value with him. But just now the boy'ssingle-hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he wasmurmuring to himself, "To-morrow! tomorrow night!"

There were ladies in that blue plush car for Boston who looked at Linfor thirty miles at a stretch; and by the time Albany was reachedthe next day one or two of them commented that he was the mostattractive-looking man they had ever seen! Whereas, beyond his tallness, and wide-open, jocular eyes, eyes that seemed those of a not highlyconscientious wild animal, there was nothing remarkable about youngLin except stage effect. The conductor had been annoyed to have sucha passenger; but the cow-puncher troubled no one, and was extremelysilent. So evidently was he a piece of the true frontier that curiousand hopeful fellow-passengers, after watching him with diversion, morethan once took a seat next to him. He met their chatty inquiries withmonosyllables so few and so unprofitable in their quiet politeness thatthe passengers soon gave him up. At Springfield he sent a telegram tohis brother at the great dry-goods establishment that employed him. 

The train began its homestretch after Worcester, and whirled and swungby hills and ponds he began to watch for, and through stations with oldwayside names. These flashed on Lin's eye as he sat with his hat offand his forehead against the window, looking: Wellesley. Then, not longafter, Riverside. That was the Charles River, and did the picnic woodsused to be above the bridge or below? West Newton; Newtonville; Newton. "Faneuil's next, " he said aloud in the car, as the long-forgottenhome-knowledge shone forth in his recollection. The traveller seatednear said, "Beg pardon?" but, turning, wondered at the all-unconsciousLin, with his forehead pressed against the glass. The blue water flashedinto sight, and soon after they were running in the darkness betweenhigh walls; but the cow-puncher never moved, though nothing could beseen. When the porter announced "Boston, " he started up and followedlike a sheep in the general exodus. Down on the platform he moved alongwith the slow crowd till some one touched him, and, wheeling round, heseized both his brother's hands and swore a good oath of joy. 

There they stood--the long, brown fellow with the silk handkerchiefknotted over his flannel shirt, greeting tremendously the sprucecivilian, who had a rope-colored mustache and bore a faintheartedresemblance to him. The story was plain on its face to the passers-by;and one of the ladies who had come in the car with Lin turned twice, andsmiled gently to herself. 

But Frank McLean's heart did not warm. He felt that what he had beenafraid of was true; and he saw he was being made conspicuous. He saw menand women stare in the station, and he saw them staring as he and hisWestern brother went through the streets. Lin strode along, sniffing theair of Boston, looking at all things, and making it a stretch for hissleek companion to keep step with him. Frank thought of the refinedfriends he should have to introduce his brother to; for he hadrisen with his salary, and now belonged to a small club where thepaying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk atthe Parker House was president. Perhaps he should not have to revealthe cow-puncher to these shining ones. Perhaps the cow-puncher wouldnot stay very long. Of course he was glad to see him again, and he wouldtake him to dine at some obscure place this first evening. But this wasnot Lin's plan. Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House. Frankdemurred, saying it was he that should be host. 

"And, " he added, "they charge up high for wines at Parker's. " Then forthe twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother's clothes. 

"You're goin' to take your grub with me, " said Lin. "That's all right, Iguess. And there ain't any 'no' about it. Things is not the same likeas if father was livin'--(his voice softened)--and here to see me comehome. Now I'm good for several dinners with wines charged up high, Iexpect, nor it ain't nobody in this world, barrin' just Lin McLean, thatI've any need to ask for anything. 'Mr. McLean, ' says I to Lin, 'canyu' spare me some cash?' 'Why, to be sure, you bet!' And we'll start offwith steamed Duxbury clams. " The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, wherethe coin made a muffled chinking. Then he said, gruffly, "I supposeSwampscott's there yet?"

"Yes, " said Frank. "It's a dead little town, is Swampscott. "

"I guess I'll take a look at the old house tomorrow, " Lin pursued. 

"Oh, that's been pulled down since--I forget the year they improved thatblock. "

Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of thefirst and last home they had ever had. 

"Seventy-nine is when it was, " continued Frank. "So you can save thetrouble of travelling away down to Swampscott. "

"I guess I'll go to the graveyard, anyway, " said the cow-puncher in hisoffish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him. 

They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasilysurveyed the younger's appearance. 

But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin. "After to-morrow, " said he, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder, "yu' can start any lead yu' please, and I guess I can stay with yu'pretty close, Frank. "

Frank said nothing. He saw one of the members of his club on the otherside of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught divertedamazement on the member's face. Lin's hand weighed on his shoulder, andthe stress became too great. "Lin, " said he, "while you're running withour crowd, you don't want to wear that style of hat, you know. "

It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, butnot in the way that these were said. The frozen fact was irrevocablyrevealed in the tone of Frank's voice. 

The cow-puncher stopped dead short, and his hand slid off his brother'sshoulder. "You've made it plain, " he said, evenly, slanting his steadyeyes down into Frank's. "You've explained yourself fairly well. Runalong with your crowd, and I'll not bother yu' more with comin' roundand causin' yu' to feel ashamed. It's a heap better to understand thesethings at once, and save making a fool of yourself any longer 'n yu'need to. I guess there ain't no more to be said, only one thing. If yu'see me around on the street, don't yu' try any talk, for I'd be liableto close your jaw up, and maybe yu'd have more of a job explainin' thatto your crowd than you've had makin' me see what kind of a man I've gotfor a brother. "

Frank found himself standing alone before any reply to these sentenceshad occurred to him. He walked slowly to his club, where a friend jokedhim on his glumness. 

Lin made a sore failure of amusing himself that night; and in thebright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At thegraveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and kneel, weeping. 

"There ain't nobody to do that for this one, " thought the cow-puncher, and looked down at the grave he had come to see, then absently gazed atthe woman. 

She had stolen away from her daily life to come here where her griefwas shrined, and now her heart found it hard to bid the lonely placegoodbye. So she lingered long, her thoughts sunk deep in the motionlesspast. When she at last looked up, she saw the tall, strange man re-enterfrom the street among the tombs, and deposit on one of them an ungainlylump of flowers. They were what Lin had been able hastily to buy inSwampscott. He spread them gently as he had noticed the woman do, buther act of kneeling he did not imitate. He went away quickly. For somehours he hung about the little town, aimlessly loitering, watching thesalt water where he used to swim. 

"Yu' don't belong any more, Lin, " he miserably said at length, and tookhis way to Boston. 

The next morning, determined to see the sights, he was in New York, anddrifted about to all places night and day, till his money was mostlygone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face anda deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought aticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemedto numb his good humor. 

When, after three days, the Missouri lay behind him and his holiday, hestretched his legs and took heart to see out of the window the signsof approaching desolation. And when on the fourth day civilizationwas utterly emptied out of the world, he saw a bunch of cattle, and, galloping among them, his spurred and booted kindred. And his mannertook on that alertness a horse shows on turning into the home road. Asthe stage took him toward Washakie, old friends turned up every fiftymiles or so, shambling out of a cabin or a stable, and saying, in casualtones, "Hello, Lin, where've you been at?"

At Lander, there got into the stage another old acquaintance, the Bishopof Wyoming. He knew Lin at once, and held out his hand, and his greetingwas hearty. 

"It took a week for my robes to catch up with me, " he said, laughing. Then, in a little while, "How was the East?"

"First-rate, " said Lin, not looking at him. He was shy of theconversation's taking a moral turn. But the bishop had no intention ofreverting--at any rate, just now--to their last talk at Green River, andthe advice he had then given. 

"I trust your friends were all well?" he said. 

"I guess they was healthy enough, " said Lin. 

"I suppose you found Boston much changed? It's a beautiful city. "

"Good enough town for them that likes it, I expect, " Lin replied. 

The bishop was forming a notion of what the matter must be, but he hadno notion whatever of what now revealed itself. 

"Mr. Bishop, " the cow-puncher said, "how was that about that fellow youtold about that's in the Bible somewheres?--he come home to his folks, and they--well there was his father saw him comin'"--He stopped, embarrassed. 

Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticedthem in the church at the agency intently watching him. And, justnow, what were best to say he did not know. He looked at the young mangravely. 

"Have yu' got a Bible?" pursued Lin. "For, excuse me, but I'd like yu'to read that onced. "

So the bishop read, and Lin listened. And all the while this goodclergyman was perplexed how to speak--or if indeed to speak at this timeat all--to the heart of the man beside him for whom the parable had goneso sorely wrong. When the reading was done, Lin had not taken his eyesfrom the bishop's face. 

"How long has that there been wrote?" he asked. 

He was told about how long. 

"Mr. Bishop, " said Lin, "I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and Inever figured it to be a book much on to facts. And I tell you I'm moreplumb beat about it's having that elder brother, and him being angry, down in black and white two thousand years ago, than--than if I'd seena man turn water into wine, for I'd have knowed that ain't so. But theelder brother is facts--dead-sure facts. And they knowed about that, andput it down just the same as life two thousand years ago!"

"Well, " said the bishop, wisely ignoring the challenge as to miracles, "I am a good twenty years older than you, and all that time I've beenfinding more facts in the Bible every day I have lived. "

Lin meditated. "I guess that could be, " he said. "Yes; after that yu'vebeen a-readin', and what I know for myself that I didn't know tilllately, I guess that could be. "

Then the bishop talked with exceeding care, nor did he ask uncomfortablethings, or moralize visibly. Thus he came to hear how it had fared withLin his friend, and Lin forgot altogether about its being a parson hewas delivering the fulness of his heart to. "And come to think, " heconcluded, "it weren't home I had went to back East, layin' round thembig cities, where a man can't help but feel strange all the week. No, sir! Yu' can blow in a thousand dollars like I did in New York, andit'll not give yu' any more home feelin' than what cattle has put ina stock-yard. Nor it wouldn't have in Boston neither. Now this countryhere" (he waved his hand towards the endless sage-brush), "seein' itonced more, I know where my home is, and I wouldn't live nowheres else. Only I ain't got no father watching for me to come up Wind River. "

The cow-puncher stated this merely as a fact, and without any note ofself-pity. But the bishops face grew very tender, and he looked awayfrom Lin. Knowing his man--for had he not seen many of this kind in hisdesert diocese?--he forbore to make any text from that last sentence thecow-puncher had spoken. Lin talked cheerfully on about what he shouldnow do. The round-up must be somewhere near Du Noir Creek. He wouldjoin it this season, but next he should work over to the Powder Rivercountry. More business was over there, and better chances for a man totake up some land and have a ranch of his own. As they got out at FortWashakie, the bishop handed him a small book, in which he had turnedseveral leaves down, carefully avoiding any page that related ofmiracles. 

"You need not read it through, you know, " he said, smiling; "justread where I have marked, and see if you don't find some more facts. Goodbye--and always come and see me. "

The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towardsWind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little movingdot went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into theparade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manlysoul, he shook his head sorrowfully. 

THE WINNING OF THE BISCUIT-SHOOTER

It was quite clear to me that Mr. McLean could not know the news. Meeting him to-day had been unforeseen--unforeseen and so pleasant thatthe thing had never come into my head until just now, after both of ushad talked and dined our fill, and were torpid with satisfaction. 

I had found Lin here at Riverside in the morning. At my horse'sapproach to the cabin, it was he and not the postmaster who had comeprecipitately out of the door. 

"I'm turruble pleased to see yu', " he had said, immediately. 

"What's happened?" said I, in some concern at his appearance. 

And he piteously explained: "Why, I've been here all alone sinceyesterday!"

This was indeed all; and my hasty impressions of shooting and a corpsegave way to mirth over the child and his innocent grievance that he hadblurted out before I could get off my horse. 

Since when, I inquired of him, had his own company become such a shockto him?

"As to that, " replied Mr. McLean, a thought ruffled, "when a man expectslonesomeness he stands it like he stands anything else, of course. But when he has figured on finding company--say--" he broke off (andvindictiveness sparkled in his eye)--"when you're lucky enough tocatch yourself alone, why, I suppose yu' just take a chair and chat toyourself for hours. --You've not seen anything of Tommy?" he pursued withinterest. 

I had not; and forthwith Lin poured out to me the pent-up complaints andsociability with which he was bursting. The foreman had sent him overhere with a sackful of letters for the post, and to bring back theweek's mail for the ranch. A day was gone now, and nothing for a manto do but sit and sit. Tommy was overdue fifteen hours. Well, you couldhave endured that, but the neighbors had all locked their cabins andgone to Buffalo. It was circus week in Buffalo. Had I ever consideredthe money there must be in the circus business? Tommy had taken theoutgoing letters early yesterday. Nobody had kept him waiting. By allrules he should have been back again last night. Maybe the stage waslate reaching Powder River, and Tommy had had to lay over for it. Well, that would justify him. Far more likely he had gone to the circushimself and taken the mail with him. Tommy was no type of man forpostmaster. Except drawing the allowance his mother in the East gavehim first of every month, he had never shown punctuality that Lin couldremember. Never had any second thoughts, and awful few first ones. Toldbigger lies than a small man ought, also. 

"Has successes, though, " said I, wickedly. 

"Huh!" went on Mr. McLean. "Successes! One ice-cream-soda success. Andshe"--Lin's still wounded male pride made him plaintive--"why, even thatgirl quit him, once she got the chance to appreciate how insignificanthe was as compared with the size of his words. No, sir. Not one of 'emretains interest in Tommy. "

Lin was unsaddling and looking after my horse, just because he wasglad to see me. Since our first acquaintance, that memorable summer ofPitchstone Canyon when he had taken such good care of me and such badcare of himself, I had learned pretty well about horses and camp craftin general. He was an entire boy then. But he had been East since, Eastby a route of his own discovering--and from his account of that journeyit had proved, I think, a sort of spiritual experience. And then theyears of our friendship were beginning to roll up. Manhood of thebody he had always richly possessed; and now, whenever we met after aseason's absence and spoke those invariable words which all old friendsupon this earth use to each other at meeting--"You haven't changed, youhaven't changed at all!"--I would wonder if manhood had arrived in Lin'sboy soul. And so to-day, while he attended to my horse and explained thenature of Tommy (a subject he dearly loved just now), I looked at himand took an intimate, superior pride in feeling how much more mature Iwas than he, after all. 

There's nothing like a sense of merit for making one feel aggrieved, and on our return to the cabin Mr. McLean pointed with disgust to somefirewood. 

"Look at those sorrowful toothpicks, " said he: "Tommy's work. "

So Lin, the excellent hearted, had angrily busied himself, and chopped apile of real logs that would last a week. He had also cleaned the stove, and nailed up the bed, the pillow-end of which was on the floor. Itappeared the master of the house had been sleeping in it the reverseway on account of the slant. Thus had Lin cooked and dined alone, suppedalone, and sat over some old newspapers until bed-time alone with hissense of virtue. And now here it was long after breakfast, and no Tommyyet. 

"It's good yu' come this forenoon, " Lin said to me. "I'd not have hadthe heart to get up another dinner just for myself. Let's eat rich!"

Accordingly, we had richly eaten, Lin and I. He had gone out among thesheds and caught some eggs (that is how he spoke of it), we had openeda number of things in cans, and I had made my famous dish of evaporatedapricots, in which I managed to fling a suspicion of caramel throughoutthe stew. 

"Tommy'll be hot about these, " said Lin, joyfully, as we ate the eggs. "He don't mind what yu' use of his canned goods--pickled salmon andtruck. He is hospitable all right enough till it comes to an egg. Thenhe'll tell any lie. But shucks! Yu' can read Tommy right through hisclothing. 'Make yourself at home, Lin, ' says he, yesterday. And heshowed me his fresh milk and his stuff. 'Here's a new ham, ' says he;'too bad my damned hens ain't been layin'. The sons-o'guns have quit onme ever since Christmas. ' And away he goes to Powder River for the mail. 'You swore too heavy about them hens, ' thinks I. Well, I expect he mayhave travelled half a mile by the time I'd found four nests. "

I am fond of eggs, and eat them constantly--and in Wyoming they werealways a luxury. But I never forget those that day, and how Lin andI enjoyed them thinking of Tommy. Perhaps manhood was not quiteestablished in my own soul at that time--and perhaps that is the reasonwhy it is the only time I have ever known which I would live over again, those years when people said, "You are old enough to know better"--andone didn't care!

Salmon, apricots, eggs, we dealt with them all properly, and I had somecigars. It was now that the news came back into my head. 

"What do you think of--" I began, and stopped. 

I spoke out of a long silence, the slack, luxurious silence ofdigestion. I got no answer, naturally, from the torpid Lin, and then itoccurred to me that he would have asked me what I thought, long beforethis, had he known. So, observing how comfortable he was, I begandifferently. 

"What is the most important event that can happen in this country?" saidI. 

Mr. McLean heard me where he lay along the floor of the cabin on hisback, dozing by the fire; but his eyes remained closed. He waggled onelimp, open hand slightly at me, and torpor resumed her dominion overhim. 

"I want to know what you consider the most important event that canhappen in this country, " said I, again, enunciating each word with slowclearness. 

The throat and lips of Mr. McLean moved, and a sulky sound came forththat I recognized to be meant for the word "War. " Then he rolled over sothat his face was away from me, and put an arm over his eyes. 

"I don't mean country in the sense of United States, " said I. "I meanthis country here, and Bear Creek, and--well, the ranches southward forfifty miles, say. Important to this section. "

"Mosquitoes'll be due in about three weeks, " said Lin. "Yu' might leavea man rest till then. "

"I want your opinion, " said I. 

"Oh, misery! Well, a raise in the price of steers. "

"No. "

"Yu' said yu' wanted my opinion, " said Lin. "Seems like yu' merelyfigure on givin' me yours. "

"Very well, " said I. "Very well, then. "

I took up a copy of the Cheyenne Sun. It was five weeks old, and I soonperceived that I had read it three weeks ago; but I read it again forsome minutes now. 

"I expect a railroad would be more important, " said Mr. McLean, persuasively, from the floor. 

"Than a rise in steers?" said I, occupied with the Cheyenne Sun. "Ohyes. Yes, a railroad certainly would. "

"It's got to be money, anyhow, " stated Lin, thoroughly wakened. "Moneyin some shape. "

"How little you understand the real wants of the country!" said I, coming to the point. "It's a girl. "

Mr. McLean lay quite still on the floor. 

"A girl, " I repeated. "A new girl coming to this starved country. "

The cow-puncher took a long, gradual stretch and began to smile. "Well, "said he, "yu' caught me--if that's much to do when a man is half-wittedwith dinner and sleep. " He closed his eyes again and lay with a speciousexpression of indifference. But that sort of thing is a solitaryentertainment, and palls. "Starved, " he presently muttered. "We are kindo' starved that way I'll admit. More dollars than girls to the squaremile. And to think of all of us nice, healthy, young--bet yu' I know whoshe is!" he triumphantly cried. He had sat up and levelled a finger atme with the throw-down jerk of a marksman. "Sidney, Nebraska. "

I nodded. This was not the lady's name--he could not recall hername--but his geography of her was accurate. 

One day in February my friend, Mrs. Taylor over on Bear Creek, hadreceived a letter--no common event for her. Therefore, during severaldays she had all callers read it just as naturally as she had them allsee the new baby, and baby and letter had both been brought out for me. The letter was signed, "Ever your afectionite frend. 

 "Katie Peck, "

and was not easy to read, here and there. But you could piece out thedrift of it, and there was Mrs. Taylor by your side, eager to help youwhen you stumbled. Miss Peck wrote that she was overworked in Sidney, Nebraska, and needed a holiday. When the weather grew warm she shouldlike to come to Bear Creek and be like old times. "Like to come and belike old times" filled Mrs. Taylor with sentiment and the cow-puncherswith expectation. But it is a long way from February to warm weather onBear Creek, and even cow-punchers will forget about a new girl if shedoes not come. For several weeks I had not heard Miss Peck mentioned, and old girls had to do. Yesterday, however, when I paid a visit to MissMolly Wood (the Bear Creek schoolmistress), I found her keeping inorder the cabin and the children of the Taylors, while they were goneforty-five miles to the stage station to meet their guest. 

"Well, " said Lin, judicially, "Miss Wood is a lady. "

"Yes, " said I, with deep gravity. For I was thinking of an occasion whenMr. McLean had discovered that truth somewhat abruptly. 

Lin thoughtfully continued. "She is--she's--she's--what are you laughin'at?"

"Oh, nothing. You don't see quite so much of Miss Wood as you used to, do you?"

"Huh! So that's got around. Well, o' course I'd ought t've knowedbetter, I suppose. All the same, there's lots and lots of girls do likegettin' kissed against their wishes--and you know it. "

"But the point would rather seem to be that she--"

"Would rather seem! Don't yu' start that professor style o' yours, orI'll--I'll talk more wickedness in worse language than ever yu've heardme do yet. "

"Impossible!" I murmured, sweetly, and Master Lin went on. 

"As to point--that don't need to be explained to me. She's a lady allright. " He ruminated for a moment. "She has about scared all the boysoff, though, " he continued. "And that's what you get by being refined, "he concluded, as if Providence had at length spoken in this matter. 

"She has not scared off a boy from Virginia, I notice, " said I. "Hewas there yesterday afternoon again. Ridden all the way over from SunkCreek. Didn't seem particularly frightened. "

"Oh, well, nothin' alarms him--not even refinement, " said Mr. McLean, with his grin. "And she'll fool your Virginian like she done the balanceof us. You wait. Shucks! If all the girls were that chilly, why, whatwould us poor punchers do?"

"You have me cornered, " said I, and we sat in a philosophical silence, Lin on the floor still, and I at the window. There I looked out upona scene my eyes never tired of then, nor can my memory now. Springhad passed over it with its first, lightest steps. The pastured levelsundulated in emerald. Through the many-changing sage, that just thismoment of to-day was lilac, shone greens scarce a week old in thedimples of the foot-hills; and greens new-born beneath today's sunmelted among them. Around the doubling of the creek in the willowthickets glimmered skeined veils of yellow and delicate crimson. Thestream poured turbulently away from the snows of the mountains behindus. It went winding in many folds across the meadows into distanceand smallness, and so vanished round the great red battlement of wallbeyond. Upon this were falling the deep hues of afternoon--violet, rose, and saffron, swimming and meeting as if some prism had dissolved andflowed over the turrets and crevices of the sandstone. Far over there Isaw a dot move. 

"At last!" said I. 

Lin looked out of the window. "It's more than Tommy, " said he, atonce; and his eyes made it out before mine could. "It's a wagon. That'sTommy's bald-faced horse alongside. He's fooling to the finish, " Linseverely commented, as if, after all this delay, there should at leastbe a homestretch. 

Presently, however, a homestretch seemed likely to occur. The bald-facedhorse executed some lively manoeuvres, and Tommy's voice reached usfaintly through the light spring air. He was evidently howling theremarkable strain of yells that the cow-punchers invented as the speechbest understood by cows--"Oi-ee, yah, whoop-yahye-ee, oooo-oop, oop, oop-oop-oop-oop-yah-hee!" But that gives you no idea of it. Alphabetsare worse than photographs. It is not the lungs of every man that canproduce these effects, nor even from armies, eagles, or mules were suchsounds ever heard on earth. The cow-puncher invented them. And whenthe last cow-puncher is laid to rest (if that, alas! have not alreadybefallen) the yells will be forever gone. Singularly enough, the cattleappeared to appreciate them. Tommy always did them very badly, and thatwas plain even at this distance. Nor did he give us a homestretch, after all. The bald-faced horse made a number of evolutions and returnedbeside the wagon. 

"Showin' off, " remarked Lin. "Tommy's showin' off. " Suspicion crossedhis face, and then certainty. "Why, we might have knowed that!" heexclaimed, in dudgeon. "It's her. " He hastened outside for a betterlook, and I came to the door myself. "That's what it is, " said he. "It'sthe girl. Oh yes. That's Taylor's buckskin pair he traded Balaam for. She come by the stage all right yesterday, yu' see, but she has beentoo tired to travel, yu' see, or else, maybe, Taylor wanted to rest hisbuckskins--they're four-year-olds. Or else--anyway, they laid over lastnight at Powder River, and Tommy he has just laid over too, yu'see, holdin' the mail back on us twenty-four hours--and that's yourpostmaster!"

It was our postmaster, and this he had done, quite as the virtuouslyindignant McLean surmised. Had I taken the same interest in the newgirl, I suppose that I too should have felt virtuously indignant. 

Lin and I stood outside to receive the travellers. As their cavalcadedrew near, Mr. McLean grew silent and watchful, his whole attentionfocused upon the Taylors' vehicle. Its approach was joyous. Its gearmade a cheerful clanking, Taylor cracked his whip and encouraginglychirruped to his buckskins, and Tommy's apparatus jingled musically. ForTommy wore upon himself and his saddle all the things you can wear inthe Wild West. Except that his hair was not long, our postmaster mighthave conducted a show and minted gold by exhibiting his romantic personbefore the eyes of princes. He began with a black-and-yellow rattlesnakeskin for a hat-band, he continued with a fringed and beaded shirt ofbuckskin, and concluded with large, tinkling spurs. Of course, therewere things between his shirt and his heels, but all leather and deadlyweapons. He had also a riata, a cuerta, and tapaderos, and frequentlyemployed these Spanish names for the objects. I wish that I had not lostTommy's photograph in Rocky Mountain costume. You must understand thathe was really pretty, with blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a gracefulfigure; and, besides, he had twenty-four hours' start of poor dusty Lin, whose best clothes were elsewhere. 

You might have supposed that it would be Mrs. Taylor who should presentus to her friend from Sidney, Nebraska; but Tommy on his horse undertookthe office before the wagon had well come to a standstill. "Good friendsof mine, and gentlemen, both, " said he to Miss Peck; and to us, "A ladywhose acquaintance will prove a treat to our section. "

We all bowed at each other beneath the florid expanse of theserecommendations, and I was proceeding to murmur something about itsbeing a long journey and a fine day when Miss Peck cut me short, gaily:

"Well, " she exclaimed to Tommy, "I guess I'm pretty near ready for themeggs you've spoke so much about. "

I have not often seen Mr. McLean lose his presence of mind. He neededmerely to exclaim, "Why, Tommy, you told me your hens had not beenlaying since Christmas!" and we could have sat quiet and let Tommytry to find all the eggs that he could. But the new girl was a soreembarrassment to the cow-puncher's wits. Poor Lin stood by the wheelsof the wagon. He looked up at Miss Peck, he looked over at Tommy, hisfeatures assumed a rueful expression, and he wretchedly blurted, "Why, Tommy, I've been and eat 'em. "

"Well, if that ain't!" cried Miss Peck. She stared with interest at Linas he now assisted her to descend. 

"All?" faltered Tommy. "Not the four nests?"

"I've had three meals, yu' know, " Lin reminded him, deprecatingly. 

"I helped him, " said I. "Ten innocent, fresh eggs. But we have left someham. Forgive us, please. "

"I declare!" said Miss Peck, abruptly, and rolled her sluggish, invitingeyes upon me. "You're a case, too, I expect. "

But she took only brief note of me, although it was from head to foot. In her stare the dull shine of familiarity grew vacant, and she turnedback to Lin McLean. "You carry that, " said she, and gave the pleasedcow-puncher a hand valise. 

"I'll look after your things, Miss Peck, " called Tommy, now springingdown from his horse. The egg tragedy had momentarily stunned him. 

"You'll attend to the mail first, Mr. Postmaster!" said the lady, but favoring him with a look from her large eyes. "There's plenty ofgentlemen here. " With that her glance favored Lin. She went into thecabin, he following her close, with the Taylors and myself in the rear. "Well, I guess I'm about collapsed!" said she, vigorously, and sank uponone of Tommy's chairs. 

The fragile article fell into sticks beneath her, and Lin leaped to herassistance. He placed her upon a firmer foundation. Mrs. Taylor broughta basin and towel to bathe the dust from her face, Mr. Taylor producedwhiskey, and I found sugar and hot water. Tommy would doubtless havedone something in the way of assistance or restoratives, but he was goneto the stable with the horses. 

"Shall I get your medicine from the valise, deary?" inquired Mrs. Taylor. 

"Not now, " her visitor answered; and I wondered why she should take sucha quick look at me. 

"We'll soon have yu' independent of medicine, " said Lin, gallantly. "Ourclimate and scenery here has frequently raised the dead. "

"You're a case, anyway!" exclaimed the sick lady with rich conviction. 

The cow-puncher now sat himself on the edge of Tommy's bed, and, throwing one leg across the other, began to raise her spirits withcheerful talk. She steadily watched him--his face sometimes, sometimeshis lounging, masculine figure. While he thus devoted his attentions toher, Taylor departed to help Tommy at the stable, and good Mrs. Taylor, busy with supper for all of us in the kitchen, expressed her joy athaving her old friend of childhood for a visit after so many years. 

"Sickness has changed poor Katie some, " said she. "But I'm hoping she'llget back her looks on Bear Creek. "

"She seems less feeble than I had understood, " I remarked. 

"Yes, indeed! I do believe she's feeling stronger. She was that tiredand down yesterday with the long stage-ride, and it is so lonesome! ButTaylor and I heartened her up, and Tommy came with the mail, and to-dayshe's real spruced-up like, feeling she's among friends. "

"How long will she stay?" I inquired. 

"Just as long as ever she wants! Me and Katie hasn't met since we wasyoung girls in Dubuque, for I left home when I married Taylor, and hebrought me to this country right soon; and it ain't been like Dubuquemuch, though if I had it to do over again I'd do just the same, asTaylor knows. Katie and me hasn't wrote even, not till this February, for you always mean to and you don't. Well, it'll be like old times. Katie'll be most thirty-four, I expect. Yes. I was seventeen and she wassixteen the very month I was married. Poor thing! She ought to have gotsome good man for a husband, but I expect she didn't have any chance, for there was a big fam'ly o' them girls, and old Peck used to act realscandalous, getting drunk so folks didn't visit there evenings scarcelyat all. And so she quit home, it seems, and got a position in therailroad eating-house at Sidney, and now she has poor health withfeeding them big trains day and night. "

"A biscuit-shooter!" said I. 

Loyal Mrs. Taylor stirred some batter in silence. "Well, " said she then, "I'm told that's what the yard-hands of the railroad call them poorwaiter-girls. You might hear it around the switches at them divisionstations. "

I had heard it in higher places also, but meekly accepted the reproof. 

If you have made your trans-Missouri journeys only since the new era ofdining-cars, there is a quantity of things you have come too late for, and will never know. Three times a day in the brave days of old yousprang from your scarce-halted car at the summons of a gong. Youdiscerned by instinct the right direction, and, passing steadily throughdoorways, had taken, before you knew it, one of some sixty chairs ina room of tables and catsup bottles. Behind the chairs, standingattention, a platoon of Amazons, thick-wristed, pink-and-blue, beganimmediately a swift chant. It hymned the total bill-of-fare at a blow. In this inexpressible ceremony the name of every dish went hurtling intothe next, telescoped to shapelessness. Moreover, if you stopped yourAmazon in the middle, it dislocated her, and she merely went back andtook a fresh start. The chant was always the same, but you never learnedit. As soon as it began, your mind snapped shut like the upper berthin a Pullman. You must have uttered appropriate words--even a parrotwill--for next you were eating things--pie, ham, hot cakes--as fast asyou could. Twenty minutes of swallowing, and all aboard for Ogden, withyour pile-driven stomach dumb with amazement. The Strasburg goose isnot dieted with greater velocity, and "biscuit-shooter" is a grand word. Very likely some Homer of the railroad yards first said it--for whatmen upon the present earth so speak with imagination's tongue as weAmericans?

If Miss Peck had been a biscuit-shooter, I could account readily for herconversation, her equipped deportment, the maturity in her round, blue, marble eye. Her abrupt laugh, something beyond gay, was now soundingin response to Mr. McLean's lively sallies, and I found him fanning herinto convalescence with his hat. She herself made but few remarks, butallowed the cow-puncher to entertain her, merely exclaiming brieflynow and then, "I declare!" and "If you ain't!" Lin was most certainlyengaging, if that was the lady's meaning. His wide-open eyes sparkledupon her, and he half closed them now and then to look at her moreeffectively. I suppose she was worth it to him. I have forgotten to saythat she was handsome in a large California-fruit style. They made agood-looking pair of animals. But it was in the presence of Tommy thatMaster Lin shone more energetically than ever, and under such shiningTommy was transparently restless. He tried, and failed, to bringthe conversation his way, and took to rearranging the mail and thefurniture. 

"Supper's ready, " he said, at length. "Come right in, Miss Peck; rightin here. This is your seat--this one, please. Now you can see my fieldsout of the window. "

"You sit here, " said the biscuit-shooter to Lin; and thus she wasbetween them. "Them's elegant!" she presently exclaimed to Tommy. "Didyou cook 'em?"

I explained that the apricots were of my preparation. 

"Indeed!" said she, and returned to Tommy, who had been telling her ofhis ranch, his potatoes, his horses. "And do you punch cattle, too?" sheinquired of him. 

"Me?" said Tommy, slightingly; "gave it up years ago; too empty alife for me. I leave that to such as like it. When a man owns his ownproperty"--Tommy swept his hand at the whole landscape--"he takes tomore intellectual work. "

"Lickin' postage-stamps, " Mr. McLean suggested, sourly. 

"You lick them and I cancel them, " answered the postmaster; and it doesnot seem a powerful rejoinder. But Miss Peck uttered her laugh. 

"That's one on you, " she told Lin. And throughout this meal it was Tommywho had her favor. She partook of his generous supplies; she listened tohis romantic inventions, the trails he had discovered, the bears he hadslain; and after supper it was with Tommy, and not with Lin, that shewent for a little walk. 

"Katie was ever a tease, " said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, andMr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. "She'll getused to the ways of this country quicker than our little school-marm, "said he. 

Mr. McLean said very little, but read the new-arrived papers. It wasonly when bedtime dispersed us, the ladies in the cabin and the menchoosing various spots outside, that he became talkative again for awhile. We lay in the blank--we had spread on some soft, dry sand inpreference to the stable, where Taylor and Tommy had gone. Under thecontemplative influence of the stars, Lin fell into generalization. 

"Ever notice, " said he, "how whiskey and lyin' act the same on a man?"

I did not feel sure that I had. 

"Just the same way. You keep either of 'em up long enough, and yu' getto require it. If Tommy didn't lie some every day, he'd get sick. "

I was sleepy, but I murmured assent to this, and trusted he would not goon. 

"Ever notice, " said he, "how the victims of the whiskey and lyin' habitget to increasing the dose?"

"Yes, " said I. 

"Him roping six bears!" pursued Mr. McLean, after further contemplation. "Or any bear. Ever notice how the worser a man's lyin' the silenterother men'll get? Why's that, now?"

I believe that I made a faint sound to imply that I was following him. 

"Men don't get took in. But ladies now, they--"

Here he paused again, and during the next interval of contemplation Isank beyond his reach. 

In the morning I left Riverside for Buffalo, and there or thereabouts Iremained for a number of weeks. Miss Peck did not enter my thoughts, nordid I meet any one to remind me of her, until one day I stopped atthe drug-store. It was not for drugs, but gossip, that I went. In thedaytime there was no place like the apothecary's for meeting men andhearing the news. There I heard how things were going everywhere, including Bear Creek. 

All the cow-punchers liked the new girl up there, said gossip. She wasa great addition to society. Reported to be more companionable thanthe school-marm, Miss Molly Wood, who had been raised too far east, andshowed it. Vermont, or some such dude place. Several had been in townbuying presents for Miss Katie Peck. Tommy Postmaster had paid high fora necklace of elk-tushes the government scout at McKinney sold him. Too bad Miss Peck did not enjoy good health. Shorty had been in onlyyesterday to get her medicine again. Third bottle. Had I heard the bigjoke on Lin McLean? He had promised her the skin of a big bear he knewthe location of, and Tommy got the bear. 

Two days after this I joined one of the roundup camps at sunset. Theyhad been working from Salt Creek to Bear Creek, and the Taylor ranch wasin visiting distance from them again, after an interval of gatheringand branding far across the country. The Virginian, the gentle-voicedSoutherner, whom I had last seen lingering with Miss Wood, was incamp. Silent three-quarters of the time, as was his way, he sat gravelywatching Lin McLean. That person seemed silent also, as was not his wayquite so much. 

"Lin, " said the Southerner, "I reckon you're failin'. "

Mr. McLean raised a sombre eye, but did not trouble to answer further. 

"A healthy man's laigs ought to fill his pants, " pursued the Virginian. The challenged puncher stretched out a limb and showed his muscles withyoung pride. 

"And yu' cert'nly take no comfort in your food, " his ingenious friendcontinued, slowly and gently. 

"I'll eat you a match any day and place yu' name, " said Lin. 

"It ain't sca'cely hon'able, " went on the Virginian, "to waste awaydurin' the round-up. A man owes his strength to them that hires it. Ifhe is paid to rope stock he ought to rope stock, and not leave it dodgeor pull away. "

"It's not many dodge my rope, " boasted Lin, imprudently. 

"Why, they tell me as how that heifer of the Sidney-Nebraska brand gotplumb away from yu', and little Tommy had to chase afteh her. "

Lin sat up angrily amid the laughter, but reclined again. "I'llimprove, " said he, "if yu' learn me how yu' rope that Vermont stock sohandy. Has she promised to be your sister yet?" he added. 

"Is that what they do?" inquired the Virginian, serenely. "I have nevergot related that way. Why, that'll make Tommy your brother-in-law, Lin!"

And now, indeed, the camp laughed a loud, merciless laugh. 

But Lin was silent. Where everybody lives in a glass-house the victoryis to him who throws the adroitest stone. Mr. McLean was readier wittedthan most, but the gentle, slow Virginian could be a master when hechose. 

"Tommy has been recountin' his wars up at the Taylors', " he now told thecamp. "He has frequently campaigned with General Crook, GeneralMiles, and General Ruger, all at onced. He's an exciting fighter, inconversation, and kep' us all scared for mighty nigh an hour. Miss Peckappeared interested in his statements. "

"What was you doing at the Taylors' yourself?" demanded Lin. 

"Visitin' Miss Wood, " answered the Virginian, with entire ease. For healso knew when to employ the plain truth as a bluff. "You'd ought towrite to Tommy's mother, Lin, and tell her what a dare-devil her son isgettin' to be. She would cut off his allowance and bring him home, andyou would have the runnin' all to yourself. "

"I'll fix him yet, " muttered Mr. McLean. "Him and his wars. "

With that he rose and left us. 

The next afternoon he informed me that if I was riding up the creek tospend the night he would go for company. In that direction we started, therefore, without any mention of the Taylors or Miss Peck. I waspuzzled. Never had I seen him thus disconcerted by woman. With him womanhad been a transient disturbance. I had witnessed a series of flightyromances, where the cow-puncher had come, seen, often conquered, andmoved on. Nor had his affairs been of the sort to teach a young manrespect. I am putting it rather mildly. 

For the first part of our way this afternoon he was moody, and afterthat began to speak with appalling wisdom about life. Life, he said, wasa serious matter. Did I realize that? A man was liable to forget it. Aman was liable to go sporting and helling around till he waked up someday and found all his best pleasures had become just a business. Nointerest, no surprise, no novelty left, and no cash in the bank. Shortyowed him fifty dollars. Shorty would be able to pay that after theround-up, and he, Lin, would get his time and rustle altogether somefive hundred dollars. Then there was his homestead claim on Box Elder, and the surveyors were coming in this fall. No better location for ahome in this country than Box Elder. Wood, water, fine land. All itneeded was a house and ditches and buildings and fences, and to beplanted with crops. Such chances and considerations should sober aman and make him careful what he did. "I'd take in Cheyenne on ourwedding-trip, and after that I'd settle right down to improving BoxElder, " concluded Mr. McLean, suddenly. 

His real intentions flashed upon me for the first time. I had notremotely imagined such a step. 

"Marry her!" I screeched in dismay. "Marry her!"

I don't know which word was the worse to emphasize at such a moment, butI emphasized both thoroughly. 

"I didn't expect yu'd act that way, " said the lover. He dropped behindme fifty yards and spoke no more. 

Not at once did I beg his pardon for the brutality I had been surprisedinto. It is one of those speeches that, once said, is said forever. 

But it was not that which withheld me. As I thought of the tone in whichmy friend had replied, it seemed to me sullen, rather than deeply angryor wounded--resentment at my opinion not of her character so much asof his choice! Then I began to be sorry for the fool, and schemed fora while how to intervene. But have you ever tried intervention? I soonabandoned the idea, and took a way to be forgiven, and to learn more. 

"Lin, " I began, slowing my horse, "you must not think about what Isaid. "

"I'm thinkin' of pleasanter subjects, " said he, and slowed his ownhorse. 

"Oh, look here!" I exclaimed. 

"Well?" said he. He allowed his horse to come within about ten yards. 

"Astonishment makes a man say anything, " I proceeded. "And I'll sayagain you're too good for her--and I'll say I don't generally believe inthe wife being older than the husband. "

"What's two years?" said Lin. 

I was near screeching out again, but saved myself. He was not quitetwenty-five, and I remembered Mrs. Taylor's unprejudiced computationof the biscuit-shooter's years. It is a lady's prerogative, however, toestimate her own age. 

"She had her twenty-seventh birthday last month, " said Lin, withsentiment, bringing his horse entirely abreast of mine. "I promised hera bear-skin. "

"Yes, " said I, "I heard about that in Buffalo. "

Lin's face grew dusky with anger. "No doubt yu' heard about it, " saidhe. "I don't guess yu' heard much about anything else. I ain't toldthe truth to any of 'em--but her. " He looked at me with a certainhesitation. "I think I will, " he continued. "I don't mind tellin' you. "

He began to speak in a strictly business tone, while he evened the coilsof rope that hung on his saddle. 

"She had spoke to me about her birthday, and I had spoke to her aboutsomething to give her. I had offered to buy her in town whatever shenamed, and I was figuring to borrow from Taylor. But she fancied thenotion of a bear-skin. I had mentioned about some cubs. I had found thecubs where the she-bear had them cached by the foot of a big boulder inthe range over Ten Sleep, and I put back the leaves and stuff on top o'them little things as near as I could the way I found them, so that thebear would not suspicion me. For I was aiming to get her. And Miss Peck, she sure wanted the hide for her birthday. So I went back. The she-bearwas off, and I crumb up inside the rock, and I waited a turruble longspell till the sun travelled clean around the canyon. Mrs. Bear comehome though, a big cinnamon; and I raised my gun, but laid it down tosee what she'd do. She scrapes around and snuffs, and the cubs startwhining, and she talks back to 'em. Next she sits up awful big, andlifts up a cub and holds it to her close with both her paws, same as aperson. And she rubbed her ear agin the cub, and the cub sort o' nippedher, and she cuffed the cub, and the other cub came toddlin', and awaythey starts rolling all three of 'em! I watched that for a long while. That big thing just nursed and played with them little cubs, beatin' emfor a change onced in a while, and talkin', and onced in a while she'dsit up solemn and look all around so life-like that I near busted. Why, how was I goin' to spoil that? So I come away, very quiet, you bet! forI'd have hated to have Mrs. Bear notice me. Miss Peck, she laughed. Sheclaimed I was scared to shoot. "

"After you had told her why it was?" said I. 

"Before and after. I didn't tell her first, because I felt kind offoolish. Then Tommy went and he killed the bear all right, and she hasthe skin now. Of course the boys joshed me a heap about gettin' beat byTommy. "

"But since she has taken you?" said I. 

"She ain't said it. But she will when she understands Tommy. "

I fancied that the lady understood. The once I had seen her she appearedto me as what might be termed an expert in men, and one to understandalso the reality of Tommy's ranch and allowance, and how greatly thesediffered from Box Elder. Probably the one thing she could not understandwas why Lin spared the mother and her cubs. A deserted home in Dubuque, a career in a railroad eating-house, a somewhat vague past, and apresent lacking context--indeed, I hoped with all my heart that Tommywould win!

"Lin, " said I, "I'm backing him. "

"Back away!" said he. "Tommy can please a woman--him and his blueeyes--but he don't savvy how to make a woman want him, not any betterthan he knows about killin' Injuns. "

"Did you hear about the Crows?" said I. 

"About young bucks going on the war-path? Shucks! That's put up by thepapers of this section. They're aimin' to get Uncle Sam to order histroops out, and then folks can sell hay and stuff to 'em. If Tommybelieved any Crows--" he stopped, and suddenly slapped his leg. 

"What's the matter now?" I asked. 

"Oh, nothing. " He took to singing, and his face grew roguish to its fullextent. "What made yu' say that to me?" he asked, presently. 

"Say what?"

"About marrying. Yu' don't think I'd better. "

"I don't. "

"Onced in a while yu' tell me I'm flighty. Well, I am. Whoop-ya!"

"Colts ought not to marry, " said I. 

"Sure!" said he. And it was not until we came in sight of theVirginian's black horse tied in front of Miss Wood's cabin nextthe Taylors' that Lin changed the lively course of thought that wasevidently filling his mind. 

"Tell yu', " said he, touching my arm confidentially and pointing tothe black horse, "for all her Vermont refinement she's a woman just thesame. She likes him dangling round her so earnest--him that no body eversaw dangle before. And he has quit spreein' with the boys. And what doeshe get by it? I am glad I was not raised good enough to appreciate theMiss Woods of this world, " he added, defiantly--"except at long range. "

At the Taylors' cabin we found Miss Wood sitting with her admirer, andTommy from Riverside come to admire Miss Peck. The biscuit-shooter mightpass for twenty-seven, certainly. Something had agreed with her--whetherthe medicine, or the mountain air, or so much masculine company;whatever had done it, she had bloomed into brutal comeliness. Her hairlooked curlier, her figure was shapelier, her teeth shone whiter, andher cheeks were a lusty, overbearing red. And there sat Molly Woodtalking sweetly to her big, grave Virginian; to look at them, there wasno doubt that he had been "raised good enough" to appreciate her, nomatter what had been his raising!

Lin greeted every one jauntily. "How are yu', Miss Peck? How are yu', Tommy?" said he. "Hear the news, Tommy? Crow Injuns on the war-path. "

"I declare!" said the biscuit-shooter. 

The Virginian was about to say something, but his eye met Lin's, andthen he looked at Tommy. Then what he did say was, "I hadn't been goin'to mention it to the ladies until it was right sure. "

"You needn't to be afraid, Miss Peck, " said Tommy. "There's lots of menhere. "

"Who's afraid?" said the biscuit-shooter. 

"Oh, " said Lin, "maybe it's like most news we get in this country. Twoweeks stale and a lie when it was fresh. "

"Of course, " said Tommy. 

"Hello, Tommy!" called Taylor from the lane. "Your horse has broke hisrein and run down the field. "

Tommy rose in disgust and sped after the animal. 

"I must be cooking supper now, " said Katie, shortly. 

"I'll stir for yu', " said Lin, grinning at her. 

"Come along then, " said she; and they departed to the adjacent kitchen. 

Miss Wood's gray eyes brightened with mischief. She looked at herVirginian, and she looked at me. 

"Do you know, " she said, "I used to be so afraid that when Bear Creekwasn't new any more it might become dull!"

"Miss Peck doesn't find it dull either, " said I. 

Molly Wood immediately assumed a look of doubt. "But mightn't it becomejust--just a little trying to have two gentlemen so very--determined, you know?"

"Only one is determined, " said the Virginian

Molly looked inquiring. 

"Lin is determined Tommy shall not beat him. That's all it amounts to. "

"Dear me, what a notion!"

"No, ma'am, no notion. Tommy--well, Tommy is considered harmless, ma'am. A cow-puncher of reputation in this country would cert'nly never letTommy get ahaid of him that way. "

"It's pleasant to know sometimes how much we count!" exclaimed Molly. 

"Why, ma'am, " said the Virginian, surprised at her flash of indignation, "where is any countin' without some love?"

"Do you mean to say that Mr. McLean does not care for Miss Peck?"

"I reckon he thinks he does. But there is a mighty wide differencebetween thinkin' and feelin', ma'am. "

I saw Molly's eyes drop from his, and I saw the rose deepen in hercheeks. But just then a loud voice came from the kitchen. 

"You, Lin, if you try any of your foolin' with me, I'll histe yu's overthe jiste!"

"All cow-punchers--" I attempted to resume. 

"Quit now, Lin McLean, " shouted the voice, "or I'll put yus through thatwindow, and it shut. "

"Well, Miss Peck, I'm gettin' most a full dose o' this treatment. Eversince yu' come I've been doing my best. And yu' just cough in my face. And now I'm going to quit and cough back. "

"Would you enjoy walkin' out till supper, ma'am?" inquired the Virginianas Molly rose. "You was speaking of gathering some flowers yondeh. "

"Why, yes, " said Molly, blithely. "And you'll come?" she added to me. 

But I was on the Virginian's side. "I must look after my horse, " said I, and went down to the corral. 

Day was slowly going as I took my pony to the water. Corncliff Mesa, Crowheart Butte, these shone in the rays that came through the canyon. The canyon's sides lifted like tawny castles in the same light. WhereI walked the odor of thousands of wild roses hung over the margin wherethe thickets grew. High in the upper air, magpies were sailing acrossthe silent blue. Somewhere I could hear Tommy explaining loudly how heand General Crook had pumped lead into hundreds of Indians; and whensupper-time brought us all back to the door he was finishing the accountto Mrs. Taylor. Molly and the Virginian arrived bearing flowers, and hewas saying that few cow-punchers had any reason for saving their money. 

"But when you get old?" said she. 

"We mostly don't live long enough to get old, ma'am, " said he, simply. "But I have a reason, and I am saving. "

"Give me the flowers, " said Molly. And she left him to arrange them onthe table as Lin came hurrying out. 

"I've told her, " said he to the Southerner and me, "that I've asked hertwiced, and I'm going to let her have one more chance. And I've told herthat if it's a log cabin she's marryin', why Tommy is a sure good woodenpiece of furniture to put inside it. And I guess she knows there's notmuch wooden furniture about me. I want to speak to you. " He took theVirginian round the corner. But though he would not confide in me, Ibegan to discern something quite definite at supper. 

"Cattle men will lose stock if the Crows get down as far as this, " hesaid, casually, and Mrs. Taylor suppressed a titter. 

"Ain't it hawses the're repawted as running off?" said the Virginian. 

"Chap come into the round-up this afternoon, " said Lin. "But he wasrattled, and told a heap o' facts that wouldn't square. "

"Of course they wouldn't, " said Tommy, haughtily. 

"Oh, there's nothing in it, " said Lin, dismissing the subject. 

"Have yu' been to the opera since we went to Cheyenne, Mrs. Taylor?"

Mrs. Taylor had not. 

"Lin, " said the Virginian, "did yu ever see that opera Cyarmen?"

"You bet. Fellow's girl quits him for a bullfighter. Gets him up inthe mountains, and quits him. He wasn't much good--not in her class o'sports, smugglin' and such. "

"I reckon she was doubtful of him from the start. Took him to themount'ins to experiment, where they'd not have interruption, " said theVirginian. 

"Talking of mountains, " said Tommy, "this range here used to be a greatplace for Indians till we ran 'em out with Terry. Pumped lead into thered sons-of-guns. "

"You bet, " said Lin. "Do yu' figure that girl tired of her bull-fighterand quit him, too?"

"I reckon, " replied the Virginian, "that the bull-fighter wore better. "

"Fans and taverns and gypsies and sportin', " said Lin. "My! but I'd liketo see them countries with oranges and bull-fights! Only I expect Spain, maybe, ain't keepin' it up so gay as when 'Carmen' happened. "

The table-talk soon left romance and turned upon steers and alfalfa, agrass but lately introduced in the country. No further mention was madeof the hostile Crows, and from this I drew the false conclusion thatTommy had not come up to their hopes in the matter of reciting hiscampaigns. But when the hour came for those visitors who were notspending the night to take their leave, Taylor drew Tommy aside with me, and I noticed the Virginian speaking with Molly Wood, whose face showeddiversion. 

"Don't seem to make anything of it, " whispered Taylor to Tommy, "but theladies have got their minds on this Indian truck. "

"Why, I'll just explain--" began Tommy. 

"Don't, " whispered Lin, joining us. "Yu' know how women are. Once theytake a notion, why, the more yu' deny the surer they get. Now, yu' see, him and me" (he jerked his elbow towards the Virginian) "must go back tocamp, for we're on second relief. "

"And the ladies would sleep better knowing there was another man in thehouse, " said Taylor. 

"In that case, " said Tommy, "I--"

"Yu' see, " said Lin, "they've been told about Ten Sleep being burned twonights ago. "

"It ain't!" cried Tommy. 

"Why, of course it ain't, " drawled the ingenious Lin. "But that's what Isay. You and I know Ten Sleep's all right, but we can't report fromour own knowledge seeing it all right, and there it is. They get thesenervous notions. "

"Just don't appear to make anything special of not going back toRiverside, " repeated Taylor, "but--"

"But just kind of stay here, " said Lin. 

"I will!" exclaimed Tommy. "Of course, I'm glad to oblige. "

I suppose I was slow-sighted. All this pains seemed to me larger thanits results. They had imposed upon Tommy, yes. But what of that? Hewas to be kept from going back to Riverside until morning. Unless theyproposed to visit his empty cabin and play tricks--but that would betoo childish, even for Lin McLean, to say nothing of the Virginian, hisoccasional partner in mischief. 

"In spite of the Crows, " I satirically told the ladies, "I shall sleepoutside, as I intended. I've no use for houses at this season. "

The cinches of the horses were tightened, Lin and the Virginian laida hand on their saddle-horns, swung up, and soon all sound of thegalloping horses had ceased. Molly Wood declined to be nervous andcrossed to her little neighbor cabin; we all parted, and (as always inthat blessed country) deep sleep quickly came to me. 

I don't know how long after it was that I sprang from my blankets inhalf-doubting fright. But I had dreamed nothing. A second long, wild yell now gave me (I must own to it) a horrible chill. I had nopistol--nothing. In the hateful brightness of the moon my single thoughtwas "House! House!" and I fled across the lane in my underclothes tothe cabin, when round the corner whirled the two cow-punchers, and Iunderstood. I saw the Virginian catch sight of me in my shirt, and sawhis teeth as he smiled. I hastened to my blankets, and returned moredecent to stand and watch the two go shooting and yelling roundthe cabin, crazy with their youth. The door was opened, and Taylorcourageously emerged, bearing a Winchester. He fired at the skyimmediately. 

"B' gosh!" he roared. "That's one. " He fired again. "Out and at 'em. They're running. "

At this, duly came Mrs. Taylor in white with a pistol, and Miss Peck inwhite, staring and stolid. But no Tommy. Noise prevailed without, shotsby the stable and shots by the creek. The two cow-punchers dismountedand joined Taylor. Maniac delight seized me, and I, too, rushed aboutwith them, helping the din. 

"Oh, Mr. Taylor!" said a voice. "I didn't think it of you. " It was MollyWood, come from her cabin, very pretty in a hood-and-cloak arrangement. She stood by the fence, laughing, but more at us than with us. 

"Stop, friends!" said Taylor, gasping. "She teaches my Bobbie his A B C. I'd hate to have Bobbie--"

"Speak to your papa, " said Molly, and held her scholar up on the fence. 

"Well, I'll be gol-darned, " said Taylor, surveying his costume, "if LinMcLean hasn't made a fool of me to-night!"

"Where has Tommy got?" said Mrs. Taylor. 

"Didn't yus see him?" said the biscuit-shooter speaking her first wordin all this. 

We followed her into the kitchen. The table was covered with tin plates. Beneath it, wedged knelt Tommy with a pistol firm in his hand; but theplates were rattling up and down like castanets. 

There was a silence among us, and I wondered what we were going to do. 

"Well, " murmured the Virginian to himself, "if I could have foresaw, I'dnot--it makes yu' feel humiliated yu'self. "

He marched out, got on his horse, and rode away. Lin followed him, butperhaps less penitently. We all dispersed without saying anything, and presently from my blankets I saw poor Tommy come out of the silentcabin, mount, and slowly, very slowly, ride away. He would spend thenight at Riverside, after all. 

Of course we recovered from our unexpected shame, and the tale of thetable and the dancing plates was not told as a sad one. But it is a sadone when you think of it. 

I was not there to see Lin get his bride. I learned from the Virginianhow the victorious puncher had ridden away across the sunny sagebrush, bearing the biscuit-shooter with him to the nearest justice of thepeace. She was astride the horse he had brought for her. 

"Yes, he beat Tommy, " said the Virginian. "Some folks, anyway, get whatthey want in this hyeh world. "

From which I inferred that Miss Molly Wood was harder to beat thanTommy. 

LIN McLEAN'S HONEY-MOON

Rain had not fallen for some sixty days, and for some sixty more therewas no necessity that it should fall. It is spells of weather like thisthat set the Western editor writing praise and prophecy of the boundlessfertility of the soil--when irrigated, and of what an Eden it can bemade--with irrigation; but the spells annoy the people who are tryingto raise the Eden. We always told the transient Eastern visitor, when hearrived at Cheyenne and criticised the desert, that anything would growhere--with irrigation; and sometimes he replied, unsympathetically, thatanything could fly--with wings. Then we would lead such a man out andshow him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if hewas thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-fivethousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden. One of theseEastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with theGovernor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to himthe glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country. Now theGovernor was about thirty-two, and until twenty-five had never gone Westfar enough to see over the top of the Alleghany Mountains. I was not apioneer myself; and why both of us should have pitied the New-Yorker'snarrowness so hard I cannot see. But we did. We spoke to him of the sizeof the country. We told him that his State could rattle round insideWyoming's stomach without any inconvenience to Wyoming, and he told usthat this was because Wyoming's stomach was empty. Altogether I began tofeel almost sorry that I had asked him to come out for a hunt, and hadtravelled in haste all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne expressly tomeet him. 

"For purposes of amusement, " he said, "I'll admit anything you claimfor this place. Ranches, cowboys, elk; it's all splendid. Only, as aninvestment I prefer the East. Am I to see any cowboys?"

"You shall, " I said; and I distinctly hoped some of them might dosomething to him "for purposes of amusement. "

"You fellows come up with me to my office, " said the Governor. "I'lllook at my mail, and show you round. " So we went with him through theheat and sun. 

"What's that?" inquired the New-Yorker, whom I shall call James Ogden. 

"That is our park, " said I. "Of course it's merely in embryo. It'swonderful how quickly any shade tree will grow here wi--" I checkedmyself. 

But Ogden said "with irrigation" for me, and I was entirely sorry he hadcome. 

We reached the Governor's office, and sat down while he looked hisletters over. 

"Here you are, Ogden, " said he. "Here's the way we hump ahead out here. "And he read us the following:

 "MAGAW, KANSAS, July 5, 188--

"Hon. Amory W. Baker:

"Sir, --Understanding that your district is suffering from a prolongeddrought, I write to say that for necessary expenses paid I will be gladto furnish you with a reasonably shower. I have operated successfullyin Australia, Mexico, and several States of the Union, and am anxious toexhibit my system. If your Legislature will appropriate a sum to cover, as I said, merely my necessary expenses--say $350 (three hundred andfifty dollars)--for half an inch I will guarantee you that quantity ofrain or forfeit the money. If I fail to give you the smallest fractionof the amount contracted for, there is to be no pay. Kindly advise me ofwhat date will be most convenient for you to have the shower. I requiretwenty-four hours' preparation. Hoping a favorable reply, "I am, respectfully yours, "Robert Hilbrun"

"Will the Legislature do it?" inquired Ogden in good faith. 

The Governor laughed boisterously. "I guess it wouldn't beconstitutional, " said he. 

"Oh, bother!" said Ogden. 

"My dear man, " the Governor protested, "I know we're new, and our womenvote, and we're a good deal of a joke, but we're not so progressivelyfunny as all that. The people wouldn't stand it. Senator Warren wouldfly right into my back hair. " Barker was also new as Governor. 

"Do you have Senators here too?" said Ogden, raising his eyebrows. "What do they look like? Are they females?" And the Governor grew moreboisterous than ever, slapping his knee and declaring that these Easternmen were certainly "out of sight". Ogden, however, was thoughtful. 

"I'd have been willing to chip in for that rain myself, " he said. 

"That's an idea!" cried the Governor. "Nothing unconstitutional aboutthat. Let's see. Three hundred and fifty dollars--"

"I'll put up a hundred, " said Ogden, promptly. "I'm out for a Westernvacation, and I'll pay for a good specimen. "

The Governor and I subscribed more modestly, and by noon, with the helpof some lively minded gentlemen of Cheyenne, we had the purse raised. "He won't care, " said the Governor, "whether it's a private enterpriseor a municipal step, so long as he gets his money. "

"He won't get it, I'm afraid, " said Ogden. "But if he succeeds intempting Providence to that extent, I consider it cheap. Now what do youcall those people there on the horses?"

We were walking along the track of the Cheyenne and Northern, andlooking out over the plain toward Fort Russell. "That is a cow-puncherand his bride, " I answered, recognizing the couple. 

"Real cow-puncher?"

"Quite. The puncher's name is Lin McLean. "

"Real bride?"

"I'm afraid so. "

"She's riding straddle!" exclaimed the delighted Ogden, adjusting hisglasses. "Why do you object to their union being holy?"

I explained that my friend Lin had lately married an eating-house ladyprecipitately and against my advice. 

"I suppose he knew his business, " observed Ogden. 

"That's what he said to me at the time. But you ought to see her--andknow him. "

Ogden was going to. Husband and wife were coming our way. Husband noddedto me his familiar offish nod, which concealed his satisfaction atmeeting with an old friend. Wife did not look at me at all. But I lookedat her, and I instantly knew that Lin--the fool!--had confided to her mydisapproval of their marriage. The most delicate specialty upon earth isyour standing with your old friend's new wife. 

"Good-day, Mr. McLean, " said the Governor to the cow-puncher on hishorse. 

"How're are yu', doctor, " said Lin. During his early days in Wyoming theGovernor, when as yet a private citizen, had set Mr. McLean's broken legat Drybone. "Let me make yu' known to Mrs. McLean, " pursued the husband. 

The lady, at a loss how convention prescribes the greeting of a bride toa Governor, gave a waddle on the pony's back, then sat up stiff, gazedhaughtily at the air, and did not speak or show any more sign than a cowwould under like circumstances. So the Governor marched cheerfully ather, extending his hand, and when she slightly moved out toward him herbig, dumb, red fist, he took it and shook it, and made her a series ofcompliments, she maintaining always the scrupulous reserve of the cow. 

"I say, " Ogden whispered to me while Barker was pumping the hand of theflesh image, "I'm glad I came. " The appearance of the puncher-bridegroomalso interested Ogden, and he looked hard at Lin's leather chaps andcartridge-belt and so forth. Lin stared at the New-Yorker, and his highwhite collar and good scarf. He had seen such things quite often, ofcourse, but they always filled him with the same distrust of the manthat wore them. 

"Well, " said he, "I guess we'll be pulling for a hotel. Any show intown? Circus come yet?"

"No, " said I. "Are you going to make a long stay?"

The cow-puncher glanced at the image, his bride of three weeks. "Tillwe're tired of it, I guess, " said he, with hesitation. It was the firsttime that I had ever seen my gay friend look timidly at any one, and Ifelt a rising hate for the ruby-checked, large-eyed eating-houselady, the biscuit-shooter whose influence was dimming this jaunty, irrepressible spirit. I looked at her. Her bulky bloom had ensnared him, and now she was going to tame and spoil him. The Governor was looking ather too, thoughtfully. 

"Say, Lin, " I said, "if you stay here long enough you'll see a bigshow. " And his eye livened into something of its native jocularity as Itold him of the rain-maker. 

"Shucks!" said he, springing from his horse impetuously, and hugelyentertained at our venture. "Three hundred and fifty dollars? Let mecome in"; and before I could tell him that we had all the money raised, he was hauling out a wadded lump of bills. 

"Well, I ain't going to starve here in the road, I guess, " spoke theimage, with the suddenness of a miracle. I think we all jumped, and Iknow that Lin did. The image continued: "Some folks and their money aresoon parted"--she meant me; her searching tones came straight at me; Iwas sure from the first that she knew all about me and my unfavorableopinion of her--"but it ain't going to be you this time, Lin McLean. Gedap!" This last was to the horse, I maintain, though the Governor saysthe husband immediately started off on a run. 

At any rate, they were gone to their hotel, and Ogden was seated on somerailroad ties, exclaiming: "Oh, I like Wyoming! I am certainly glad Icame. "

"That's who she is!" said the Governor, remembering Mrs. McLean all atonce. "I know her. She used to be at Sidney. She's got another husbandsomewhere. She's one of the boys. Oh, that's nothing in this country!"he continued to the amazed Ogden, who had ejaculated "Bigamy!" "Lots ofthem marry, live together awhile, get tired and quit, travel, catch onto a new man, marry him, get tired and quit, travel, catch on--"

"One moment, I beg, " said Ogden, adjusting his glasses. "What does thelaw--"

"Law?" said the Governor. "Look at that place!" He swept his handtowards the vast plains and the mountains. "Ninety-five thousand squaremiles of that, and sixty thousand people in it. We haven't got policemenyet on top of the Rocky Mountains. "

"I see, " said the New-Yorker. "But--but--well let A and B representfirst and second husbands, and X represent the woman. Now, does A knowabout B? or does B know about A? And what do they do about it?"

"Can't say, " the Governor answered, jovially. "Can't generalize. Dependson heaps of things--love--money--Did you go to college? Well, let Aminus X equal B plus X, then if A and B get squared--"

"Oh, come to lunch, " I said. "Barker, do you really know the firsthusband is alive?"

"Wasn't dead last winter. " And Barker gave us the particulars. MissKatie Peck had not served long in the restaurant before she waswooed and won by a man who had been a ranch cook, a sheep-herder, a bar-tender, a freight hand, and was then hauling poles for thegovernment. During his necessary absences from home she, too, wentout-of-doors. This he often discovered, and would beat her, and shewould then also beat him. After the beatings one of them would alwaysleave the other forever. Thus was Sidney kept in small-talk untilMrs. Lusk one day really did not come back. "Lusk, " said the Governor, finishing his story, "cried around the saloons for a couple of days, andthen went on hauling poles for the government, till at last he saidhe'd heard of a better job south, and next we knew of him he was roundLeavenworth. Lusk was a pretty poor bird. Owes me ten dollars. "

"Well, " I said, "none of us ever knew about him when she came to staywith Mrs. Taylor on Bear Creek. She was Miss Peck when Lin made her Mrs. McLean. "

"You'll notice, " said the Governor, "how she has got him under in threeweeks. Old hand, you see. "

"Poor Lin!" I said. 

"Lucky, I call him, " said the Governor. "He can quit her. "

"Supposing McLean does not want to quit her?"

"She's educating him to want to right now, and I think he'll learnpretty quick. I guess Mr. Lin's romance wasn't very ideal this trip. Hello! here comes Jode. Jode, won't you lunch with us? Mr. Ogden, of NewYork, Mr. Jode. Mr. Jode is our signal-service officer, Mr. Ogden. " TheGovernor's eyes were sparkling hilariously, and he winked at me. 

"Gentlemen, good-morning. Mr. Ogden, I am honored to make youracquaintance, " said the signal-service officer. 

"Jode, when is it going to rain?" said the Governor, anxiously. 

Now Jode is the most extraordinarily solemn man I have ever known. Hehas the solemnity of all science, added to the unspeakable weight ofrepresenting five of the oldest families in South Carolina. The Jodesthemselves were not old in South Carolina, but immensely so in--I thinkhe told me it was Long Island. His name is Poinsett Middleton ManigaultJode. He used to weigh a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then, but hishealth has strengthened in that climate. His clothes were black; hisface was white, with black eyes sharp as a pin; he had the shape of aspout--the same narrow size all the way down--and his voice was asdry and light as an egg-shell. In his first days at Cheyenne he hadconstantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities withhis dignity, and they, after one moment's bewilderment, had concoctedapologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them muchsatisfaction also. Nobody would have hurt Jode for the world. In time hecame to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules waspublished, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen, along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, andhe passed his careful, precise days with barometers and weather-charts. 

He answered the Governor with official and South Carolinaimpressiveness. "There is no indication of diminution of the prevailingpressure, " he said. 

"Well, that's what I thought, " said the joyous Governor, "so I'm goingto whoop her up. "

"What do you expect to whoop up, sir?"

"Atmosphere, and all that, " said the Governor. "Whole business has gotto get a move on. I've sent for a rain-maker. "

"Governor, you are certainly a wag, sir, " said Jode, who enjoyed Barkeras some people enjoy a symphony, without understanding it. But after wehad reached the club and were lunching, and Jode realized that a letterhad actually been written telling Hilbrun to come and bring his showerswith him, the punctilious signal-service officer stated his position. "Have your joke, sir, " he said, waving a thin, clean hand, "but Idecline to meet him. "

"Hilbrun?" said the Governor, staring. 

"If that's his name--yes, sir. As a member of the Weather Bureau and theMeteorological Society I can have nothing to do with the fellow. "

"Glory!" said the Governor. "Well, I suppose not. I see your point, Jode. I'll be careful to keep you apart. As a member of the College ofPhysicians I've felt that way about homeopathy and the faith-cure. All very well if patients will call 'em in, but can't meet 'em inconsultation. But three months' drought annually, Jode! It's slow--tooslow. The Western people feel that this conservative method the Zodiacdoes its business by is out of date. "

"I am quite serious, sir, " said Jode. "And let me express mygratification that you do see my point. " So we changed the subject. 

Our weather scheme did not at first greatly move the public. Beyondthose who made up the purse, few of our acquaintances expressedcuriosity about Hilbrun, and next afternoon Lin McLean told me inthe street that he was disgusted with Cheyenne's coldness toward theenterprise. "But the boys would fly right at it and stay with it if theround-up was near town, you bet, " said he. 

He was walking alone. "How's Mrs. McLean to-day?" I inquired. 

"She's well, " said Lin, turning his eye from mine. "Who's your friendall bugged up in English clothes?"

"About as good a man as you, " said I, "and more cautious. "

"Him and his eye-glasses!" said the sceptical puncher, still lookingaway from me and surveying Ogden, who was approaching with the Governor. That excellent man, still at long range, broke out smiling till histeeth shone, and he waved a yellow paper at us. 

"Telegram from Hilbrun, " he shouted; "be here to-morrow"; and hehastened up. 

"Says he wants a cart at the depot, and a small building where he can beprivate, " added Ogden. "Great, isn't it?"

"You bet!" said Lin, brightening. The New Yorker's urbane but obviousexcitement mollified Mr. McLean. "Ever seen rain made, Mr. Ogden?" saidhe. 

"Never. Have you?"

Lin had not. Ogden offered him a cigar, which the puncher pronouncedexcellent, and we all agreed to see Hilbrun arrive. 

"We're going to show the telegram to Jode, " said the Governor; and heand Ogden departed on this mission to the signal service. 

"Well, I must be getting along myself, " said Lin; but he continuedwalking slowly with me. "Where're yu' bound?" he said. 

"Nowhere in particular, " said I. And we paced the board sidewalks alittle more. 

"You're going to meet the train to-morrow?" said he. 

"The train? Oh yes. Hilbrun's. To-morrow. You'll be there?"

"Yes, I'll be there. It's sure been a dry spell, ain't it?"

"Yes. Just like last year. In fact, like all the years. "

"Yes. I've never saw it rain any to speak of in summer. I expect it'sthe rule. Don't you?"

"I shouldn't wonder. "

"I don't guess any man knows enough to break such a rule. Do you?"

"No. But it'll be fun to see him try. "

"Sure fun! Well, I must be getting along. See yu' to-morrow. "

"See you to-morrow, Lin. "

He left me at a corner, and I stood watching his tall, depressed figure. A hundred yards down the street he turned, and seeing me looking afterhim, pretended he had not turned; and then I took my steps toward theclub, telling myself that I had been something of a skunk; for I hadinquired for Mrs. McLean in a certain tone, and I had hinted to Lin thathe had lacked caution; and this was nothing but a way of saying "I toldyou so" to the man that is down. Down Lin certainly was, although it hadnot come so home to me until our little walk together just now along theboards. 

At the club I found the Governor teaching Ogden a Cheyenne specialty--aparticular drink, the Allston cocktail. "It's the bitters that does thetrick, " he was saying, but saw me and called out: "You ought to havebeen with us and seen Jode. I showed him the telegram, you know. He readit through, and just handed it back to me, and went on monkeying withhis anemometer. Ever seen his instruments? Every fresh jigger they getout he sends for. Well, he monkeyed away, and wouldn't say a word, soI said, 'You understand, Jode, this telegram comes from Hilbrun. ' AndJode, he quit his anemometer and said, 'I make no doubt, sir, that yourdespatch is genuwine. ' Oh, South Carolina's indignant at me!" Andthe Governor slapped his knee. "Why, he's so set against Hilbrun, " hecontinued, "I guess if he knew of something he could explode to stoprain he'd let her fly!"

"No, he wouldn't, " said I. "He'd not consider that honorable. "

"That's so, " the Governor assented. "Jode'll play fair. "

It was thus we had come to look at our enterprise--a game between awell-established, respectable weather bureau and an upstart charlatan. And it was the charlatan had our sympathy--as all charlatans, whetherreligious, military, medical, political, or what not, have with theaverage American. We met him at the station. That is, Ogden, McLean, andI; and the Governor, being engaged, sent (unofficially) his secretaryand the requested cart. Lin was anxious to see what would be put in thecart, and I was curious about how a rain-maker would look. But he turnedout an unassuming, quiet man in blue serge, with a face you could notremember afterwards, and a few civil, ordinary remarks. He even said itwas a hot day, as if he had no relations with the weather; and what heput into the cart were only two packing-boxes of no special significanceto the eye. He desired no lodging at the hotel, but to sleep with hisapparatus in the building provided for him; and we set out for it atonce. It was an untenanted barn, and he asked that he and his assistantmight cut a hole in the roof, upon which we noticed the assistant forthe first time--a tallish, good-looking young man, but with a weakmouth. "This is Mr. Lusk, " said the rain-maker; and we shook hands, Ogden and I exchanging a glance. Ourselves and the cart marched up HillStreet--or Capitol Avenue, as it has become named since Cheyenne hasgrown fuller of pomp and emptier of prosperity--and I thought we made anunusual procession: the Governor's secretary, unofficially leading theway to the barn; the cart, and the rain-maker beside it, guarding hispacked-up mysteries; McLean and Lusk, walking together in unconsciousbigamy; and in the rear, Odgen nudging me in the ribs. That it was thecorrect Lusk we had with us I felt sure from his incompetent, healthy, vacant appearance, strong-bodied and shiftless--the sort of man to wearyof one trade and another, and make a failure of wife beating betweenwhiles. In Twenty-fourth Street--the town's uttermost rim--the Governormet us, and stared at Lusk. "Christopher!" was his single observation;but he never forgets a face--cannot afford to, now that he is inpolitics; and, besides, Lusk remembered him. You seldom really forget aman to whom you owe ten dollars. 

"So you've quit hauling poles?" said the Governor. 

"Nothing in it, sir, " said Lusk. 

"Is there any objection to my having a hole in the roof?" asked therain-maker; for this the secretary had been unable to tell him. 

"What! going to throw your bombs through it?" said the Governor, smilingheartily. 

But the rain-maker explained at once that his was not the bomb system, but a method attended by more rain and less disturbance. "Not thatthe bomb don't produce first-class results at times and undercircumstances, " he said, "but it's uncertain and costly. "

The Governor hesitated about the hole in the roof, which Hilbrun toldus was for a metal pipe to conduct his generated gases into the air. Theowner of the barn had gone to Laramie. However, we found a stove-pipehole, which saved delay. "And what day would you prefer the shower?"said Hilbrun, after we had gone over our contract with him. 

"Any day would do, " the Governor said. 

This was Thursday; and Sunday was chosen, as a day when no one hadbusiness to detain him from witnessing the shower--though it seemed tome that on week-days, too, business in Cheyenne was not so inexorableas this. We gave the strangers some information about the town, and leftthem. The sun went away in a cloudless sky, and came so again when thestars had finished their untarnished shining. Friday was clear and dryand hot, like the dynasty of blazing days that had gone before. 

I saw a sorry spectacle in the street--the bridegroom and the brideshopping together; or, rather, he with his wad of bills was obedientlypaying for what she bought; and when I met them he was carrying ascarlet parasol and a bonnet-box. His biscuit-shooter, with the lust ofpurchase on her, was brilliantly dressed, and pervaded the street withsplendor, like an escaped parrot. Lin walked beside her, but it might aswell have been behind, and his bearing was so different from hiswonted happy-go-luckiness that I had a mind to take off my hat and say, "Good-morning, Mrs. Lusk. " But it was "Mrs. McLean" I said, of course. She gave me a remote, imperious nod, and said, "Come on, Lin, "something like a cross nurse, while he, out of sheer decency, made her agood-humored, jocular answer, and said to me, "It takes a woman to knowwhat to buy for house-keepin, "; which poor piece of hypocrisy endearedhim to me more than ever. The puncher was not of the fibre to succeed inkeeping appearances, but he deserved success, which the angels considerto be enough. I wondered if disenchantment had set in, or if this wereonly the preliminary stage of surprise and wounding, and I felt that butone test could show, namely, a coming face to face of Mr. And Mrs. Lusk, perhaps not to be desired. Neither was it likely. The assistantrain-maker kept himself steadfastly inside or near the barn, at thenorth corner of Cheyenne, while the bride, when she was in the street atall, haunted the shops clear across town diagonally. 

On this Friday noon the appearance of the metal tube above the blindbuilding spread some excitement. It moved several of the citizens to paythe place a visit and ask to see the machine. These callers, of course, sustained a polite refusal, and returned among their friends with acontempt for such quackery, and a greatly heightened curiosity; so thatpretty soon you could hear discussions at the street corners, and bySaturday morning Cheyenne was talking of little else. The town prowledabout the barn and its oracular metal tube, and heard and saw nothing. The Governor and I (let it be confessed) went there ourselves, since thetwenty-four hours of required preparation were now begun. We smelled forchemicals, and he thought there was a something, but having been bred adoctor, distrusted his imagination. I could not be sure myself whetherthere was anything or not, although I walked three times round thebarn, snuffing as dispassionately as I knew how. It might possibly bechlorine, the Governor said, or some gas for which ammonia was in partresponsible; and this was all he could say, and we left the place. Theworld was as still and the hard, sharp hills as clear and near as ever;and the sky over Sahara is not more dry and enduring than was ours. This tenacity in the elements plainly gave Jode a malicious officialpleasure. We could tell it by his talk at lunch; and when the Governorreminded him that no rain was contracted for until the next day, hementioned that the approach of a storm is something that modern scienceis able to ascertain long in advance; and he bade us come to his officewhenever we pleased, and see for ourselves what science said. This was, at any rate, something to fill the afternoon with, and we went to himabout five. Lin McLean joined us on the way. I came upon him lingeringalone in the street, and he told me that Mrs. McLean was calling onfriends. I saw that he did not know how to spend the short recess orholiday he was having. He seemed to cling to the society of others, andwith them for the time regain his gayer mind. He had become convertedto Ogden, and the New-Yorker, on his side, found pleasant and refreshingthis democracy of Governors and cow-punchers. Jode received us at thesignal-service office, and began to show us his instruments with thecareful pride of an orchid-collector. 

"A hair hygrometer, " he said to me, waving his wax-like hand over it. "The indications are obtained from the expansion and contraction ofa prepared human hair, transferred to an index needle traversing thedivided arc of--"

"What oil do you put on the human hair Jode?" called out the Governor, who had left our group, and was gamboling about by himself among thetubes and dials. "What will this one do?" he asked, and poked at a wetpaper disc. But before the courteous Jode could explain that it hadto do with evaporation and the dew-point, the Governor's attentionwandered, and he was blowing at a little fan-wheel. This instantlyrevolved and set a number of dial hands going different ways. "Hi!" saidthe Governor, delighted. "Seen 'em like that down mines. Register airvelocity in feet. Put it away, Jode. You don't want that to-morrow. Whatyou'll need, Hilbrun says, is a big old rain-gauge and rubber shoes. "

"I shall require nothing of the sort, Governor, " Jode retorted at once. "And you can go to church without your umbrella in safety, sir. Seethere. " He pointed to a storm-glass, which was certainly as clear ascrystal. "An old-fashioned test, you will doubtless say, gentlemen, "Jode continued--though none of us would have said anything likethat--"but unjustly discredited; and, furthermore, its testimony is wellcorroborated, as you will find you must admit. " Jode's voice was almostthreatening, and he fetched one corroborator after another. I lookedpassively at wet and dry bulbs, at self-recording, dotted registers;I caught the fleeting sound of words like "meniscus" and "terrestrialminimum thermometer, " and I nodded punctually when Jode went throughsome calculation. At last I heard something that I could understand--aseries of telegraphic replies to Jode from brother signal-serviceofficers all over the United States. He read each one through from dateof signature, and they all made any rain to-morrow entirely impossible. "And I tell you, " Jode concluded, in his high, egg-shell voice, "there'sno chance of precipitation now, sir. I tell you, sir, "--he was shriekingjubilantly--"there's not a damn' thing to precipitate!"

We left him in his triumph among his glass and mercury. "Gee whiz!" saidthe Governor. "I guess we'd better go and tell Hilbrun it's no use. "

We went, and Hilbrun smiled with a certain compassion for the antiquatedscientist. "That's what they all say, " he said. "I'll do my talkingto-morrow. "

"If any of you gentlemen, or your friends, " said Assistant Lusk, stepping up, "feel like doing a little business on this, I am ready toaccommodate you. "

"What do yu' want this evenin'?" said Lin McLean, promptly. 

"Five to one, " said Lusk. 

"Go yu' in twenties, " said the impetuous puncher; and I now perceivedthis was to be a sporting event. Lin had his wad of bills out--orwhat of it still survived his bride's shopping. "Will you hold stakes, doctor?" he said to the Governor. 

But that official looked at the clear sky, and thought he would do fiveto one in twenties himself. Lusk accommodated him, and then Ogden, andthen me. None of us could very well be stake-holder, but we registeredour bets, and promised to procure an uninterested man by eight nextmorning. I have seldom had so much trouble, and I never saw such auniversal search for ready money. Every man we asked to hold stakesinstantly whipped out his own pocketbook, went in search of Lusk, anddisqualified himself. It was Jode helped us out. He would not bet, butwas anxious to serve, and thus punish the bragging Lusk. 

Sunday was, as usual, chronically fine, with no cloud or breezeanywhere, and by the time the church-bells were ringing, ten to one wasfreely offered. The biscuit-shooter went to church with her friends, soshe might wear her fine clothes in a worthy place, while her furloughedhusband rushed about Cheyenne, entirely his own old self again, his wadof money staked and in Jode's keeping. Many citizens bitterly lamentedtheir lack of ready money. But it was a good thing for these people thatit was Sunday, and the banks closed. 

The church-bells ceased; the congregations sat inside, but outsidethe hot town showed no Sunday emptiness or quiet. The metal tube, the possible smell, Jode's sustained and haughty indignation, theextraordinary assurance of Lusk, all this had ended by turning every onerestless and eccentric. A citizen came down the street with an umbrella. In a moment the by-standers had reduced it to a sordid tangle of ribs. Old Judge Burrage attempted to address us at the corner about the vastprogress of science. The postmaster pinned a card on his back with thewell-known legend, "I am somewhat of a liar myself. " And all the whilethe sun shone high and hot, while Jode grew quieter and colder under thecertainty of victory. It was after twelve o'clock when the people camefrom church, and no change or sign was to be seen. Jode told us, witha chill smile, that he had visited his instruments and found no newindications. Fifteen minutes after that the sky was brown. Sudden, padded, dropsical clouds were born in the blue above our heads. Theyblackened, and a smart shower, the first in two months, wet us all, and ceased. The sun blazed out, and the sky came blue again, like thoserapid, unconvincing weather changes of the drama. 

Amazement at what I saw happening in the heavens took me from thingson earth, and I was unaware of the universal fit that now seizedupon Cheyenne until I heard the high cry of Jode at my ear. His usualpunctilious bearing had forsaken him, and he shouted alike to strangerand acquaintance: "It is no half-inch, sir! Don't you tell me"' And thecrowd would swallow him, but you could mark his vociferous course ashe went proclaiming to the world. "A failure, sir! The fellow's animpostor, as I well knew. It's no half-inch!" Which was true. 

"What have you got to say to that?" we asked Hilbrun, swarming aroundhim. 

"If you'll just keep cool, " said he--"it's only the first instalment. Inabout two hours and a half I'll give you the rest. "

Soon after four the dropsical clouds materialized once again aboveopen-mouthed Cheyenne. No school let out for an unexpected holiday, noherd of stampeded range cattle, conducts itself more miscellaneously. Gray, respectable men, with daughters married, leaped over fencesand sprang back, prominent legislators hopped howling up and downdoor-steps, women waved handkerchiefs from windows and porches, thechattering Jode flew from anemometer to rain-gauge, and old JudgeBurrage apostrophized Providence in his front yard, with thepostmaster's label still pinned to his back. Nobody minded the sluicingdownpour--this second instalment was much more of a thing than thefirst--and Hilbrun alone kept a calm exterior--the face of the man wholifts a heavy dumb-bell and throws an impressive glance at the audience. Assistant Lusk was by no means thus proof against success I saw him puta bottle back in his pocket, his face already disintegrated with a tipsyleer. Judge Burrage, perceiving the rain-maker, came out of his gateand proceeded toward him, extending the hand of congratulation. "Mr. Hilbrun, " said he, "I am Judge Burrage--the Honorable T. ColemanBurrage--and I will say that I am most favorably impressed with yourshower. "

"His shower!" yelped Jode, flourishing measurements. 

"Why, yu' don't claim it's yourn, do yu'?" said Lin McLean, grinning. 

"I tell you it's no half-inch yet, gentlemen, " said Jode, ignoring thefacetious puncher. 

"You're mistaken, " said Hilbrun, sharply. 

"It's a plumb big show, half-inch or no half-inch, " said Lin. 

"If he's short he don't get his money, " said some ignoble subscriber

"Yes, he will, " said the Governor, "or I'm a short. He's earned it. "

"You bet "' said Lin. "Fair and square. If they're goin' back on yu', doctor, I'll chip--Shucks!" Lin's hand fell from the empty pocket;he remembered his wad in the stake-holder's hands, and that he nowpossessed possibly two dollars in silver, all told. "I can't chipin, doctor, " he said. "That hobo over there has won my cash, an' he'sfilling up on the prospect right now. I don't care! It's the biggestshow I've ever saw. You're a dandy, Mr. Hilbrun! Whoop!" And Linclapped the rain-maker on the shoulder, exulting. He had been too wellentertained to care what he had in his pocket, and his wife had not yetoccurred to him. 

They were disputing about the rainfall, which had been slightly underhalf an inch in a few spots, but over it in many others; and while westood talking in the renewed sunlight, more telegrams were brought toJode, saying that there was no moisture anywhere, and simultaneouslywith these, riders dashed into town with the news that twelve miles outthe rain had flattened the grain crop. We had more of such reports fromas far as thirty miles, and beyond that there had not been a drop or acloud. It staggered one's reason; the brain was numb with surprise. 

"Well, gentlemen, " said the rain-maker, "I'm packed up, and my train'llbe along soon--would have been along by this, only it's late. What's theword as to my three hundred and fifty dollars?"

Even still there were objections expressed. He had not entirelyperformed his side of the contract. 

"I think different, gentlemen, " said he. "But I'll unpack and let thattrain go. I can't have the law on you, I suppose. But if you don't payme" (the rain-maker put his hands in his pockets and leaned against thefence) "I'll flood your town. "

In earthquakes and eruptions people end by expecting anything; and inthe total eclipse that was now over all Cheyenne's ordinary standardsand precedents the bewildered community saw in this threat nothing moreunusual than if he had said twice two made four. The purse was handedover. 

"I'm obliged, " said Hilbrun, simply. 

"If I had foreseen, gentlemen, " said Jode, too deeply grieved now tofeel anger, "that I would even be indirectly associated with your losingyour money through this--this absurd occurrence, I would have declinedto help you. It becomes my duty, " he continued, turning coldly tothe inebriated Lusk, "to hand this to you, sir. " And the assistantlurchingly stuffed his stakes away. 

"It's worth it, " said Lin. "He's welcome to my cash. "

"What's that you say, Lin McLean?" It was the biscuit-shooter, and shesurged to the front. 

"I'm broke. He's got it. That's all, " said Lin, briefly. 

"Broke! You!" She glared at her athletic young lord, and she uttered apreliminary howl. 

At that long-lost cry Lusk turned his silly face. "It's my darlingKate, " he said. "Why, Kate!"

The next thing that I knew Ogden and I were grappling with Lin McLean;for everything had happened at once. The bride had swooped upon herfirst wedded love and burst into tears on the man's neck, which Linwas trying to break in consequence. We do not always recognize ourbenefactors at sight. They all came to the ground, and we hauled thesecond husband off. The lady and Lusk remained in a heap, he foolish, tearful, and affectionate; she turned furiously at bay, his guardianangel, indifferent to the onlooking crowd, and hurling righteousdefiance at Lin. "Don't yus dare lay yer finger on my husband, yousage-brush bigamist!" is what the marvelous female said. 

"Bigamist?" repeated Lin, dazed at this charge. "I ain't, " he said toOgden and me. "I never did. I've never married any of 'em before her. "

"Little good that'll do yus, Lin McLean! Me and him was man and wifebefore ever I come acrosst yus. "

"You and him?" murmured the puncher. 

"Her and me, " whimpered Lusk. "Sidney. " He sat up with a limp, confidingstare at everybody. 

"Sidney who?" said Lin. 

"No, no, " corrected Lusk, crossly--"Sidney, Nebraska. "

The stakes at this point fell from his pocket which he did not notice. But the bride had them in safe-keeping at once. 

"Who are yu', anyway--when yu' ain't drunk?" demanded Lin. 

"He's as good a man as you, and better, " snorted the guardian angel. "Give him a pistol, and he'll make you hard to find. "

"Well, you listen to me, Sidney Nebraska--" Lin began. 

"No, no, " corrected Lusk once more, as a distant whistle blew--"Jim. "

"Good-bye, gentlemen, " said the rain-maker. "That's the west-bound. I'mperfectly satisfied with my experiment here, and I'm off to repeat it atSalt Lake City. "

"You are?" shouted Lin McLean. "Him and Jim's going to work it again!For goodness' sake, somebody lend me twenty-five dollars!"

At this there was an instantaneous rush. Ten minutes later, in front ofthe ticket-windows there was a line of citizens buying tickets for SaltLake as if it had been Madame Bernhardt. Some rock had been smitten, and ready money had flowed forth. The Governor saw us off, sad that hisduties should detain him. But Jode went!

"Betting is the fool's argument, gentlemen, " said he to Ogden, McLean, and me, "and it's a weary time since I have had the pleasure. "

"Which way are yu' bettin'?" Lin asked. 

"With my principles, sir, " answered the little signal-service officer. 

"I expect I ain't got any, " said the puncher. "It's Jim I'm backin' thistime. "

"See here, " said I; "I want to talk to you. " We went into another car, and I did. 

"And so yu' knowed about Lusk when we was on them board walks?" thepuncher said. 

"Do you mean I ought to have--"

"Shucks! no. Yu' couldn't. Nobody couldn't. It's a queer world, allthe same. Yu' have good friends, and all that. " He looked out of thewindow. "Laramie already!" he commented, and got out and walked byhimself on the platform until we had started again. "Yu' have goodfriends, " he pursued, settling himself so his long legs were stretchedand comfortable, "and they tell yu' things, and you tell them things. And when it don't make no particular matter one way or the other, yu'give 'em your honest opinion and talk straight to 'em, and they'llcome to you the same way. So that when yu're ridin' the range alonesometimes, and thinkin' a lot o' things over on top maybe of somedog-goned hill, you'll say to yourself about some fellow yu' know mightywell, 'There's a man is a good friend of mine. ' And yu' mean it. Andit's so. Yet when matters is serious, as onced in a while they're boundto get, and yu're in a plumb hole, where is the man then--your goodfriend? Why, he's where yu' want him to be. Standin' off, keepin' hismouth shut, and lettin' yu' find your own trail out. If he tried to showit to yu', yu'd likely hit him. But shucks! Circumstances have showedme the trail this time, you bet!" And the puncher's face, which had beensombre, grew lively, and he laid a friendly hand on my knee. 

"The trail's pretty simple, " said I. 

"You bet! But it's sure a queer world. Tell yu', " said Lin, with the airof having made a discovery, "when a man gets down to bed-rock affairsin this life he's got to do his travellin' alone, same as he does hisdyin'. I expect even married men has thoughts and hopes they don't telltheir wives. "

"Never was married, " said I. 

"Well--no more was I. Let's go to bed. " And Lin shook my hand, and gaveme a singular, rather melancholy smile. 

At Salt Lake City, which Ogden was glad to include in his Westernholiday, we found both Mormon and Gentile ready to give us odds againstrain--only I noticed that those of the true faith were less free. Indeed; the Mormon, the Quaker, and most sects of an isolated doctrinehave a nice prudence in money. During our brief stay we visited thesights: floating in the lake, listening to pins drop in the gallery ofthe Tabernacle, seeing frescos of saints in robes speaking from heavento Joseph Smith in the Sunday clothes of a modern farm-hand, and inthe street we heard at a distance a strenuous domestic talk between thenew--or perhaps I should say the original--husband and wife. 

"She's corralled Sidney's cash!" said the delighted Lin. "He can't betnothing on this shower. "

And then, after all, this time--it didn't rain!

Stripped of money both ways, Cheyenne, having most fortunately purchaseda return ticket, sought its home. The perplexed rain-maker wentsomewhere else, without his assistant. Lusk's exulting wife, having themoney, retained him with her. 

"Good luck to yu', Sidney!" said Lin, speaking to him for the first timesince Cheyenne. "I feel a heap better since I've saw yu' married. " Hepaid no attention to the biscuit-shooter, or the horrible language thatshe threw after him. 

Jode also felt "a heap better. " Legitimate science had triumphed. To-day, most of Cheyenne believes with Jode that it was all acoincidence. South Carolina had bet on her principles, and won from Linthe few dollars that I had lent the puncher. 

"And what will you do now?" I said to Lin. 

"Join the beef round-up. Balaam's payin' forty dollars. I guess that'llkeep a single man. "

A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF CHRISTMAS

The Governor descended the steps of the Capitol slowly and with pauses, lifting a list frequently to his eye. He had intermittently pencilledit between stages of the forenoon's public business, and his gait grewabsent as he recurred now to his jottings in their accumulation, witha slight pain at their number, and the definite fear that they would bemore in seasons to come. They were the names of his friends' childrento whom his excellent heart moved him to give Christmas presents. He hadput off this regenerating evil until the latest day, as was his custom, and now he was setting forth to do the whole thing at a blow, entirelyplanless among the guns and rocking-horses that would presently surroundhim. As he reached the highway he heard himself familiarly addressedfrom a distance, and, turning, saw four sons of the alkali jogging intotown from the plain. One who had shouted to him galloped out from theothers, rounded the Capitol's enclosure, and, approaching with radiantcountenance leaned to reach the hand of the Governor, and once againgreeted him with a hilarious "Hello, Doc!"

Governor Barker, M. D. , seeing Mr. McLean unexpectedly after severalyears, hailed the horseman with frank and lively pleasure, and, inquiring who might be the other riders behind, was told that they wereShorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, come for Christmas. "And dandies tohit town with, " Mr. McLean added. "Red-hot. "

"I am acquainted with them, " assented his Excellency. 

"We've been ridin' trail for twelve weeks, " the cow-puncher continued, "makin' our beds down anywheres, and eatin' the same old chuck everyday. So we've shook fried beef and heifer's delight, and we're goin' tofeed high. "

Then Mr. McLean overflowed with talk and pungent confidences, for theholidays already rioted in his spirit, and his tongue was loosed overtheir coming rites. 

"We've soured on scenery, " he finished, in his drastic idiom. "We'resick of moonlight and cow-dung, and we're heeled for a big time. "

"Call on me, " remarked the Governor, cheerily, "when you're ready forbromides and sulphates. "

"I ain't box-headed no more, " protested Mr. McLean; "I've got maturity, Doc, since I seen yu' at the rain-making, and I'm a heap older than themhospital days when I bust my leg on yu'. Three or four glasses and quit. That's my rule. "

"That your rule, too?" inquired the Governor of Shorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill. These gentlemen of the saddle were sitting quiteexpressionless upon their horses. 

"We ain't talkin', we're waitin', " observed Chalkeye; and the threecynics smiled amiably. 

"Well, Doc, see yu' again, " said Mr. McLean. He turned to accompany hisbrother cow-punchers, but in that particular moment Fate descended orcame up from whatever place she dwells in and entered the body of theunsuspecting Governor. 

"What's your hurry?" said Fate, speaking in the official's heartymanner. "Come along with me. "

"Can't do it. Where are yu' goin'?"

"Christmasing, " replied Fate. 

"Well, I've got to feed my horse. Christmasing, yu' say?"

"Yes; I'm buying toys. "

"Toys! You? What for?"

"Oh, some kids. "

"Yourn?" screeched Lin, precipitately. 

His Excellency the jovial Governor opened his teeth in pleasure at this, for he was a bachelor, and there were fifteen upon his list, which heheld up for the edification of the hasty McLean. "Not mine, I'm happyto say. My friends keep marrying and settling, and their kids call meuncle, and climb around and bother, and I forget their names, and thinkit's a girl, and the mother gets mad. Why, if I didn't remember theselittle folks at Christmas they'd be wondering--not the kids, they justbreak your toys and don't notice; but the mother would wonder--'What'sthe matter with Dr. Barker? Has Governor Barker gone back onus?'--that's where the strain comes!" he broke off, facing Mr. McLeanwith another spacious laugh. 

But the cow-puncher had ceased to smile, and now, while Barker ranon exuberantly, McLean's wide-open eyes rested upon him, singular andintent, and in their hazel depths the last gleam of jocularity went out. 

"That's where the strain comes, you see. Two sets of acquaintances. Grateful patients and loyal voters, and I've got to keep solid with bothoutfits, especially the wives and mothers. They're the people. So it'sdrums, and dolls, and sheep on wheels, and games, and monkeys on astick, and the saleslady shows you a mechanical bear, and it costs toomuch, and you forget whether the Judge's second girl is Nellie or Susie, and--well, I'm just in for my annual circus this afternoon! You're inluck. Christmas don't trouble a chap fixed like you. "

Lin McLean prolonged the sentence like a distant echo. 

"A chap fixed like you!" The cow-puncher said it slowly to himself. "No, sure. " He seemed to be watching Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Billgoing down the road. "That's a new idea--Christmas, " he murmured, for itwas one of his oldest, and he was recalling the Christmas when he worehis first long trousers. 

"Comes once a year pretty regular, " remarked the prosperous Governor. "Seems often when you pay the bill. "

"I haven't made a Christmas gift, " pursued the cow-puncher, dreamily, "not for--for--Lord! it's a hundred years, I guess. I don't know anybodythat has any right to look for such a thing from me. " This was indeed anew idea, and it did not stop the chill that was spreading in his heart. 

"Gee whiz!" said Barker, briskly, "there goes twelve o'clock. I've gotto make a start. Sorry you can't come and help me. Good-bye!"

His Excellency left the rider sitting motionless, and forgot him at oncein his own preoccupation. He hastened upon his journey to the shopswith the list, not in his pocket, but held firmly, like a plank in theimminence of shipwreck. The Nellies and Susies pervaded his mind, andhe struggled with the presentiment that in a day or two he would recallsome omitted and wretchedly important child. Quick hoof-beats madehim look up, and Mr. McLean passed like a wind. The Governor absentlywatched him go, and saw the pony hunch and stiffen in the check of hisspeed when Lin overtook his companions. Down there in the distance theytook a side street, and Barker rejoicingly remembered one more name andwrote it as he walked. In a few minutes he had come to the shops, andmet face to face with Mr. McLean. 

"The boys are seein' after my horse, " Lin rapidly began, "and I've gotto meet 'em sharp at one. We're twelve weeks shy on a square meal, yu'see, and this first has been a date from 'way back. I'd like to--" HereMr. McLean cleared his throat, and his speech went less smoothly. "Doc, I'd like just for a while to watch yu' gettin'--them monkeys, yu' know. "

The Governor expressed his agreeable surprise at this change of mind, and was glad of McLean's company and judgment during the impendingselections. A picture of a cow-puncher and himself discussing acouple of dolls rose nimbly in Barker's mental eye, and it was with animperfect honesty that he said, "You'll help me a heap. "

And Lin, quite sincere, replied, "Thank yu'. "

So together these two went Christmasing in the throng. Wyoming's ChiefExecutive knocked elbows with the spurred and jingling waif, one man asgood as another in that raw, hopeful, full-blooded cattle era, which nowthe sobered West remembers as the days of its fond youth. For one manhas been as good as another in three places--Paradise before the Fall;the Rocky Mountains before the wire fence; and the Declaration ofIndependence. And then this Governor, beside being young, almost asyoung as Lin McLean or the Chief Justice (who lately had celebrated histhirty-second birthday), had in his doctoring days at Drybone knownthe cow-puncher with that familiarity which lasts a lifetime withoutbreeding contempt; accordingly he now laid a hand on Lin's tall shoulderand drew him among the petticoats and toys. 

Christmas filled the windows and Christmas stirred in mankind. Cheyenne, not over-zealous in doctrine or litanies, and with the opinion that aworld in the hand is worth two in the bush, nevertheless was flockingtogether, neighbor to think of neighbor, and every one to remember thechildren; a sacred assembly, after all, gathered to rehearse unwittinglythe articles of its belief, the Creed and Doctrine of the Child. Linsaw them hurry and smile among the paper fairies; they questioned andhesitated, crowded and made decisions, failed utterly to find the rightthing, forgot and hastened back, suffered all the various desperationsof the eleventh hour, and turned homeward, dropping their parcels withthat undimmed good-will that once a year makes gracious the universalhuman face. This brotherhood swam and beamed before the cow-puncher'sbrooding eyes, and in his ears the greeting of the season sang. Childrenescaped from their mothers and ran chirping behind the counters to touchand meddle in places forbidden. Friends dashed against each other withrabbits and magic lanterns, greeted in haste, and were gone, amid thesound of musical boxes. 

Through this tinkle and bleating of little machinery the murmur of thehuman heart drifted in and out of McLean's hearing; fragments of hometalk, tendernesses, economies, intimate first names, and dinner hours, and whether it was joy or sadness, it was in common; the world seemedknit in a single skein of home ties. Two or three came by whose pursesmust have been slender, and whose purchases were humble and chosen aftermuch nice adjustment; and when one plain man dropped a word about bothends meeting, and the woman with him laid a hand on his arm, sayingthat his children must not feel this year was different, Lin made astep toward them. There were hours and spots where he could readilyhave descended upon them at that, played the role of clinking affluence, waved thanks aside with competent blasphemy, and tossing off someinfamous whiskey, cantered away in the full self-conscious strut of thefrontier. But here was not the moment; the abashed cow-puncher couldmake no such parade in this place. The people brushed by him back andforth, busy upon their errands, and aware of him scarcely more than ifhe had been a spirit looking on from the helpless dead; and so, whilethese weaving needs and kindnesses of man were within arm's touch ofhim, he was locked outside with his impulses. Barker had, in the naturalpress of customers, long parted from him, to become immersed in choosingand rejecting; and now, with a fair part of his mission accomplished, he was ready to go on to the next place, and turned to beckon McLean. He found him obliterated in a corner beside a life-sized image of SantaClaus, standing as still as the frosty saint. 

"He looks livelier than you do, " said the hearty Governor. "'Fraid it'sbeen slow waiting. "

"No, " replied the cow-puncher, thoughtfully. "No, I guess not. "

This uncertainty was expressed with such gentleness that Barker roared. "You never did lie to me, " he said, "long as I've known you. Well, nevermind. I've got some real advice to ask you now. "

At this Mr. McLean's face grew more alert. "Say Doc, " said he, "what doyu' want for Christmas that nobody's likely to give yu'?"

"A big practice--big enough to interfere with my politics. "

"What else? Things and truck, I mean. "

"Oh--nothing I'll get. People don't give things much to fellows likeme. "

"Don't they? Don't they?"

"Why, you and Santa Claus weren't putting up any scheme on my stocking?"

"Well--"

"I believe you're in earnest!" cried his Excellency. "That's simplyrich!" Here was a thing to relish! The Frontier comes to town "heeledfor a big time, " finds that presents are all the rage, and mustimmediately give somebody something. Oh, childlike, miscellaneousFrontier! So thought the good-hearted Governor; and it seems a venialmisconception. "My dear fellow, " he added, meaning as well as possible, "I don't want you to spend your money on me. "

"I've got plenty all right, " said Lin, shortly. 

"Plenty's not the point. I'll take as many drinks as you please withyou. You didn't expect anything from me?"

"That ain't--that don't--"

"There! Of course you didn't. Then, what are you getting proud about?Here's our shop. " They stepped in from the street to new crowds andcounters. "Now, " pursued the Governor, "this is for a very particularfriend of mine. Here they are. Now, which of those do you like best?"

They were sets of Tennyson in cases holding little volumes equal innumber, but the binding various, and Mr. McLean reached his decisionafter one look. "That, " said he, and laid a large muscular hand upon theLaureate. The young lady behind the counter spoke out acidly, and Linpulled the abject hand away. His taste, however, happened to be sound, or, at least, it was at one with the Governor's; but now they learnedthat there was a distressing variance in the matter of price. 

The Governor stared at the delicate article of his choice. "I knowthat Tennyson is what she--is what's wanted, " he muttered; and, feelinghimself nudged, looked around and saw Lin's extended fist. This gesturehe took for a facetious sympathy, and, dolorously grasping the hand, found himself holding a lump of bills. Sheer amazement relaxed him, andthe cow-puncher's matted wealth tumbled on the floor in sight of allpeople. Barker picked it up and gave it back. "No, no, no!" he said, mirthful over his own inclination to be annoyed; "you can't do that. I'mjust as much obliged, Lin, " he added. 

"Just as a loan, Doc--some of it. I'm grass-bellied with spot-cash. "

A giggle behind the counter disturbed them both, but the sharpyoung lady was only dusting. The Governor at once paid haughtilyfor Tennyson's expensive works, and the cow-puncher pushed hisdiscountenanced savings back into his clothes. Making haste to leavethe book department of this shop, they regained a mutual ease, andthe Governor became waggish over Lin's concern at being too rich. Hesuggested to him the list of delinquent taxpayers and the latest censusfrom which to select indigent persons. He had patients, too, whoseinveterate pennilessness he could swear cheerfully to--"since you wantto bolt from your own money, " he remarked. 

"Yes, I'm a green horse, " assented Mr. McLean, gallantly; "ain't used tothe looks of a twenty-dollar bill, and I shy at 'em. "

From his face--that jocular mask--one might have counted him the mostserene and careless of vagrants, and in his words only the ordinaryvoice of banter spoke to the Governor. A good woman, it may well be, would have guessed before this the sensitive soul in the blunderingbody, but Barker saw just the familiar, whimsical, happy-go-lucky McLeanof old days, and so he went gayly and innocently on, treading upon holyground. "I've got it!" he exclaimed; "give your wife something. "

The ruddy cow-puncher grinned. He had passed through the world of womanwith but few delays, rejoicing in informal and transient entanglements, and he welcomed the turn which the conversation seemed now to be taking. "If you'll give me her name and address, " said he, with the futureentirely in his mind. 

"Why, Laramie!" and the Governor feigned surprise. 

"Say, Doc, " said Lin, uneasily, "none of 'em ain't married me since Isaw yu' last. "

"Then she hasn't written from Laramie, " said the hilarious Governor, andMr. McLean understood and winced in his spirit deep down. "Gee whiz!"went on Barker, "I'll never forget you and Lusk that day!"

But the mask fell now. "You're talking of his wife, not mine, " said thecow-puncher very quietly, and smiling no more; "and, Doc, I'm going tosay a word to yu', for I know yu've always been my good friend. I'llnever forget that day myself--but I don't want to be reminded of it. "

"I'm a fool, Lin, " said the Governor, generous instantly. "I neversupposed--"

"I know yu' didn't, Doc. It ain't you that's the fool. And in a way--ina way--" Lin's speech ended among his crowding memories, and Barker, seeing how wistful his face had turned, waited. "But I ain't quite thesame fool I was before that happened to me, " the cow-puncher resumed, "though maybe my actions don't show to be wiser. I know that there wasbetter luck than a man like me had any call to look for. "

The sobered Barker said, simply, "Yes, Lin. " He was put to thinking bythese words from the unsuspected inner man. 

Out in the Bow Leg country Lin McLean had met a woman with thick, red cheeks, calling herself by a maiden name; and this was his wholeknowledge of her when he put her one morning astride a Mexican saddleand took her fifty miles to a magistrate and made her his lawful wifeto the best of his ability and belief. His sage-brush intimates wereconfident he would never have done it but for a rival. Racing the rivaland beating him had swept Mr. McLean past his own intentions, and themarriage was an inadvertence. "He jest bumped into it before he couldpull up, " they explained; and this casualty, resulting from Mr. McLean'ssporting blood, had entertained several hundred square miles of alkali. For the new-made husband the joke soon died. In the immediate weeks thatcame upon him he tasted a bitterness worse than in all his life before, and learned also how deep the woman, when once she begins, can sinkbeneath the man in baseness. That was a knowledge of which he had livedinnocent until this time. But he carried his outward self serenely, sothat citizens in Cheyenne who saw the cow-puncher with his bride arguedshrewdly that men of that sort liked women of that sort; and before thestrain had broken his endurance an unexpected first husband, namedLusk, had appeared one Sunday in the street, prosperous, forgiving, and exceedingly drunk. To the arms of Lusk she went back in the publicstreet, deserting McLean in the presence of Cheyenne; and when Cheyennesaw this, and learned how she had been Mrs. Lusk for eight long, ifintermittent, years, Cheyenne laughed loudly. Lin McLean laughed, too, and went about his business, ready to swagger at the necessary moment, and with the necessary kind of joke always ready to shield his hurtspirit. And soon, of course, the matter grew stale, seldom raked up inthe Bow Leg country where Lin had been at work; so lately he had begunto remember other things beside the smouldering humiliation. 

"Is she with him?" he asked Barker, and musingly listened while Barkertold him. The Governor had thought to make it a racy story, with themoral that the joke was now on Lusk; but that inner man had spoken andrevealed the cow-puncher to him in a new and complicated light; hence hequieted the proposed lively cadence and vocabulary of his anecdoteabout the house of Lusk, but instead of narrating how Mrs. Beat Mr. OnMondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Mr. Took his turn the odd days, thus getting one ahead of his lady, while the kid Lusk had outlinedhis opinion of the family by recently skipping to parts unknown, Barkerdetailed these incidents more gravely, adding that Laramie believed Mrs. Lusk addicted to opium. 

"I don't guess I'll leave my card on 'em, " said McLean, grimly, "if Istrike Laramie. "

"You don't mind my saying I think you're well out of that scrape?"Barker ventured. 

"Shucks, no! That's all right, Doc. Only--yu' see now. A man gets tiredpretending--onced in a while. "

Time had gone while they were in talk, and it was now half after one andMr. McLean late for that long-plotted first square meal. So the friendsshook hands, wishing each other Merry Christmas, and the cow-puncherhastened toward his chosen companions through the stirring cheerfulnessof the season. His play-hour had made a dull beginning among the toys. He had come upon people engaged in a pleasant game, and waited, shy andwell disposed, for some bidding to join, but they had gone on playingwith each other and left him out. And now he went along in a sort ofhurry to escape from that loneliness where his human promptings had beenlodged with him useless. Here was Cheyenne, full of holiday for sale, and he with his pockets full of money to buy; and when he thought ofShorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, those dandies to hit a town with, he stepped out with a brisk, false hope. It was with a mental hurrah anda foretaste of a good time coming that he put on his town clothes, aftershaving and admiring himself, and sat down to the square meal. He ateaway and drank with a robust imitation of enjoyment that took in evenhimself at first. But the sorrowful process of his spirit went on, forall he could do. As he groped for the contentment which he saw aroundhim he began to receive the jokes with counterfeit mirth. Memories tookthe place of anticipation, and through their moody shiftings he beganto feel a distaste for the company of his friends and a shrinking fromtheir lively voices. He blamed them for this at once. He was surprisedto think he had never recognized before how light a weight was Shorty;and here was Chalkeye, who knew better, talking religion after twoglasses. Presently this attack of noticing his friends' shortcomingsmastered him, and his mind, according to its wont, changed at a stroke. "I'm celebrating no Christmas with this crowd, " said the inner man; andwhen they had next remembered Lin McLean in their hilarity he was gone. 

Governor Barker, finishing his purchases at half-past three, went tomeet a friend come from Evanston. Mr. McLean was at the railway station, buying a ticket for Denver. 

"Denver!" exclaimed the amazed Governor. 

"That's what I said, " stated Mr. McLean, doggedly. 

"Gee whiz!" went his Excellency. "What are you going to do there?"

"Get good and drunk. "

"Can't you find enough whiskey in Cheyenne?"

"I'm drinking champagne this trip. "

The cow-puncher went out on the platform and got aboard, and the trainmoved off. Barker had walked out too in his surprise, and as he staredafter the last car, Mr. McLean waved his wide hat defiantly and wentinside the door. 

"And he says he's got maturity, " Barker muttered. "I've known him sinceseventy-nine, and he's kept about eight years old right along. " TheGovernor was cross, and sorry, and presently crosser. His jokes aboutLin's marriage came back to him and put him in a rage with the departedfool. "Yes, about eight. Or six, " said his Excellency, justifyinghimself by the past. For he had first known Lin, the boy of nineteen, supreme in length of limb and recklessness, breaking horses and feelingfor an early mustache. Next, when the mustache was nearly accomplished, he had mended the boy's badly broken thigh at Drybone. His skill (andLin's utter health) had wrought so swift a healing that the surgeonoverflowed with the pride of science, and over the bandages wouldexplain the human body technically to his wild-eyed and flatteredpatient. Thus young Lin heard all about tibia, and comminuted, and otherglorious new words, and when sleepless would rehearse them. Then, with the bone so nearly knit that the patient might leave the wardon crutches to sit each morning in Barker's room as a privilege, thedisobedient child of twenty-one had slipped out of the hospital andhobbled hastily to the hog ranch, where whiskey and variety waited fora languishing convalescent. Here he grew gay, and was soon carried backwith the leg refractured. Yet Barker's surgical rage was disarmed, thepatient was so forlorn over his doctor's professional chagrin. 

"I suppose it ain't no better this morning, Doc?" he had said, humbly, after a new week of bed and weights. 

"Your right leg's going to be shorter. That's all. "

"Oh, gosh! I've been and spoiled your comminuted fee-mur! Ain't I ason-of-a-gun?"

You could not chide such a boy as this; and in time's due course he hadwalked jauntily out into the world with legs of equal length after alland in his stride the slightest halt possible. And Doctor Barker hadmissed the child's conversation. To-day his mustache was a perfectedthing, and he in the late end of his twenties. 

"He'll wake up about noon to-morrow in a dive, without a cent, " saidBarker. "Then he'll come back on a freight and begin over again. "

At the Denver station Lin McLean passed through the shoutings andomnibuses, and came to the beginning of Seventeenth Street, where is thefirst saloon. A customer was ordering Hot Scotch; and because he likedthe smell and had not thought of the mixture for a number of years, Lintook Hot Scotch. Coming out upon the pavement, he looked across and sawa saloon opposite with brighter globes and windows more prosperous. Thatshould have been his choice; lemon peel would undoubtedly be fresherover there; and over he went at once, to begin the whole thing properly. In such frozen weather no drink could be more timely, and he sat, toenjoy without haste its mellow fitness. Once again on the pavement, helooked along the street toward up-town beneath the crisp, cold electriclights, and three little bootblacks gathered where he stood and cried"Shine? Shine?" at him. Remembering that you took the third turn to theright to get the best dinner in Denver, Lin hit on the skilful plan ofstopping at all Hot Scotches between; but the next occurred within afew yards, and it was across the street. This one being attained andappreciated, he found that he must cross back again or skip number four. At this rate he would not be dining in time to see much of the theatre, and he stopped to consider. It was a German place he had justquitted, and a huge light poured out on him from its window, which theproprietor's father-land sentiment had made into a show. Lights shoneamong a well-set pine forest, where beery, jovial gnomes sat on rootsand reached upward to Santa Claus; he, grinning, fat, and Teutonic, heldin his right hand forever a foaming glass, and forever in his left astring of sausages that dangled down among the gnomes. With his Americanback to this, the cow-puncher, wearing the same serious, absent face hehad not changed since he ran away from himself at Cheyenne, consideredcarefully the Hot Scotch question, and which side of the road to takeand stick to, while the little bootblacks found him once more and cried, "Shine? Shine?" monotonous as snow-birds. He settled to stay over herewith the south-side Scotches, and the little one-note song reaching hisattention, he suddenly shoved his foot at the nearest boy, who lightlysprang away. 

"Dare you to touch him!" piped a snow-bird, dangerously. They were inshort trousers, and the eldest enemy, it may be, was ten. 

"Don't hit me, " said Mr. McLean "I'm innocent. "

"Well, you leave him be, " said one. 

"What's he layin' to kick you for, Billy? 'Tain't yer pop, is it?"

"New!" said Billy, in scorn. "Father never kicked me. Don't know who heis. "

"He's a special!" shrilled the leading bird, sensationally. "He's got abadge, and he's goin' to arrest yer. "

Two of them hopped instantly to the safe middle of the street, andscattered with practiced strategy; but Billy stood his ground. "Dare youto arrest me!" said he. 

"What'll you give me not to?" inquired Lin, and he put his hands in hispockets, arms akimbo. 

"Nothing; I've done nothing, " announced Billy, firmly. But even in thelast syllable his voice suddenly failed, a terror filled his eyes, andhe, too, sped into the middle of the street. 

"What's he claim you lifted?" inquired the leader, with eagerness. "Tell him you haven't been inside a store to-day. We can prove it!" theyscreamed to the special officer. 

"Say, " said the slow-spoken Lin from the pavement, "you're poor judgesof a badge, you fellows. "

His tone pleased them where they stood, wide apart from each other. 

Mr. McLean also remained stationary in the bluish illumination of thewindow. "Why, if any policeman was caught wearin' this here, " said he, following his sprightly invention, "he'd get arrested himself. "

This struck them extremely. They began to draw together, Billy lingeringthe last. 

"If it's your idea, " pursued Mr. McLean, alluringly, as the three tookcautious steps nearer the curb, "that blue, clasped hands in a circle ofred stars gives the bearer the right to put folks in the jug--why, I'llget somebody else to black my boots for a dollar. "

The three made a swift rush, fell on simultaneous knees, and clatteringtheir boxes down, began to spit in an industrious circle. 

"Easy!" wheedled Mr. McLean, and they looked up at him, staring andfascinated. "Not having three feet, " said the cow-puncher, always graveand slow, "I can only give two this here job. "

"He's got a big pistol and a belt!" exulted the leader, who hadprecociously felt beneath Lin's coat. 

"You're a smart boy, " said Lin, considering him, "and yu' find a man outright away. Now you stand off and tell me all about myself while theyfix the boots--and a dollar goes to the quickest through. "

Young Billy and his tow-headed competitor flattened down, each to aboot, with all their might, while the leader ruefully contemplated Mr. McLean. 

"That's a Colt. 45 you've got, " ventured he. 

"Right again. Some day, maybe, you'll be wearing one of your own, if theangels don't pull yu' before you're ripe. "

"I'm through!" sang out Towhead, rising in haste. 

Small Billy was struggling still, but leaped at that, the two headsbobbing to a level together; and Mr. McLean, looking down, saw that thearrangement had not been a good one for the boots. 

"Will you kindly referee, " said he, forgivingly, to the leader, "anddecide which of them smears is the awfulest?"

But the leader looked the other way and played upon a mouth-organ. 

"Well, that saves me money, " said Mr. McLean, jingling his pocket. "I guess you've both won. " He handed each of them a dollar. "Now, " hecontinued, "I just dassent show these boots uptown; so this time it's adollar for the best shine. "

The two went palpitating at their brushes again, and the leader playedhis mouth-organ with brilliant unconcern. Lin, tall and brooding leanedagainst the jutting sill of the window, a figure somehow plainly strangein town, while through the bright plate-glass Santa Claus, holding outhis beer and sausages, perpetually beamed. 

Billy was laboring gallantly, but it was labor, the cow-puncherperceived, and Billy no seasoned expert. "See here, " said Lin, stooping, "I'll show yu' how it's done. He's playin' that toon cross-eyed enoughto steer anybody crooked. There. Keep your blacking soft, and work witha dry brush. "

"Lemme, " said Billy. "I've got to learn. " So he finished the boot hisown way with wiry determination, breathing and repolishing; and thisevent was also adjudged a dead heat, with results gratifying to bothparties. So here was their work done, and more money in their pocketsthan from all the other boots and shoes of this day; and Towhead andBilly did not wish for further trade, but to spend this handsome fortuneas soon as might be. Yet they delayed in the brightness of the window, drawn by curiosity near this new kind of man whose voice held them andwhose remarks dropped them into constant uncertainty. Even the omittedleader had been unable to go away and nurse his pride alone. 

"Is that a secret society?" inquired Towhead, lifting a finger at thebadge. 

Mr. McLean nodded. "Turruble, " said he. 

"You're a Wells & Fargo detective, " asserted the leader. 

"Play your harp, " said Lin. 

"Are you a--a desperaydo?" whispered Towhead. 

"Oh, my!" observed Mr. McLean, sadly; "what has our Jack been readin'?"

"He's a cattle-man!" cried Billy. "I seen his heels. "

"That's you!" said the discovered puncher, with approval. "You'll do. But I bet you can't tell me what we wearers of this badge have sworn todo this night. "

At this they craned their necks and glared at him. 

"We--are--sworn--don't yu' jump, now, and give me away--sworn--to--blowoff three bootblacks to a dinner. "

"Ah, pshaw!" They backed away, bristling with distrust. 

"That's the oath, fellows. Yu' may as well make your minds up--for Ihave it to do!"

"Dare you to! Ah!"

"And after dinner it's the Opera-house, to see 'The Children of CaptainCant'!"

They screamed shrilly at him, keeping off beyond the curb. 

"I can't waste my time on such smart boys, " said Mr. McLean, risinglazily to his full height from the window-sill. "I am goin' somewhere tofind boys that ain't so turruble quick stampeded by a roast turkey. "

He began to lounge slowly away, serious as he had been throughout, andthey, stopping their noise short, swiftly picked up their boxes, andfollowed him. Some change in the current of electricity that fed thewindow disturbed its sparkling light, so that Santa Claus, with his armsstretched out behind the departing cow-puncher seemed to be smiling morebroadly from the midst of his flickering brilliance. 

On their way to turkey, the host and his guests exchanged but fewremarks. He was full of good-will, and threw off a comment or two thatwould have led to conversation under almost any circumstances savethese; but the minds of the guests were too distracted by this wholestate of things for them to be capable of more than keeping after Mr. McLean in silence, at a wary interval, and with their mouths, duringmost of the journey, open. The badge, the pistol, their patron's talk, and the unusual dollars, wakened wide their bent for the unexpected, their street affinity for the spur of the moment; they believed slimlyin the turkey part of it, but what this man might do next, to bethere when he did it, and not to be trapped, kept their wits jumpingdeliciously; so when they saw him stop, they stopped instantly too, tenfeet out of reach. This was Denver's most civilized restaurant--that onewhich Mr. McLean had remembered, with foreign dishes and private rooms, where he had promised himself, among other things, champagne. Mr. McLeanhad never been inside it, but heard a tale from a friend; and now hecaught a sudden sight of people among geraniums, with plumes and whiteshirt-fronts, very elegant. It must have been several minutes that hestood contemplating the entrance and the luxurious couples who went in. 

"Plumb French!" he observed at length; and then, "Shucks!" in a key lessconfident, while his guests ten feet away watched him narrowly. "They'reeatin' patty de parley-voo in there, " he muttered, and the threebootblacks came beside him. "Say, fellows, " said Lin, confidingly, "Iwasn't raised good enough for them dude dishes. What do yu' say! I'mafter a place where yu' can mention oyster stoo without givin' anybody afit. What do yu' say, boys?"

That lighted the divine spark of brotherhood!

"Ah, you come along with us--we'll take yer! You don't want to go inthere. We'll show yer the boss place in Market Street. We won't loseyer. " So, shouting together in their shrill little city trebles, theyclustered about him, and one pulled at his coat to start him. He startedobediently, and walked in their charge, they leading the way. 

"Christmas is comin' now, sure, " said Lin, grinning to himself. "Itain't exactly what I figured on. " It was the first time he had laughedsince Cheyenne, and he brushed a hand over his eyes, that were dim withthe new warmth in his heart. 

Believing at length in him and his turkey, the alert street faces, sosuspicious of the unknown, looked at him with ready intimacy as theywent along; and soon, in the friendly desire to make him acquainted withDenver, the three were patronizing him. Only Billy, perhaps, now andthen stole at him a doubtful look. 

The large Country Mouse listened solemnly to his three Town Mice, whopresently introduced him to the place in Market Street. It was not boss, precisely, and Denver knows better neighborhoods; but the turkey andthe oyster stew were there, with catsup and vegetables in season, andseveral choices of pie. Here the Country Mouse became again efficient;and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocketand its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in theguests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host asfrankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they allgrew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. McLean stared and had a slight sense of blushing. 

"Have a cigarette?" said the leader, over his pie. 

"Thank yu', " said Lin. "I won't smoke, if yu'll excuse me. " He haddevised a wholesome meal, with water to drink. 

"Chewin's no good at meals, " continued the boy. "Don't you usetobaccer?"

"Onced in a while. "

The leader spat brightly. "He ain't learned yet, " said he, slanting hiselbows at Billy and sliding a match over his rump. "But beer, now--Inever seen anything in it. " He and Towhead soon left Billy and hiscallow profanities behind, and engaged in a town conversation thatsilenced him, and set him listening with all his admiring young might. Nor did Mr. McLean join in the talk, but sat embarrassed by thisknowledge, which seemed about as much as he knew himself. 

"I'll be goshed, " he thought, "if I'd caught on to half that when I wasstreakin' around in short pants! Maybe they grow up quicker now. "But now the Country Mouse perceived Billy's eager and attentiveapprenticeship. "Hello, boys!" he said, "that theatre's got a big starton us. "

They had all forgotten he had said anything about theatre, and othertopics left their impatient minds, while the Country Mouse paid the billand asked to be guided to the Opera-house. "This man here will look outfor your blackin' and truck, and let yu' have it in the morning. "

They were very late. The spectacle had advanced far into passages ofthe highest thrill, and Denver's eyes were riveted upon a ship and someicebergs. The party found its seats during several beautiful lime-lighteffects, and that remarkable fly-buzzing of violins which is pronouncedso helpful in times of peril and sentiment. The children of CaptainGrant had been tracking their father all over the equator and otherscenic spots, and now the north pole was about to impale them. TheCaptain's youngest child, perceiving a hummock rushing at them with asudden motion, loudly shouted, "Sister, the ice is closing in!" and shereplied, chastely, "Then let us pray. " It was a superb tableau: the icesplit, and the sun rose and joggled at once to the zenith. The act-dropfell, and male Denver, wrung to its religious deeps, went out to therum-shop. 

Of course Mr. McLean and his party did not do this. The party hadapplauded exceedingly the defeat of the elements, and the leader, withTowhead, discussed the probable chances of the ship's getting farthersouth in the next act. Until lately Billy's doubt of the cow-puncher hadlingered; but during this intermission whatever had been holding outin him seemed won, and in his eyes, that he turned stealthily upon hisunconscious, quiet neighbor, shone the beginnings of hero-worship. 

"Don't you think this is splendid?" said he. 

"Splendid, " Lin replied, a trifle remotely. 

"Don't you like it when they all get balled up and get out that way?"

"Humming, " said Lin. 

"Don't you guess it's just girls, though, that do that?"

"What, young fellow?"

"Why, all that prayer-saying an' stuff. "

"I guess it must be. "

"She said to do it when the ice scared her, an' of course a man had todo what she wanted him. "

"Sure. "

"Well, do you believe they'd 'a' done it if she hadn't been on thatboat, and clung around an' cried an' everything, an' made her friendsfeel bad?"

"I hardly expect they would, " replied the honest Lin, and then, suddenlymindful of Billy, "except there wasn't nothin' else they could thinkof, " he added, wishing to speak favorably of the custom. 

"Why, that chunk of ice weren't so awful big anyhow. I'd 'a' shoved heroff with a pole. Wouldn't you?"

"Butted her like a ram, " exclaimed Mr. McLean. 

"Well, I don't say my prayers any more. I told Mr. Perkins I wasn'ta-going to, an' he--I think he is a flubdub anyway. "

"I'll bet he is!" said Lin, sympathetically. He was scarcely a prudentguardian. 

"I told him straight, an' he looked at me an' down he flops on hisknees. An' he made 'em all flop, but I told him I didn't care for themputting up any camp-meeting over me; an' he says, 'I'll lick you, ' an'I says, 'Dare you to!' I told him mother kep' a-licking me for nothing, an' I'd not pray for her, not in Sunday-school or anywheres else. Do youpray much?"

"No, " replied Lin, uneasily. 

"There! I told him a man didn't, an' he said then a man went to hell. 'You lie; father ain't going to hell, ' I says, and you'd ought to heardthe first class laugh right out loud, girls an' boys. An' he was thatmad! But I didn't care. I came here with fifty cents. "

"Yu' must have felt like a millionaire. "

"Ah, I felt all right! I bought papers an' sold 'em, an' got more an'saved, ant got my box an' blacking outfit. I weren't going to be lickedby her just because she felt like it, an' she feeling like it most anytime. Lemme see your pistol. "

"You wait, " said Lin. "After this show is through I'll put it on you. "

"Will you, honest? Belt an' everything? Did you ever shoot a bear?"

"Lord! lots. "

"Honest? Silver-tips?"

"Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cub onced. "

"O-h! I never shot a bear. "

"You'd ought to try it. "

"I'm a-going to. I'm a-going to camp out in the mountains. I'd like tosee you when you camp. I'd like to camp with you. Mightn't I some time?"Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly. 

"You bet!" said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy. As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children hemet--the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quiteplay for him, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder. 

"Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off. Fathergets awful drunk, too. I've quit Laramie for good. "

Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy. "Laramie!" said he, almostshouting it. "Yu'--yu'--is your name Lusk?"

But the boy had shrunk from him instantly. "You're not going to take mehome?" he piteously wailed. 

"Heaven and heavens!" murmured Lin McLean. "So you're her kid!"

He relaxed again, down in his chair, his legs stretched their straightlength below the chair in front. He was waked from his bewilderment bya brushing under him, and there was young Billy diving for escape to theaisle, like the cornered city mouse that he was. Lin nipped that poorlittle attempt and had the limp Billy seated inside again before the twoin discussion beyond had seen anything. He had said not a word to theboy, and now watched his unhappy eyes seizing upon the various exits anddispositions of the theatre; nor could he imagine anything to tell himthat should restore the perished confidence. "Why did yu' lead him off?"he asked himself unexpectedly, and found that he did not seem to know;but as he watched the restless and estranged runaway he grew more andmore sorrowful. "I just hate him to think that of me, " he reflected. The curtain rose, and he saw Billy make up his mind to wait until theyshould all be going out in the crowd. While the children of CaptainGrant grew hotter and hotter upon their father's geographic trail, Linsat saying to himself a number of contradictions. "He's nothing tome; what's any of them to me?" Driven to bay by his bewilderment, herestated the facts of the past. "Why, she'd deserted him and Lusk beforeshe'd ever laid eyes on me. I needn't to bother myself. He wasn't nevereven my step-kid. " The past, however, brought no guidance. "Lord, what'sthe thing to do about this? If I had any home--This is a stinkin' worldin some respects, " said Mr. McLean, aloud, unknowingly. The lady in thechair beneath which the cow-puncher had his legs nudged her husband. They took it for emotion over the sad fortune of Captain Grant, andtheir backs shook. Presently each turned, and saw the singular man withuntamed, wide-open eyes glowering at the stage, and both backs shookagain. 

Once more his hand was laid on Billy. "Say!" The boy glanced at him, andquickly away. 

"Look at me, and listen. "

Billy swervingly obeyed. 

"I ain't after yu', and never was. This here's your business, not mine. Are yu' listenin' good?"

The boy made a nod, and Lin proceeded, whispering: "You've got no callto believe what I say to yu'--yu've been lied to, I guess, pretty often. So I'll not stop yu' runnin' and hidin', and I'll never give it away Isaw yu', but yu' keep doin' what yu' please. I'll just go now. I've sawall I want, but you and your friends stay with it till it quits. Ifyu' happen to wish to speak to me about that pistol or bears, yu' comearound to Smith's Palace--that's the boss hotel here, ain't it?--and ifyu' don't come too late I'll not be gone to bed. But this time of nightI'm liable to get sleepy. Tell your friends good-bye for me, and be goodto yourself. I've appreciated your company. "

Mr. McLean entered Smith's Palace, and, engaging a room with two bedsin it, did a little delicate lying by means of the truth. "It's a lostboy--a runaway, " he told the clerk. "He'll not be extra clean, I expect, if he does come. Maybe he'll give me the slip, and I'll have a job cutout to-morrow. I'll thank yu' to put my money in your safe. "

The clerk placed himself at the disposal of the secret service, and Linwalked up and down, looking at the railroad photographs for some tenminutes, when Master Billy peered in from the street. 

"Hello!" said Mr. McLean, casually, and returned to a fine picture ofPike's Peak. 

Billy observed him for a space, and, receiving no further attention, came stepping along. "I'm not a-going back to Laramie, " he stated, warningly. 

"I wouldn't, " said Lin. "It ain't half the town Denver is. Well, good-night. Sorry yu' couldn't call sooner--I'm dead sleepy. "

"O-h!" Billy stood blank. "I wish I'd shook the darned old show. Say, lemme black your boots in the morning?"

"Not sure my train don't go too early. "

"I'm up! I'm up! I get around to all of 'em. "

"Where do yu' sleep?"

"Sleeping with the engine-man now. Why can't you put that on meto-night?"

"Goin' up-stairs. This gentleman wouldn't let you go up-stairs. "

But the earnestly petitioned clerk consented, and Billy was the firstto hasten into the room. He stood rapturous while Lin buckled thebelt round his scanty stomach, and ingeniously buttoned the suspendersoutside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent to earth. 

"Did it ever kill a man?" asked Billy, touching the six-shooter. 

"No. It ain't never had to do that, but I expect maybe it's stopped somekillin' me. "

"Oh, leave me wear it just a minute! Do you collect arrow-heads? I thinkthey're bully. There's the finest one you ever seen. " He brought outthe relic, tightly wrapped in paper, several pieces. "I foun' it myself, camping with father. It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock, but nobody'd seen it till I came along. Ain't it fine?"

Mr. McLean pronounced it a gem. 

"Father an' me found a lot, an' they made mother mad laying around, an'she throwed 'em out. She takes stuff from Kelley's. "

"Who's Kelley?"

"He keeps the drug-store at Laramie. Mother gets awful funny. That'show she was when I came home. For I told Mr. Perkins he lied, an' I ranthen. An' I knowed well enough she'd lick me when she got through herspell--an' father can't stop her, an' I--ah, I was sick of it! She'slamed me up twice beating me--an' Perkins wanting me to say 'God blessmy mother!' a-getting up and a-going to bed--he's a flubdub! An' so Icleared out. But I'd just as leaves said for God to bless father--an'you. I'll do it now if you say it's any sense. "

Mr. McLean sat down in a chair. "Don't yu' do it now, " said he. 

"You wouldn't like mother, " Billy continued. "You can keep that. " Hecame to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands, standing besidehim. "Do you like birds' eggs? I collect them. I got twenty-fivekinds--sage-hen, an' blue grouse, an' willow-grouse, an' lots morekinds harder--but I couldn't bring all them from Laramie. I broughtthe magpie's, though. D' you care to see a magpie egg? Well, youstay to-morrow an' I'll show you that en' some other things I got theengine-man lets me keep there, for there's boys that would steal an egg. An' I could take you where we could fire that pistol. Bet you don't knowwhat that is!"

He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble, in which werethings that rattled. 

Mr. McLean gave it up. 

"That's kinni-kinnic seed. You can have that, for I got some more withthe engine-man. "

Lin received this second token also, and thanked the giver for it. Hisfirst feeling had been to prevent the boy's parting with his treasures, but something that came not from the polish of manners and experiencemade him know that he should take them. Billy talked away, laying barehis little soul; the street boy that was not quite come made place forthe child that was not quite gone, and unimportant words and confidencesdropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr. McLean, andinadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had nothitherto met. It lasted but a short while, however, for he went to sleepin the middle of a sentence, with his head upon Lin's breast. The manheld him perfectly still, because he had not the faintest notionthat Billy would be impossible to disturb. At length he spoke to him, suggesting that bed might prove more comfortable; and, finding how itwas, rose and undressed the boy and laid him between the sheets. Thearms and legs seemed aware of the moves required of them, and stirredconveniently; and directly the head was upon the pillow the whole smallframe burrowed down, without the opening of an eye or a change in thebreathing. Lin stood some time by the bedside, with his eyes on thelong, curling lashes and the curly hair. Then he glanced craftily at thedoor of the room, and at himself in the looking-glass. He stooped andkissed Billy on the forehead, and, rising from that, gave himself ahangdog stare in the mirror, and soon in his own bed was sleeping thesound sleep of health. 

He was faintly roused by the church bells, and lay still, lingeringwith his sleep, his eyes closed, and his thoughts unshaped. As he becameslowly aware of the morning, the ringing and the light reached him, andhe waked wholly, and, still lying quiet, considered the strange roomfilled with the bells and the sun of the winter's day. "Where have Istruck now?" he inquired; and as last night returned abruptly upon hismind, he raised himself on his arm. 

There sat Responsibility in a chair, washed clean and dressed, watchinghim. 

"You're awful late, " said Responsibility. "But I weren't a-going withouttelling you good-bye. "

"Go?" exclaimed Lin. "Go where? Yu' surely ain't leavin' me to eatbreakfast alone?" The cow-puncher made his voice very plaintive. SetResponsibility free after all his trouble to catch him? This was morethan he could do!

"I've got to go. If I'd thought you'd want for me to stay--why, you saidyou was a-going by the early train!"

"But the durned thing's got away on me, " said Lin, smiling sweetly fromthe bed. 

"If I hadn't a-promised them--"

"Who?"

"Sidney Ellis and Pete Goode. Why, you know them; you grubbed withthem. "

"Shucks!"

"We're a-going to have fun to-day. "

"Oh!"

"For it's Christmas, an' we've bought some good cigars, an' Pete sayshe'll learn me sure. O' course I've smoked some, you know. But I'd justas leaves stayed with you if I'd only knowed sooner. I wish you livedhere. Did you smoke whole big cigars when you was beginning?"

"Do you like flapjacks and maple syrup?" inquired the artful McLean. "That's what I'm figuring on inside twenty minutes. "

"Twenty minutes! If they'd wait--"

"See here, Bill. They've quit expecting yu', don't yu' think? I'd oughtto waked, yu' see, but I slep' and slep', and kep' yu' from meetin' yourengagements, yu' see--for you couldn't go, of course. A man couldn'ttreat a man that way now, could he?"

"Course he couldn't, " said Billy, brightening. 

"And they wouldn't wait, yu' see. They wouldn't fool away Christmas, that only comes onced a year, kickin' their heels and sayin' 'Where'sBilly?' They'd say, 'Bill has sure made other arrangements, which he'llexplain to us at his leesyure. ' And they'd skip with the cigars. "

The advocate paused, effectively, and from his bolster regarded Billywith a convincing eye. 

"That's so, " said Billy. 

"And where would yu' be then, Bill? In the street, out of friends, outof Christmas, and left both ways, no tobaccer and no flapjacks. Now, Bill, what do yu' say to us putting up a Christmas deal together? Justyou and me?"

"I'd like that, " said Billy. "Is it all day?"

"I was thinkin' of all day, " said Lin. "I'll not make yu' do anythingyu'd rather not. "

"Ah, they can smoke without me, " said Billy, with sudden acrimony. "I'llsee 'em to-morro'. "

"That's you!" cried Mr. McLean. "Now, Bill, you hustle down and tellthem to keep a table for us. I'll get my clothes on and follow yu'. "

The boy went, and Mr. McLean procured hot water and dressed himself, tying his scarf with great care. "Wished I'd a clean shirt, " said he. "But I don't look very bad. Shavin' yesterday afternoon was a goodmove. " He picked up the arrow-head and the kinni-kinnic, and wasparticular to store them in his safest pocket. "I ain't sure whetheryou're crazy or not, " said he to the man in the looking-glass. "I ain'tnever been sure. " And he slammed the door and went down-stairs. 

He found young Bill on guard over a table for four, with all the chairstilted against it as warning to strangers. No one sat at any other tableor came into the room, for it was late, and the place quite emptied ofbreakfasters, and the several entertained waiters had gathered behindBilly's important-looking back. Lin provided a thorough meal, and Billypronounced the flannel cakes superior to flapjacks, which were not uponthe bill of fare. 

"I'd like to see you often, " said he. "I'll come and see you if youdon't live too far. "

"That's the trouble, " said the cow-puncher. "I do. Awful far. " He staredout of the window. 

"Well, I might come some time. I wish you'd write me a letter. Can youwrite?" "What's that? Can I write? Oh yes. "

"I can write, an' I can read too. I've been to school in Sidney, Nebraska, an' Magaw, Kansas, an' Salt Lake--that's the finest townexcept Denver. "

Billy fell into that cheerful strain of comment which, unreplied to, yet goes on contented and self-sustaining, while Mr. McLean gave amiablesigns of assent, but chiefly looked out of the window; and when the nowinterested waiter said respectfully that he desired to close the room, they went out to the office, where the money was got out of the safe andthe bill paid. 

The streets were full of the bright sun, and seemingly at Denver's gatesstood the mountains sparkling; an air crisp and pleasant wafted fromtheir peaks; no smoke hung among the roofs, and the sky spread wide overthe city without a stain; it was holiday up among the chimneys and tallbuildings, and down among the quiet ground-stories below as well; andpresently from their scattered pinnacles through the town the bellsbroke out against the jocund silence of the morning. 

"Don't you like music?" inquired Billy. 

"Yes, " said Lin. 

Ladies with their husbands and children were passing and meeting, orderly yet gayer than if it were only Sunday, and the salutations ofChristmas came now and again to the cow-puncher's ears; but to-day, possessor of his own share in this, Lin looked at every one with a sortof friendly challenge, and young Billy talked along beside him. 

"Don't you think we could go in here?" Billy asked. A church door wasopen, and the rich organ sounded through to the pavement. "They've goodmusic here, an' they keep it up without much talking between. I've beenin lots of times. "

They went in and sat to hear the music. Better than the organ, it seemedto them, were the harmonious voices raised from somewhere outside, likeunexpected visitants; and the pair sat in their back seat, too deepin listening to the processional hymn to think of rising in decentimitation of those around them. The crystal melody of the refrainespecially reached their understandings, and when for the fourth time"Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing, " pealed forth and ceased, boththe delighted faces fell. 

"Don't you wish there was more?" Billy whispered. 

"Wish there was a hundred verses, " answered Lin. 

But canticles and responses followed, with so little talking betweenthem they were held spellbound, seldom thinking to rise or kneel. Lin's eyes roved over the church, dwelling upon the pillars in theirevergreen, the flowers and leafy wreaths, the texts of white andgold. "'Peace, good-will towards men, '" he read. "That's so. Peace andgood-will. Yes, that's so. I expect they got that somewheres in theBible. It's awful good, and you'd never think of it yourself. "

There was a touch on his arm, and a woman handed a book to him. "This isthe hymn we have now, " she whispered, gently; and Lin, blushing scarlet, took it passively without a word. He and Billy stood up and held thebook together, dutifully reading the words:

 "It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold; Peace on the earth--"

This tune was more beautiful than all, and Lin lost himself in it, until he found Billy recalling him with a finger upon the words, theconcluding ones:

 "And the whole world sent back the song Which now the angels sing. "

The music rose and descended to its lovely and simple end; and, for asecond time in Denver, Lin brushed a hand across his eyes. He turnedhis face from his neighbor, frowning crossly; and since the heart hasreasons which Reason does not know, he seemed to himself a fool; butwhen the service was over and he came out, he repeated again, "'Peaceand good-will. ' When I run on to the Bishop of Wyoming I'll tell him ifhe'll preach on them words I'll be there. "

"Couldn't we shoot your pistol now?" asked Billy. 

"Sure, boy. Ain't yu' hungry, though?"

"No. I wish we were away off up there. Don't you?"

"The mountains? They look pretty, so white! A heap better 'n houses. Why, we'll go there! There's trains to Golden. We'll shoot around amongthe foothills. "

To Golden they immediately went, and after a meal there, wandered in theopen country until the cartridges were gone, the sun was low, and Billywas walked off his young heels--a truth he learned complete in onehorrid moment, and battled to conceal. 

"Lame!" he echoed, angrily. "I ain't. "

"Shucks!" said Lin, after the next ten steps. "You are, and both feet. "

"Tell you, there's stones here, an' I'm just a-skipping them. "

Lin, briefly, took the boy in his arms and carried him to Golden. "I'm played out myself, " he said, sitting in the hotel and lookinglugubriously at Billy on a bed. "And I ain't fit to have charge of ahog. " He came and put his hand on the boy's head. 

"I'm not sick, " said the cripple. "I tell you I'm bully. You wait an'see me eat dinner. "

But Lin had hot water and cold water and salt, and was an hour upon hisknees bathing the hot feet. And then Billy could not eat dinner!

There was a doctor in Golden; but in spite of his light prescriptionand most reasonable observations, Mr. McLean passed a foolish night ofvigil, while Billy slept, quite well at first, and, as the hours passed, better and better. In the morning he was entirely brisk, though stiff. 

"I couldn't work quick to-day, " he said. "But I guess one day won't loseme my trade. "

"How d' yu' mean?" asked Lin. 

"Why, I've got regulars, you know. Sidney Ellis an' Pete Goode hastheirs, an' we don't cut each other. I've got Mr. Daniels an' Mr. Fisheran' lots, an' if you lived in Denver I'd shine your boots every day fornothing. I wished you lived in Denver. "

"Shine my boots? Yu'll never! And yu' don't black Daniels or Fisher, orany of the outfit. "

"Why, I'm doing first-rate, " said Billy, surprised at the swearing intowhich Mr. McLean now burst. "An' I ain't big enough to get to make moneyat any other job. "

"I want to see that engine-man, " muttered Lin. "I don't like yoursmokin' friend. "

"Pete Goode? Why, he's awful smart. Don't you think he's smart?"

"Smart's nothin', " observed Mr. McLean. 

"Pete has learned me and Sidney a lot, " pursued Billy, engagingly. 

"I'll bet he has!" growled the cow-puncher; and again Billy was takenaback at his language. 

It was not so simple, this case. To the perturbed mind of Mr. McLean itgrew less simple during that day at Golden, while Billy recovered, andtalked, and ate his innocent meals. The cow-puncher was far too wise tothink for a single moment of restoring the runaway to his debauchedand shiftless parents. Possessed of some imagination, he went througha scene in which he appeared at the Lusk threshold with Billy andforgiveness, and intruded upon a conjugal assault and battery. "Shucks!"said he. "The kid would be off again inside a week. And I don't want himthere, anyway. "

Denver, upon the following day, saw the little bootblack again at hiscorner, with his trade not lost; but near him stood a tall, singularman, with hazel eyes and a sulky expression. And citizens during thatweek noticed, as a new sight in the streets, the tall man and the littleboy walking together. Sometimes they would be in shops. The boy seemedas happy as possible, talking constantly, while the man seldom said aword, and his face was serious. 

Upon New-year's Eve Governor Barker was overtaken by Mr. McLean riding ahorse up Hill Street, Cheyenne. 

"Hello!" said Barker, staring humorously through his glasses. "Have agood drunk?"

"Changed my mind, " said Lin, grinning. "Proves I've got one. StruckChristmas all right, though. "

"Who's your friend?" inquired his Excellency. 

"This is Mister Billy Lusk. Him and me have agreed that towns ain't niceto live in. If Judge Henry's foreman and his wife won't board him atSunk Creek--why, I'll fix it somehow. "

The cow-puncher and his Responsibility rode on together toward the openplain. 

"Sufferin Moses!" remarked his Excellency. 

SEPAR'S VIGILANTE

We had fallen half asleep, my pony and I, as we went jogging andjogging through the long sunny afternoon. Our hills of yesterday werea pale-blue coast sunk almost away behind us, and ahead our goallay shining, a little island of houses in this quiet mid-ocean ofsage-brush. For two hours it had looked as clear and near as now, risinginto sight across the huge dead calm and sinking while we travelled ourundulating, imperceptible miles. The train had come and gone invisibly, except for its slow pillar of smoke I had watched move westward againstWyoming's stainless sky. Though I was still far off, the water-tank andother buildings stood out plain and complete to my eyes, like children'sblocks arranged and forgotten on the floor. So I rode along, hypnotizedby the sameness of the lazy, splendid plain, and almost unaware of thedistant rider, till, suddenly, he was close and hailing me. 

"They've caved!" he shouted. 

"Who?" I cried, thus awakened. 

"Ah, the fool company, " said he, quieting his voice as he drew near. "They've shed their haughtiness, " he added, confidingly, as if I mustknow all about it. 

"Where did they learn that wisdom?" I asked, not knowing in the least. 

"Experience, " he called over his shoulder (for already we had met andpassed); "nothing like experience for sweating the fat off the brain. "

He yelled me a brotherly good-bye, and I am sorry never to have knownmore of him, for I incline to value any stranger so joyous. But now Iwaked the pony and trotted briskly, surmising as to the company and itshaughtiness. I had been viewing my destination across the sagebrush forso spun-out a time that (as constantly in Wyoming journeys) theemotion of arrival had evaporated long before the event, and I welcomedemployment for my otherwise high-and-dry mind. Probably he meant therailroad company; certainly something large had happened. Even as Idismounted at the platform another hilarious cow-puncher came out ofthe station, and, at once remarking, "They're going to leave us alone, "sprang on his horse and galloped to the corrals down the line, wheresome cattle were being loaded into a train. I went inside for my mail, and here were four more cow-punchers playing with the agent. They hadgot a letter away from him, and he wore his daily look of anxiety toappreciate the jests of these rollicking people. "Read it!" they said tome; and I did read the private document, and learned that the railroadwas going to waive its right to enforce law and order here, and wouldtrust to Separ's good feeling. "Nothing more, " the letter ran, "will bedone about the initial outrage or the subsequent vandalisms. We shallpass over our wasted outlay in the hope that a policy of friendship willprove our genuine desire to benefit that section. 

"'Initial outrage, '" quoted one of the agent' large playmates. "Ain'tthey furgivin'?"

"Well, " said I, "you would have some name for it yourself if you sent adeputy sheriff to look after your rights, and he came back tied to thecow-catcher!"

The man smiled luxuriously over this memory. 

"We didn't hurt him none. Just returned him to his home. Hear about thelabel Honey Wiggin pinned on to him? 'Send us along one dozen as persample. ' Honey's quaint! Yes, " he drawled judicially, "I'd be mad atthat. But if you're making peace with a man because it's convenient why, your words must be pleasanter than if you really felt pleasant. " He tookthe paper from me, and read, sardonically: "'Subsequent vandalisms... Wasted outlay. ' I suppose they run this station from charity to thecattle. Saves the poor things walking so far to the other railroad'Policy of friendship... Genuine desire'--oh mouth-wash!" And, shakinghis bold, clever head, he daintily flattened the letter upon the head ofthe agent. "Tubercle, " said he (this was their name for the agent, whohad told all of us about his lungs), "it ain't your fault we saw theirfine letter. They just intended you should give it out how they wouldn'tbother us any more, and then we'd act square. The boys'll sit up lateover this joke. "

Then they tramped to their horses and rode away. The spokesman hadhit the vital point unerringly; for cow-punchers are shrewdly aliveto frankness, and it often draws out the best that is in them; but itsopposite affects them unfavorably; and I, needing sleep, sighed tothink of their late sitting up over that joke. I walked to the board boxpainted "Hotel Brunswick"--"hotel" in small italics and "Brunswick" inenormous capitals, the N and the S wrong side up. 

Here sat a girl outside the door, alone. Her face was broad, wholesome, and strong, and her eyes alert and sweet. As I came she met me with achallenging glance of good-will. Those women who journeyed along theline in the wake of payday to traffic with the men employed a stare wellknown; but this straight look seemed like the greeting of some pleasantyoung cowboy. In surprise I forgot to be civil, and stepped foolishly byher to see about supper and lodging. 

At the threshold I perceived all lodging bespoken. On each of the fourbeds lay a coat or pistol or other article of dress, and I must lodgemyself. There were my saddle-blankets--rather wet; or Lin McLean mightride in to-night on his way to Riverside; or perhaps down at the corralsI could find some other acquaintance whose habit of washing I trustedand whose bed I might share. Failing these expedients, severalempties stood idle upon a siding, and the box-like darkness of thesefreight-cars was timely. Nights were short now. Camping out, the dawn bythree o'clock would flow like silver through the universe, and, sinkingthrough my blankets, remorselessly pervade my buried hair and brain. Butwith clean straw in the bottom of an empty, I could sleep my fill untilfive or six. I decided for the empty, and opened the supper-room door, where the table was set for more than enough to include me; but thesmell of the butter that awaited us drove me out of the Hotel Brunswickto spend the remaining minutes in the air. 

"I was expecting you, " said the girl. "Well, if I haven't frightenedhim!" She laughed so delightfully that I recovered and laughed too. "Why, " she explained, "I just knew you'd not stay in there. Which sideare you going to butter your bread this evening?"

"You had smelt it?" said I, still cloudy with surprise. "Yes. Unquestionably. Very rancid. " She glanced oddly at me, and, with lessfellowship in her tone, said, "I was going to warn you--" when suddenly, down at the corrals, the boys began to shoot at large. "Oh, dear!" shecried, starting up. "There's trouble. "

"Not trouble, " I assured her. "Too many are firing at once to be inearnest. And you would be safe here. "

"Me? A lady without escort? Well, I should reckon so! Leastways, weare respected where I was raised. I was anxious for the gentlemen ovahyondah. Shawhan, K. C. Branch of the Louavull an' Nashvull, is my home. "The words "Louisville and Nashville" spoke creamily of Blue-grass. 

"Unescorted all that way!" I exclaimed. 

"Isn't it awful?" said she, tilting her head with a laugh, and showingthe pistol she carried. "But we've always been awful in Kentucky. Now Isuppose New York would never speak to poor me as it passed by?" And sheeyed me with capable, good-humored satire. 

"Why New York?" I demanded. "Guess again. "

"Well, " she debated, "well, cowboy clothes and city language--he'sEnglish!" she burst out; and then she turned suddenly red, and whisperedto herself, reprovingly, "If I'm not acting rude!"

"Oh!" said I, rather familiarly. 

"It was, sir; and please to excuse me. If you had started joking sofree with me, I'd have been insulted. When I saw you--the hat andeverything--I took you--You see I've always been that used to talkingto--to folks around!" Her bright face saddened, memories evidently rosebefore her, and her eyes grew distant. 

I wished to say, "Treat me as 'folks around, '" but this tall countrygirl had put us on other terms. On discovering I was not "folks around, "she had taken refuge in deriding me, but swiftly feeling no solid groundthere, she drew a firm, clear woman's line between us. Plainly she was acomrade of men, in her buoyant innocence secure, yet by no means in thedark as to them. 

"Yes, unescorted two thousand miles, " she resumed, "and never as faras twenty from home till last Tuesday. I expect you'll have to bescandalized, for I'd do it right over again to-morrow. "

"You've got me all wrong, " said I. "I'm not English; I'm not New York. I am good American, and not bounded by my own farm either. No sectionalline, or Mason and Dixon, or Missouri River tattoos me. But you, whenyou say United States, you mean United Kentucky!"

"Did you ever!" said she, staring at what was Greek to her--as it is tomost Americans. "And so if you had a sister back East, and she and youwere all there was of you any more, and she hadn't seen you since--notsince you first took to staying out nights, and she started to visityou, you'd not tell her 'Fie for shame'?"

"I'd travel my money's length to meet her!" said I. 

A wave of pain crossed her face. "Nate didn't know, " she said then, lightly. "You see, Nate's only a boy, and regular thoughtless aboutwriting. "

Ah! So this Nate never wrote, and his sister loved and championed him!Many such stray Nates and Bobs and Bills galloped over Wyoming, lost andforgiven. 

"I'm starting for him in the Buffalo stage, " continued the girl. 

"Then I'll have your company on a weary road, " said I; for my journeywas now to that part of the cattle country. 

"To Buffalo?" she said, quickly. "Then maybe you--maybe--My brother isNate Buckner. " She paused. "Then you're not acquainted with him?"

"I may have seen him, " I answered, slowly. "But faces and names out herecome and go. "

I knew him well enough. He was in jail, convicted of forgery last week, waiting to go to the penitentiary for five years. And even this wildborder community that hated law courts and punishments had not beensorry, for he had cheated his friends too often, and the wide charityof the sage-brush does not cover that sin. Beneath his pretty looks anddaring skill with horses they had found vanity and a cold, false heart;but his sister could not. Here she was, come to find him after lonelyyears, and to this one soul that loved him in the world how was I totell the desolation and the disgrace? I was glad to hear her ask me ifthe stage went soon after supper. 

"Now isn't that a bother?" said she, when I answered that it did notstart till morning. She glanced with rueful gayety at the hotel. "Nevermind, " she continued, briskly; "I'm used to things. I'll just sit upsomewhere. Maybe the agent will let me stay in the office. You're sureall that shooting's only jollification?"

"Certain, " I said. "But I'll go and see. "

"They always will have their fun, " said she. "But I hate to have a poorboy get hurt--even him deserving it!"

"They use pistols instead of fire-crackers, " said I. "But you must neversleep in that office. I'll see what we can do. "

"Why, you're real kind!" she exclaimed, heartily. And I departed, wondering what I ought to do. 

Perhaps I should have told you before that Separ was a place once--asort of place; but you will relish now, I am convinced, the pithy fableof its name. 

Midway between two sections of this still unfinished line that, railafter rail and mile upon mile, crawled over the earth's face visiblyduring the constructing hours of each new day, lay a camp. To this pointthese unjoined pieces were heading, and here at length they met. CampSeparation it had been fitly called, but how should the Americanrailway man afford time to say that? Separation was pretty and apt, but needless; and with the sloughing of two syllables came the brief, businesslike result--Separ. Chicago, 1137-1/2 miles. It was labelled ona board large almost as the hut station. A Y-switch, two sidings, thefat water-tank and steam-pump, and a section-house with three treesbefore it composed the north side. South of the track were no trees. There was one long siding by the corrals and cattle-chute, there werea hovel where plug tobacco and canned goods were for sale, a shed whereyou might get your horse shod, a wire fence that at shipping timesenclosed bales of pressed hay, the hotel, the stage stable, and thelittle station--some seven shanties all told. Between them were spacesof dust, the immediate plains engulfed them, and through their midstran the far-vanishing railroad, to which they hung like beads on a greatstring from horizon to horizon. A great east-and-west string, one endin the rosy sun at morning, and one in the crimson sun at night. Beyondeach sky-line lay cities and ports where the world went on out ofsight and hearing. This lone steel thread had been stretched across thecontinent because it was the day of haste and hope, when dollars seemedmany and hard times were few; and from the Yellowstone to the Rio Grandesimilar threads were stretching, and little Separs by dispersed hundredshung on them, as it were in space eternal. Can you wonder that vigorousyoung men with pistols should, when they came to such a place, shootthem off to let loose their unbounded joy of living?

And yet it was not this merely that began the custom, but an error ofthe agent's. The new station was scarce created when one morning HoneyWiggin with the Virginian had galloped innocently in from the round-upto telegraph for some additional cars. 

"I'm dead on to you!" squealed the official, dropping flat at the sightof them; and bang went his gun at them. They, most naturally, thoughtit was a maniac, and ran for their lives among the supports of thewater-tank, while he remained anchored with his weapon, crouched behindthe railing that fenced him and his apparatus from the laity; and somefifteen strategic minutes passed before all parties had crawled forthto an understanding, and the message was written and paid for andcomfortably despatched. The agent was an honest creature, but of tamehabits, sent for the sake of his imperfect lungs to this otherwiseinappropriate air. He had lived chiefly in mid-West towns, a seriousreader of our comic weeklies; hence the apparition of Wiggin and theVirginian had reminded him sickeningly of bandits. He had express moneyin the safe, he explained to them, and this was a hard old country, wasn't it? and did they like good whiskey?

They drank his whiskey, but it was not well to have mentioned thatabout the bandits. Both were aware that when shaved and washed of theirround-up grime they could look very engaging. The two cow-punchers rodeout, not angry, but grieved that a man come here to dwell among themshould be so tactless. 

"If we don't get him used to us, " observed the Virginian, "he and hispop-gun will be guttin' some blameless man. "

Forthwith the cattle country proceeded to get the agent used to it. The news went over the sage-brush from Belle Fourche to Sweetwater, and playful, howling horsemen made it their custom to go riotingwith pistols round the ticket office, educating the agent. His lungsimproved, and he came dimly to smile at this life which he did notunderstand. But the company discerned no humor whatever in having itswater-tank perforated, which happened twice; and sheriffs and deputiesand other symptoms of authority began to invest Separ. Now whatshould authority do upon these free plains, this wilderness ofdo-as-you-please, where mere breathing the air was like inebriation? Thelarge, headlong children who swept in from the sage-brush and outagain meant nothing that they called harm until they found themselvesresisted. Then presently happened that affair of the cow-catcher; andlater a too-zealous marshal, come about a mail-car they hadside-tracked and held with fiddles, drink, and petticoats, met his deathaccidentally, at which they were sincerely sorry for about five minutes. They valued their own lives as little, and that lifts them foreverfrom baseness at least. So the company, concluding such things must beendured for a while yet, wrote their letter, and you have seen how wrongthe letter went. All it would do would be from now on to fasten uponSepar its code of recklessness; to make shooting the water-tank (forexample) part of a gentleman's deportment when he showed himself intown. 

It was not now the season of heavy shipping; to-night their work wouldbe early finished, and then they were likely to play after their manner. To arrive in such a place on her way to her brother, the felon in jail, made the girl's journey seem doubly forlorn to me as I wandered down tothe corrals. 

A small, bold voice hailed me. "Hello, you!" it said; and here wasBilly Lusk, aged nine, in boots and overalls, importantly useless with astick, helping the men prod the steers at the chute. 

"Thought you were at school, " said I. 

"Ah, school's quit, " returned Billy, and changed the subject. "Say, Lin's hunting you. He's angling to eat at the hotel. I'm grubbing withthe outfit. " And Billy resumed his specious activity. 

Mr. McLean was in the ticket-office, where the newspaper had transientlyreminded him of politics. "Wall Street, " he was explaining to the agent, "has been lunched on by them Ross-childs, and they're moving on. Feedingalong to Chicago. We want--" Here he noticed me and, dragging hisgauntlet off, shook my hand with his lusty grasp. 

"Your eldest son just said you were in haste to find me, " I remarked. 

"Lose you, he meant. The kid gets his words twisted. "

"Didn't know you were a father, Mr. McLean, " simpered the agent. 

Lin fixed his eye on the man. "And you don't know it now, " said he. Thenhe removed his eye. "Let's grub, " he added to me. My friend did not walkto the hotel, but slowly round and about, with a face overcast. "Billyis a good kid, " he said at length, and, stopping, began to kick smallmounds in the dust. Politics floated lightly over him, but here was amatter dwelling with him, heavy and real. "He's dead stuck on being acow-puncher, " he presently said. 

"Some day--" I began. 

"He don't want to wait that long, " Lin said, and smiled affectionately. "And, anyhow, what is 'some day'? Some day we punchers will not be here. The living will be scattered, and the dead--well, they'll be all right. Have yu' studied the wire fence? It's spreading to catch us like nets dothe salmon in the Columbia River. No more salmon, no more cow-punchers, "stated Mr. McLean, sententiously; and his words made me sad, though Iknow that progress cannot spare land and water for such things. "ButBilly, " Lin resumed, "has agreed to school again when it starts up inthe fall. He takes his medicine because I want him to. " Affection creptanew over the cow-puncher's face. "He can learn books with the quickestwhen he wants, that Bear Creek school-marm says. But he'd ought to havea regular mother till--till I can do for him, yu' know. It's onwholesomehim seeing and hearing the boys--and me, and me when I forget!--butshucks! how can I fix it? Billy was sure enough dropped and deserted. But when I found him the little calf could run and notice likeeverything!"

"I should hate your contract, Lin, " said I. "Adopting's a touch-and-gobusiness even when a man has a home. "

"I'll fill the contract, you bet! I wish the little son-of-a-gun wasmine. I'm a heap more natural to him than that pair of drunkards thatgot him. He likes me: I think he does. I've had to lick him now andthen, but Lord! his badness is all right--not sneaky. I'll take himhunting next month, and then the foreman's wife at Sunk Creek boards himtill school. Only when they move, Judge Henry'll make his Virginia manforeman--and he's got no woman to look after Billy, yu' see. "

"He's asking one hard enough, " said I, digressing. 

"Oh yes; asking! Talk of adopting--" said Mr. McLean, and his wide-open, hazel eyes looked away as he coughed uneasily. Then abruptly looking atme again, he said: "Don't you get off any more truck about eldest sonand that, will yu', friend? The boys are joshing me now--not that Icare for what might easy enough be so, but there's Billy. Maybe he'dnot mind, but maybe he would after a while; and I am kind o' seton--well--he didn't have a good time till he shook that home of his, andI'm going to make this old bitch of a world pay him what she owes him, if I can. Now you'll drop joshing, won't yu'?" His forehead was moistover getting the thing said and laying bare so much of his soul. 

"And so the world owes us a good time, Lin?" said I. 

He laughed shortly. "She must have been dead broke, then, quite a while, you bet! Oh no. Maybe I used to travel on that basis. But see here"(Lin laid his hand on my shoulder), "if you can't expect a good timefor yourself in reason, you can sure make the kids happy out o' reason, can't yu'?"

I fairly opened my mouth at him. 

"Oh yes, " he said, laughing in that short way again (and he took hishand off my shoulder); "I've been thinking a wonderful lot since we metlast. I guess I know some things yu' haven't got to yet yourself--Why, there's a girl!"

"That there is!" said I. "And certainly the world owes her a better--"

"She's a fine-looker, " interrupted Mr. McLean, paying me no furtherattention. Here the decrepit, straw-hatted proprietor of the HotelBrunswick stuck his beard out of the door and uttered "Supper!" with ashrill croak, at which the girl rose. 

"Come!" said Lin, "let's hurry!"

But I hooked my fingers in his belt, and in spite of his plaintive oathsat my losing him the best seat at the table, told him in three words thesister's devoted journey. 

"Nate Buckner!" he exclaimed. "Him with a decent sister!"

"It's the other way round, " said I. "Her with him for a brother!"

"He goes to the penitentiary this week, " said Lin. "He had no more cashto stake his lawyer with, and the lawyer lost interest in him. So hissister could have waited for her convict away back at Joliet, and savedtime and money. How did she act when yu' told her?"

"I've not told her. "

"Not? Too kind o' not your business? Well, well! You'd ought to knowbetter 'n me. Only it don't seem right to let her--no, sir; it's notright, either. Put it her brother was dead (and Miss. Fligg's husbandwould like dearly to make him dead), you'd not let her come slap upagainst the news unwarned. You would tell her he was sick, and start hergently. "

"Death's different, " said I. 

"Shucks! And she's to find him caged, and waiting for stripes and ashaved head? How d' yu' know she mightn't hate that worse 'n if he'dbeen just shot like a man in a husband scrape, instead of jailed like askunk for thieving? No, sir, she mustn't. Think of how it'll be. Quickas the stage pulls up front o' the Buffalo post-office, plump she'll bedown ahead of the mail-sacks, inquiring after her brother, and all thatcrowd around staring. Why, we can't let her do that; she can't do that. If you don't feel so interfering, I'm good for this job myself. " And Mr. McLean took the lead and marched jingling in to supper. 

The seat he had coveted was vacant. On either side the girl were emptychairs, two or three; for with that clean, shy respect of the frontierthat divines and evades a good woman, the dusty company had sat itselfat a distance, and Mr. McLean's best seat was open to him. Yet he hadveered away to the other side of the table, and his usually roving eyeattempted no gallantry. He ate sedately, and it was not until after longweeks and many happenings that Miss Buckner told Lin she had known hewas looking at her through the whole of this meal. The straw-hattedproprietor came and went, bearing beefsteak hammered flat to make ittender. The girl seemed the one happy person among us; for supper wasgoing forward with the invariable alkali etiquette, all faces broodingand feeding amid a disheartening silence as of guilt or bereavement thatsprings from I have never been quite sure what--perhaps reversion to thenative animal absorbed in his meat, perhaps a little from every guest'suneasiness lest he drink his coffee wrong or stumble in the accepteduses of the fork. Indeed, a diffident, uncleansed youth nearest MissBuckner presently wiped his mouth upon the cloth; and Mr. McLean, knowing better than that, eyed him for this conduct in the presence of alady. The lively strength of the butter must, I think, have reached allin the room; at any rate, the table-cloth lad, troubled by Mr. McLean'seye, now relieved the general silence by observing, chattily:

"Say, friends, that butter ain't in no trance. "

"If it's too rich for you, " croaked the enraged proprietor, "useaxle-dope. "

The company continued gravely feeding, while I struggled to preservethe decorum of sadness, and Miss Buckner's face was also unsteady. Butsternness mantled in the countenance of Mr. McLean, until the harmlessboy, embarrassed to pieces, offered the untasted smelling-dish to Lin, to me, helped himself, and finally thrust the plate at the girl, saying, in his Texas idiom, "Have butter. "

He spoke in the shell voice of adolescence, and on "butter" cracked anoctave up into the treble. Miss Buckner was speechless, and could onlyshake her head at the plate. 

Mr. McLean, however, thought she was offended. "She wouldn't choose fornone, " he said to the youth, with appalling calm. "Thank yu' most todeath. "

"I guess, " fluted poor Texas, in a dove falsetto, "it would go slickerrubbed outside than swallered. "

At this Miss Buckner broke from the table and fled out of the house. 

"You don't seem to know anything, " observed Mr. McLean. "What toy-shopdid you escape from?"

"Wind him up! Wind him up!" said the proprietor, sticking his head infrom the kitchen. 

"Ah, what's the matter with this outfit?" screamed the boy, furiously. "Can't yu' leave a man eat? Can't yu' leave him be? You make me sick!"And he flounced out with his young boots. 

All the while the company fed on unmoved. Presently one remarked, "Who's hiring him?"

"The C. Y. Outfit, " said another. 

"Half-circle L. , " a third corrected. 

"I seen one like him onced, " said the first, taking his hat from beneathhis chair. "Up in the Black Hills he was. Eighteen seventy-nine. Gosh!"And he wandered out upon his business. One by one the others alsosilently dispersed. 

Upon going out, Lin and I found the boy pacing up and down, eagerly intalk with Miss Buckner. She had made friends with him, and he was nowsmoothed down and deeply absorbed, being led by her to tell her abouthimself. But on Lin's approach his face clouded, and he made off for thecorrals, displaying a sullen back, while I was presenting Mr. McLean tothe lady. 

Overtaken by his cow-puncher shyness, Lin was greeting her with ungainlyceremony, when she began at once, "You'll excuse me, but I just had tohave my laugh. "

"That's all right, m'm, " said he; "don't mention it. "

"For that boy, you know--"

"I'll fix him, m'm. He'll not insult yu' no more. I'll speak to him. "

"Now, please don't! Why--why--you were every bit as bad!" Miss Bucknerpealed out, joyously. "It was the two of you. Oh dear!"

Mr. McLean looked crestfallen. "I had no--I didn't go to--"

"Why, there was no harm! To see him mean so well and you mean so well, and--I know I ought to behave better!"

"No, yu' oughtn't!" said Lin, with sudden ardor; and then, in a voice ofdeprecation, "You'll think us plumb ignorant. "

"You know enough to be kind to folks, " said she. 

"We'd like to. "

"It's the only thing makes the world go round!" she declared, with anemotion that I had heard in her tone once or twice already. But shecaught herself up, and said gayly to me, "And where's that house youwere going to build for a lone girl to sleep in?"

"I'm afraid the foundations aren't laid yet, " said I. 

"Now you gentlemen needn't bother about me. "

"We'll have to, m'm. You ain't used to Separ. "

"Oh, I am no--tenderfoot, don't you call them?" She whipped out herpistol, and held it at the cow-puncher, laughing. 

This would have given no pleasure to me; but over Lin's features went aglow of delight, and he stood gazing at the pointed weapon and the girlbehind it. "My!" he said, at length, almost in a whisper, "she's got thedrop on me!"

"I reckon I'd be afraid to shoot that one of yours, " said Miss Buckner. "But this hits a target real good and straight at fifteen yards. " Andshe handed it to him for inspection. 

He received it, hugely grinning, and turned it over and over. "My!"he murmured again. "Why, shucks!" He looked at Miss Buckner with starkrapture, caressing the polished revolver at the same time with a fond, unconscious thumb. "You hold it just as steady as I could, " he said withpride, and added, insinuatingly, "I could learn yu' the professionaldrop in a morning. This here is a little dandy gun. "

"You'd not trade, though, " said she, "for all your flattery. "

"Will yu' trade?" pounced Lin. "Won't yu'?"

"Now, Mr. McLean, I am afraid you're thoughtless. How could a girl likeme ever hold that awful. 45 Colt steady?"

"She knows the brands, too!" cried Lin, in ecstasy. "See here, " heremarked to me with a manner that smacked of command, "we're losing timeright now. You go and tell the agent to hustle and fix his room up for alady, and I'll bring her along. "

I found the agent willing, of course, to sleep on the floor of theoffice. The toy station was also his home. The front compartment heldthe ticket and telegraph and mail and express chattels, and the railing, and room for the public to stand; through a door you then passed tothe sitting, dining, and sleeping box; and through another to acooking-stove in a pigeon-hole. Here flourished the agent and his lungs, and here the company's strict orders bade him sleep in charge; soI helped him put his room to rights. But we need not have hurriedourselves. Mr. McLean was so long in bringing the lady that I wentout and found him walking and talking with her, while fifty yards awayskulked poor Texas, alone. This boy's name was, like himself, of thesomewhat unexpected order, being Manassas Donohoe. 

As I came towards the new friends they did not appear to be joking, andon seeing me Miss Buckner said to Lin, "Did he know?"

Lin hesitated. 

"You did know!" she exclaimed, but lost her resentment at once, andcontinued, very quietly and with a friendly tone, "I reckon you don'tlike to have to tell folks bad news. "

It was I that now hesitated. 

"Not to a strange girl, anyway!" said she. "Well, now I have good newsto tell you. You would not have given me any shock if you had said youknew about poor Nate, for that's the reason--Of course those thingscan't be secrets! Why, he's only twenty, sir! How should he know aboutthis world? He hadn't learned the first little thing when he lefthome five years ago. And I am twenty-three--old enough to be Nate'sgrandmother, he's that young and thoughtless. He couldn't ever realizebad companions when they came around. See that!" She showed me a paper, taking it out like a precious thing, as indeed it was; for it was apardon signed by Governor Barker. "And the Governor has let me carryit to Nate myself. He won't know a thing about it till I tell him. TheGovernor was real kind, and we will never forget him. I reckon Nate musthave a mustache by now?" said she to Lin. 

"Yes, " Lin answered, gruffly, looking away from her, "he has got amustache all right. "

"He'll be glad to see you, " said I, for something to say. 

"Of course he will! How many hours did you say we will be?" she askedLin, turning from me again, for Mr. McLean had not been losing time. Itwas plain that between these two had arisen a freemasonry from which Iwas already shut out. Her woman's heart had answered his right impulseto tell her about her brother, and I had been found wanting!

So now she listened over again to the hours of stage jolting that"we" had before us, and that lay between her and Nate. "We would befour--herself, Lin, myself, and the boy Billy. " Was Billy the one atsupper? Oh no; just Billy Lusk, of Laramie. "He's a kid I'm taking upthe country, " Lin explained. "Ain't you most tuckered out?"

"Oh, me!" she confessed, with a laugh and a sigh. 

There again! She had put aside my solicitude lightly, but was willingLin should know her fatigue. Yet, fatigue and all, she would not sleepin the agent's room. At sight of it and the close quarters she drew backinto the outer office, so prompted by that inner, unsuspected strictnessshe had shown me before. 

"Come out!" she cried, laughing. "Indeed, I thank you. But I can't haveyou sleep on this hard floor out here. No politeness, now! Thank youever so much. I'm used to roughing it pretty near as well as if I was--acowboy!" And she glanced at Lin. "They're calling forty-seven, " sheadded to the agent. 

"That's me, " he said, coming out to the telegraph instrument. "So you'reone of us?"

"I didn't know forty-seven meant Separ, " said I. "How in the world doyou know that?"

"I didn't. I heard forty-seven, forty-seven, forty-seven, start and goright along, so I guessed they wanted him, and he couldn't hear themfrom his room. "

"Can yu' do astronomy and Spanish too?" inquired the proud and smilingMcLean. 

"Why, it's nothing! I've been day operator back home. Why is a deputycoming through on a special engine?"

"Please don't say it out loud!" quavered the agent, as the machineclicked its news. 

"Yu' needn't be scared of a girl, " said Lin. "Another sheriff! Sothey're not quit bothering us yet. "

However, this meddling was not the company's, but the county's; asheriff sent to arrest, on a charge of murder, a man named Trampas, said to be at the Sand Hill Ranch. That was near Rawhide, two stationsbeyond, and the engine might not stop at Separ, even to water. So herewas no molesting of Separ's liberties. 

"All the same, " Lin said, for pistols now and then still sounded at thecorrals, "the boys'll not understand that till it's explained, and theymay act wayward first. I'd feel easier if you slept here, " he urgedto the girl. But she would not. "Well, then, we must rustle some otherprivate place for you. How's the section-house?"

"Rank, " said the agent, "since those Italians used it. The pump engineerhas been scouring, but he's scared to bunk there yet himself. "

"Too bad you couldn't try my plan of a freight-car!" said I. 

"An empty?" she cried. "Is there a clean one?"

"You've sure never done that?" Lin burst out. 

"So you're scandalized, " said she, punishing him instantly. "I reckon itdoes take a decent girl to shock you. " And while she stood laughingat him with robust irony, poor Lin began to stammer that he meant nooffence. "Why, to be sure you didn't!" said she. "But I do enjoy youreal thoroughly. "

"Well, m'm, " protested the wincing cow-puncher, driven back toaddressing her as "ma'am, " "we ain't used--"

"Don't tangle yourself up worse, Mr. McLean. No more am I 'used. ' I havenever slept in an empty in my life. And why is that? Just because I'venever had to. And there's the difference between you boys and us. You dolots of things you don't like, and tell us. And we put up with lots ofthings we don't like, but we never let you find out. I know you meantno offense, " she continued, heartily, softening towards her crushedprotector, "because you're a gentleman. And lands! I'm not complainingabout an empty. That will be rich--if I can have the door shut. "

Upon this she went out to view the cars, Mr. McLean hovering behind herwith a devoted, uneasy countenance, and frequently muttering "Shucks!"while the agent and I followed with a lamp, for the dark was come. Withour help she mounted into the first car, and then into the next, takingthe lamp. And while she scanned the floor and corners, and slid the doorback and forth, Lin whispered in my ear: "Her name's Jessamine. Shetold me. Don't yu' like that name?" So I answered him, "Yes, very much, "thinking that some larger flower--but still a flower--might have beenmore apt. 

"Nobody seems to have slept in these, " said she, stepping down; and onlearning that even the tramp avoided Separ when he could, she exclaimed, "What lodging could be handier than this! Only it would be so cute ifyou had a Louavull an' Nashvull car, " said she. "Twould seem like my oldKentucky home!" And laughing rather sweetly at her joke, she heldthe lamp up to read the car's lettering. "'D. And R. G. ' Oh, that'sa way-off stranger! I reckon they're all strange. " She went along thetrain with her lamp. "Yes, 'B. And M. ' and 'S. C. And P. ' Oh, this isrich! Nate will laugh when he hears. I'll choose 'C. , B. And Q. ' That'sa little nearer my country. What time does the stage start? Porter, please wake 'C. , B. And Q. ' at six, sharp, " said she to Lin. 

From this point of the evening on, I think of our doings--theirdoings--with a sort of unchanging homesickness. Nothing like them canever happen again, I know; for it's all gone--settled, sobered, andgone. And whatever wholesomer prose of good fortune waits in our cup, how I thank my luck for this swallow of frontier poetry which I came intime for!

To arrange some sort of bed for her was the next thing, and we made agood shake-down--clean straw and blankets and a pillow, and the agentwould have brought sheets; but though she would not have these, she didnot resist--what do you suppose?--a looking-glass for next morning!And we got a bucket of water and her valise. It was all one to her, she said, in what car Lin and I put up; and let it be next door, by allmeans, if it pleased him to think he could watch over her safety betterso; and she shut herself in, bidding us good-night. We began spreadingstraw and blankets for ourselves, when a whistle sounded far and long, and its tone rose in pitch as it came. 

"I'll get him to run right to the corrals, " said the agent, "so thesheriff can tell the boys he's not after them. "

"That'll convince 'em he is, " said Lin. "Stop him here, or let him gothrough. "

But we were not to steer the course that events took now. The railsof the main line beside us brightened in wavering parallels as theheadlight grew down upon us, and in this same moment the shootings atthe corrals chorused in a wild, hilarious threat. The burden of thecoming engine heavily throbbed in the air and along the steel, and metand mixed with the hard, light beating of hoofs. The sounds approachedtogether like a sort of charge, and I stepped between the freight-cars, where I heard Lin ordering the girl inside to lie down flat, and couldsee the agent running about in the dust, flapping his arms to signalwith as much coherence as a chicken with its head off. I had very shortspace for wonder or alarm. The edge of one of my freight-cars glowedsuddenly with the imminent headlight, and galloping shots invaded theplace. The horsemen flew by, overreaching, and leaning back and luggingagainst their impetus. They passed in a tangled swirl, and their dustcoiled up thick from the dark ground and luminously unfolded across theglare of the sharp-halted locomotive. Then they wheeled, and clusteredaround it where it stood by our cars, its air-brake pumping deepbreaths, and the internal steam humming through its bowels; and I cameout in time to see Billy Lusk climb its front with callow, enterprisingshouts. That was child's play; and the universal yell now raised bythe horsemen was their child's play too; but the whole thing could soprecipitately reel into the fatal that my thoughts stopped. I could onlylook when I saw that they had somehow recognized the man on theengine for a sheriff. Two had sprung from their horses and were makingboisterously toward the cab, while Lin McLean, neither boisterous norjoking, was going to the cab from my side, with his pistol drawn, tokeep the peace. The engineer sat with a neutral hand on the lever, thefireman had run along the top of the coal in the tender and descendedand crouched somewhere, and the sheriff, cool, and with a good-naturedeye upon all parties, was just beginning to explain his errand, whensome rider from the crowd cut him short with an invitation to get downand have a drink. At the word of ribald endearment by which he named thesheriff, a passing fierceness hardened the officer's face, and the newyell they gave was less playful. Waiting no more explanations, theyswarmed against the locomotive, and McLean pulled himself up on thestep. The loud talking fell at a stroke to let business go on, and inthis silence came the noise of a sliding-door. At that I looked, andthey all looked, and stood harmless, like children surprised. For thereon the threshold of the freight-car, with the interior darkness behindher, and touched by the headlight's diverging rays, stood JessamineBuckner. 

"Will you gentlemen do me a favor?" said she. "Strangers, maybe, haveno right to ask favors, but I reckon you'll let that pass this time. ForI'm real sleepy!" She smiled as she brought this out. "I've been fourdays and nights on the cars, and to-morrow I've got to stage to Buffalo. You see I'll not be here to spoil your fun to-morrow night, and I wantboys to be boys just as much as ever they can. Won't you put it off tillto-morrow night?"

In their amazement they found no spokesman; but I saw Lin busy amongthem, and that some word was passing through their groups. After thebrief interval of stand-still they began silently to get on theirhorses, while the looming engine glowed and pumped its breath, and thesheriff and engineer remained as they were. 

"Good-night, lady, " said a voice among the moving horsemen, but theothers kept their abashed native silence; and thus they slowly filedaway to the corrals. The figures, in their loose shirts and leathernchaps, passed from the dimness for a moment through the cone of lightin front of the locomotive, so that the metal about them made here andthere a faint, vanishing glint; and here and there in the departingcolumn a bold, half-laughing face turned for a look at the girl in thedoorway, and then was gone again into the dimness. 

The sheriff in the cab took off his hat to Miss Buckner, remarking thatshe should belong to the force; and as the bell rang and the enginemoved, off popped young Billy Lusk from his cow-catcher. With anexclamation of horror she sprang down, and Mr. McLean appeared, and, with all a parent's fright and rage, held the boy by the arm grotesquelyas the sheriff steamed by. 

"I ain't a-going to chase it, " said young Billy, struggling. 

"I've a mind to cowhide you, " said Lin. 

But Miss Buckner interposed. "Oh, well, " said she, "next time; if hedoes it next time. It's so late to-night! You'll not frighten us thatway again if he lets you off?" she asked Billy. 

"No, " said Billy, looking at her with interest. "Father 'd have cowhidedme anyway, I guess, " he added, meditatively. 

"Do you call him father?"

"Ah, father's at Laramie, " said Billy, with disgust. "He'd not stop foryour asking. Lin don't bother me much. "

"You quit talking and step up there!" ordered his guardian. "Well, m'm, I guess yu' can sleep good now in there. "

"If it was only an 'L. And N. ' I'd not have a thing against it!Good-night, Mr. McLean; good-night, young Mr. --"

"I'm Billy Lusk. I can ride Chalkeye's pinto that bucked Honey Wiggin. "

"I am sure you can ride finely, Mr. Lusk. Maybe you and I can take aride together. Pleasant dreams!"

She nodded and smiled to him, and slid her door to; and Billy consideredit, remarking: "I like her. What makes her live in a car?"

But he was drowsing while I told him; and I lifted him up to Lin, whotook him in his own blankets, where he fell immediately asleep. Onedistant whistle showed how far the late engine had gone from us. We leftour car open, and I lay enjoying the cool air. Thus was I drifting off, when I grew aware of a figure in the door. It was Lin, standing in hisstockings and not much else, with his pistol. He listened, and thenleaped down, light as a cat. I heard some repressed talking, and lay inexpectancy; but back he came, noiseless in his stockings, and as heslid into bed I asked what the matter was. He had found the Texasboy, Manassas Donohoe, by the girl's car, with no worse intention thankeeping a watch on it. "So I gave him to understand, " said Lin, "that Ihad no objection to him amusing himself playing picket-line, but thatI guessed I was enough guard, and he would find sleep healthier forhis system. " After this I went to sleep wholly; but, waking once in thenight, thought I heard some one outside, and learned in the morning fromLin that the boy had not gone until the time came for him to joinhis outfit at the corrals. And I was surprised that Lin, the usuallygood-hearted, should find nothing but mirth in the idea of this unknown, unthanked young sentinel. "Sleeping's a heap better for them kind tillthey get their growth, " was his single observation. 

But when Separ had dwindled to toys behind us in the journeying stageI told Miss Jessamine, and although she laughed too, it was with a notethat young Texas would have liked to hear; and she hoped she might seehim upon her return, to thank him. 

"Any Jack can walk around all night, " said Mr. McLean, disparagingly. 

"Well, then, and I know a Jack who didn't, " observed the young lady. 

This speech caused her admirer to be full of explanations; so thatwhen she saw how readily she could perplex him, and yet how capable anduntiring he was about her comfort, helping her out or tucking her inat the stations where we had a meal or changed horses, she enjoyed thehours very much, in spite of their growing awkwardness. 

But oh, the sparkling, unbashful Lin! Sometimes he sat himself besideher to be close, and then he would move opposite, the better to beholdher. 

Never, except once long after (when sorrow manfully borne had stillfurther refined his clay), have I heard Lin's voice or seen his lookso winning. No doubt many a male bird cares nothing what neighbor birdoverhears his spring song from the top of the open tree, but I extremelydoubt if his lady-love, even if she be a frank, bouncing robin, doesnot prefer to listen from some thicket, and not upon the public lawn. Jessamine grew silent and almost peevish; and from discourse upon manand woman she hopped, she skipped, she flew. When Lin looked at hiswatch and counted the diminished hours between her and Buffalo, shesmiled to herself; but from mention of her brother she shrank, glancingswiftly at me and my well-assumed slumber. 

And it was with indignation and self-pity that I climbed out in the hotsun at last beside the driver and small Billy. 

"I know this road, " piped Billy, on the box

"'I camped here with father when mother was off that time. You can takea left-hand trail by those cottonwoods and strike the mountains. "

So I inquired what game he had then shot. 

"Ah, just a sage-hen. Lin's a-going to let me shoot a bear, you know. What made Lin marry mother when father was around?"

The driver gave me a look over Billy's head, and I gave him one; and Iinstructed Billy that people supposed his father was dead. I withheldthat his mother gave herself out as Miss Peck in the days when Lin mether on Bear Creek. 

The formidable nine-year-old pondered. "The geography says they used tohave a lot of wives at Salt Lake City. Is there a place where a womancan have a lot of husbands?"

"It don't especially depend on the place, " remarked the driver to me. 

"Because, " Billy went on, "Bert Taylor told me in recess that mother'dhad a lot, and I told him he lied, and the other boys they laughed andI blacked Bert's eye on him, and I'd have blacked the others too, only Miss Wood came out. I wouldn't tell her what Bert said, and Bertwouldn't, and Sophy Armstrong told her. Bert's father found out, and hecome round, and I thought he was a-going to lick me about the eye, andhe licked Bert! Say, am I Lin's, honest?"

"No, Billy, you're not, " I said. 

"Wish I was. They couldn't get me back to Laramie then; but, oh, bother!I'd not go for 'em! I'd like to see 'em try! Lin wouldn't leave me go. You ain't married, are you? No more is Lin now, I guess. A good manyare, but I wouldn't want to. I don't think anything of 'em. I've seenmother take 'pothecary stuff on the sly. She's whaled me worse than Linever does. I guess he wouldn't want to be mother's husband again, and ifhe does, " said Billy, his voice suddenly vindictive, "I'll quit him andskip. "

"No danger, Bill, " said I. 

"How would the nice lady inside please you?" inquired the driver. 

"Ah, pshaw! she ain't after Lin!" sang out Billy, loud and scornful. "She's after her brother. She's all right, though, " he added, approvingly. 

At this all talk stopped short inside, reviving in a casual, scantymanner; while unconscious Billy Lusk, tired of the one subject, nowspoke cheerfully of birds' eggs. 

Who knows the child-soul, young in days, yet old as Adam and the hills?That school-yard slur about his mother was as dim to his understandingas to the offender's, yet mysterious nature had bid him go to instantwar! How foreseeing in Lin to choke the unfounded jest about hisrelation to Billy Lusk, in hopes to save the boy's ever awakening tothe facts of his mother's life! "Though, " said the driver, an easygoingcynic, "folks with lots of fathers will find heaps of brothers in thiscountry!" But presently he let Billy hold the reins, and at the nextstation carefully lifted him down and up. "I've knowed that woman, too, "he whispered to me. "Sidney, Nebraska. Lusk was off half the time. Welaughed when she fooled Lin into marryin' her. Come to think, " he mused, as twilight deepened around our clanking stage, and small Billy sleptsound between us, "there's scarcely a thing in life you get a laugh outof that don't make soberness for somebody. "

Soberness had now visited the pair behind us; even Lin's lively talk hadquieted, and his tones were low and few. But though Miss Jessamine atour next change of horses "hoped" I would come inside, I knew she didnot hope very earnestly, and outside I remained until Buffalo. 

Journeying done, her face revealed the strain beneath her bravebrightness, and the haunting care she could no longer keep from hereyes. The imminence of the jail and the meeting had made her cheekswhite and her countenance seem actually smaller; and when, reminding methat we should meet again soon, she gave me her hand, it was ice-cold. I think she was afraid Lin might offer to go with her. But his heartunderstood the lonely sacredness of her next half-hour, and the cowpuncher, standing aside for her to pass, lifted his hat wistfullyand spoke never a word. For a moment he looked after her with sombreemotion; but the court-house and prison stood near and in sight, and, as plain as if he had said so, I saw him suddenly feel she should not bestared at going up those steps; it must be all alone, the pain and thejoy of that reprieve! He turned away with me, and after a few silentsteps said, "Wasted! all wasted!"

"Let us hope--" I began. 

"You're not a fool, " he broke in, roughly. "You don't hope anything. "

"He'll start life elsewhere, " said I. 

"Elsewhere! Yes, keep starting till all the elsewheres know him likePowder River knows him. But she! I have had to sit and hear her tell andtell about him; all about back in Kentucky playin' around the farm, andhow she raised him after the old folks died. Then he got bigger and madeher sell their farm, and she told how it was right he should turn itinto money and get his half. I did not dare say a word, for she'd havejust bit my head off, and--and that would sure hurt me now!" Lin broughtup with a comical chuckle. "And she went to work, and he cleared out, and no more seen or heard of him. That's for five years, and she'd givenup tracing him, when one morning she reads in the paper about how herlong-lost brother is convicted for forgery. That's the way she knowshe's not dead, and she takes her savings off her railroad salary andstarts for him. She was that hasty she thought it was Buffalo, New York, till she got in the cars and read the paper over again. But she hadto go as far as Cincinnati, either way. She has paid every cent of themoney he stole. " We had come to the bridge, and Lin jerked a stoneinto the quick little river. "She's awful strict in some ways. ThoughtBuffalo must be a wicked place because of the shops bein' open Sunday. Now if that was all Buffalo's wickedness! And she thinks divorce ismostly sin. But her heart is a shield for Nate. "

"Her face is as beautiful as her actions, " he added. 

"Well, " said I, "and would you make such a villain your brother-in-law?"

He whirled round and took both my shoulders. "Come walking!" he urged. "I must talk some. " So we followed the stream out of town towards themountains. "I came awful near asking her in the stage, " said he. 

"Goodness, Lin! give yourself time!"

"Time can't increase my feelings. "

"Hers, man, hers! How many hours have you known her?"

"Hours and hours! You're talking foolishness! What have they got to dowith it? And she will listen to me. I can tell she will. I know I canbe so she'll listen, and it will go all right, for I'll ask so hard. And everything'll come out straight. Yu' see, I've not been spendingto speak of since Billy's on my hands, and now I'll fix up my cabin andfinish my fencing and my ditch--and she's going to like Box Elder Creekbetter than Shawhan. She's the first I've ever loved. "

"Then I'd like to ask--" I cried out. 

"Ask away!" he exclaimed, inattentively, in his enthusiasm. 

"When you--" but I stopped, perceiving it impossible. It was, ofcourse, not the many transient passions on which he had squandered hissubstance, but the one where faith also had seemed to unite. Had henot married once, innocent of the woman's being already a wife? But Istopped, for to trench here was not for me or any one. 

And my pause strangely flashed on him something of that I had in mymind. 

"No, " he said, his eyes steady and serious upon me, "don't you ask aboutthe things you're meaning. " Then his face grew radiant and ratherstern. "Do you suppose I don't know she's too good for me? And that somebygones can't ever be bygones? But if you, " he said, "never come to lookaway up to a woman from away down, and mean to win her just the same asif you did deserve her, why, you'll make a turruble mess of the wholebusiness!"

When we walked in silence for a long while, he lighted again with theblossoming dawn of his sentiment. I thought of the coarse yet takingvagabond of twenty I had once chanced upon, and hunted and camped withsince through the years. Decidedly he was not that boy to-day! It isnot true that all of us rise through adversity, any more than that allplants need shadow. Some starve out of the sunshine; and I have seenmisery deaden once kind people to everything but self--almost thesaddest sight in the world! But Lin's character had not stood well theordeal of happiness, and for him certainly harsh days and responsibilityhad been needed to ripen the spirit. Yes, Jessamine Buckner would havebeen much too good for him before that humiliation of his marriage, andthis care of young Billy with which he had loaded himself. "Lin, " saidI, "I will drink your health and luck. "

"I'm healthy enough, " said he; and we came back to the main street andinto the main saloon. 

"How d'ye, boys?" said some one, and there was Nate Buckner. "It's on meto-day, " he continued, shoving whiskey along the bar; and I saw he wasa little drunk. "I'm setting 'em up, " he continued. "Why? Why, because"--he looked around for appreciation--"because it's not everyson-of-a-gun in Wyoming gets pardoned by Governor Barker. I'm important, I want you to understand, " he pursued to the cold bystanders. "They'llhave a picture of me in the Cheyenne paper. 'The Bronco-buster of PowderRiver!' They can't do without me! If any son-of-a-gun here thinkshe knows how to break a colt, " he shouted, looking around with theirrelevant fierceness of drink--and then his challenge ebbed vacantly inlaughter as the subject blurred in his mind. "You're not drinking, Lin, "said he. 

"No, " said McLean, "I'm not. "

"Sworn off again? Well, water never did agree with me. "

"Yu' never gave water the chance, " retorted the cow-puncher, and we leftthe place without my having drunk his health. 

It was a grim beginning, this brag attempt to laugh his reputation down, with the jail door scarce closed behind him. "Folks are not going tolike that, " said Lin, as we walked across the bridge again to the hotel. Yet the sister, left alone here after an hour at most of her brother'scompany, would pretend it was a matter of course. Nate was not in, shetold us at once. He had business to attend to and friends to see he mustget back to Riverside and down in that country where colts were waitingfor him. He was the only one the E. K. Outfit would allow to handletheir young stock. Did we know that? And she was going to stay with aMrs. Pierce down there for a while, near where Nate would be working. All this she told us; but when he did not return to dine with heron this first day, I think she found it hard to sustain her wilfulcheeriness. Lin offered to take her driving to see the military post anddress parade at retreat, and Cloud's Peak, and Buffalo's various sights;but she made excuses and retired to her room. Nate, however, was at tea, shaven clean, with good clothes, and well conducted. His tone and mannerto Jessamine were confidential and caressing, and offended Mr. McLean, so that I observed to him that it was scarcely reasonable to be jealous. 

"Oh, no jealousy!" said he. "But he comes in and kisses her, andhe kisses her good-night, and us strangers looking on! It's suchoncontrollable affection, yu' see, after never writing for five years. Iexpect she must have some of her savings left. "

It is true that the sister gave the brother money more than once; and asour ways lay together, I had chances to see them both, and to wonder ifher joy at being with him once again was going to last. On the road toRiverside I certainly heard Jessamine beg him to return home with her;and he ridiculed such a notion. What proper life for a live man was thatdead place back East? he asked her. I thought he might have expressedsome regret that they must dwell so far apart, or some intention tovisit her now and then; but he said nothing of the sort, though hespoke volubly of himself and his prospects. I suppose this spectacle ofbrother and sister had rubbed Lin the wrong way too much, for he heldhimself and Billy aloof, joining me on the road but once, and thenmerely to give me the news that people here wanted no more of NateBuckner; he would be run out of the country, and respect for the sisterwas all that meanwhile saved him. But Buckner, like so many sparedcriminals, seemed brazenly unaware he was disgraced, and went hailingloudly any riders or drivers we met, while beside him his sister satclose and straight, her stanch affection and support for the world tosee. For all she let appear, she might have been bringing him back fromsome gallant heroism achieved; and as I rode along the travesty seemedmore and more pitiful, the outcome darker and darker. 

At all times is Riverside beautiful, but most beautiful when the sundraws down through the openings of the hills. From each one a streamcomes flowing clearly out into the plain, and fields spread green alongthe margins. It was beneath the long-slanted radiance of evening thatwe saw Blue Creek and felt its coolness rise among the shifting veils oflight. The red bluff eastward, the tall natural fortress, lost its sternmasonry of shapes, and loomed a soft towering enchantment of violet andamber and saffron in the changing rays. The cattle stood quiet aboutthe levels, and horses were moving among the restless colts. These thebrother bade his sister look at, for with them was his glory; and Iheard him boasting of his skill--truthful boasting, to be sure. Hadhe been honest in his dealings, the good-will that man's courage anddashing appearance beget in men would have brought him more employmentthan he could have undertaken. He told Jessamine his way of breaking ahorse that few would dare, and she listened eagerly. "Do you rememberwhen I used to hold the pony for you to get on?" she said. "You alwayswould scare me, Nate!" And he replied, fluently, Yes, yes; did she seethat horse there, near the fence? He was a four-year-old, an outlaw, andshe would find no one had tried getting on his back since he had beenabsent. This was the first question he asked on reaching the cabin, where various neighbors were waiting the mail-rider; and, finding he wasright, he turned in pride to Jessamine. 

"They don't know how to handle that horse, " said he. "I told you so. Give me a rope. "

Did she notice the cold greeting Nate received? I think not. Not onlywas their welcome to her the kinder, but any one is glad to witness boldriding, and this chance made a stir which the sister may have taken forcordiality. But Lin gave me a look; for it was the same here as it hadbeen in the Buffalo saloon. 

"The trick is easy enough, " said Nate, arriving with his outlaw, andliking an audience. "You don't want a bridle, but a rope hackamore likethis--Spanish style. Then let them run as hard as they want, and on asudden reach down your arm and catch the hackamore short, close up bythe mouth, and jerk them round quick and heavy at full speed. They quittheir fooling after one or two doses. Now watch your outlaw!"

He went into the saddle so swift and secure that the animal, amazed, trembled stock-still, then sprang headlong. It stopped, vicious andknowing, and plunged in a rage, but could do nothing with the man, andbolted again, and away in a straight blind line over the meadow, whenthe rider leaned forward to his trick. The horse veered in a jaggedswerve, rolled over and over with its twisted impetus, and up on itsfeet and on without a stop, the man still seated and upright in thesaddle. How we cheered to see it! But the figure now tilted strangely, and something awful and nameless came over us and chilled our noiseto silence. The horse, dazed and tamed by the fall, brought its burdentowards us, a wobbling thing, falling by small shakes backward, untilthe head sank on the horse's rump. 

"Come away, " said Lin McLean to Jessamine and at his voice she obeyedand went, leaning on his arm. 

Jessamine sat by her brother until he died, twelve hours afterwards, having spoken and known nothing. The whole weight of the horsehad crushed him internally. He must have become almost instantlyunconscious, being held in the saddle by his spurs, which had caught inthe hair cinch; it may be that our loud cheer was the last thing of thisworld that he knew. The injuries to his body made impossible any takinghim home, which his sister at first wished to do. "Why, I came here tobring him home, " she said, with a smile and tone like cheerfulness inwax. Her calm, the unearthly ease with which she spoke to any comer (andshe was surrounded with rough kindness), embarrassed the listeners; shesaw her calamity clear as they did, but was sleep-walking in it. It wasLin gave her what she needed--the repose of his strong, silent presence. He spoke no sympathy and no advice, nor even did he argue with her aboutthe burial; he perceived somehow that she did not really hear what wassaid to her, and that these first griefless, sensible words came fromsome mechanism of the nerves; so he kept himself near her, and let hertell her story as she would. Once I heard him say to her, with thesame authority of that first "come away"; "Now you've had enough ofthe talking. Come for a walk. " Enough of the talking--as if it werea treatment! How did he think of that? Jessamine, at any rate, againobeyed him, and I saw the two going quietly about in the meadows andalong the curving brook; and that night she slept well. On one onlypoint did the cow-puncher consult me. 

"They figured to put Nate on top of that bald mound, " said he. "Butshe has talked about the flowers and shade where the old folks lie, andwhere she wants him to be alongside of them. I've not let her look athim to-day, for--well, she might get the way he looks now on her memory. But I'd like to show you my idea before going further. "

Lin had indeed chosen a beautiful place, and so I told him at the firstsight of it. 

"That's all I wanted to know, " said he. "I'll fix the rest. "

I believe he never once told Jessamine the body could not travel so faras Kentucky. I think he let her live and talk and grieve from hourto hour, and then led her that afternoon to the nook of sunlight andsheltering trees, and won her consent to it thus; for there was Natelaid, and there she went to sit, alone. Lin did not go with her on thosewalks. 

But now something new was on the fellow's mind. He was plainly occupiedwith it, whatever else he was doing, and he had some active cattle-work. On my asking him if Jessamine Buckner had decided when to return east, he inquired of me, angrily, what was there in Kentucky she couldnot have in Wyoming? Consequently, though I surmised what he must bedebating, I felt myself invited to keep out of his confidence, and I didso. My advice to him would have been ill received, and--as was soon tobe made plain--would have done his delicacy injustice. Next, one morninghe and Billy were gone. My first thought was that he had rejoinedJessamine at Mrs. Pierce's, where she was, and left me away over here onBear Creek, where we had come for part of a week. 

But stuck in my hat-band I found a pencilled farewell. 

Now Mr. McLean constructed perhaps three letters in the year--painful, serious events--like an interview with some important person with whomyour speech must decorously flow. No matter to whom he was writing, itfroze all nature stiff in each word he achieved; and his bald businessdiction and wild archaic penmanship made documents that I value among mychoicest correspondence; this one, especially:

 "Wensday four a. M. 

"DEAR SIR this is to Inform you that i have gone to Separ on importantbisness where i expect to meet you on your arrival at same point. Youwill confer a favor and oblidge undersigned by Informing Miss J. Bucknerof date (if soon) you fix for returning per stage to Separ as MissJ. Buckner may prefer company for the trip being long and pooraccommodations. 

 "Yours &c. L. McLEAN. "

This seemed to point but one way; and (uncharitable though it sound)that this girl, so close upon bereavement, should be able to giveherself to a lover was distasteful to me. 

But, most extraordinary, Lin had gone away without a word to her, andshe was left as plainly in the dark as myself. After her first franksurprise at learning of his departure, his name did not come again fromher lips, at any rate to me. Good Mrs. Pierce dropped a word one day asto her opinion of men who deceive women into expecting something fromthem. 

"Let us talk straight, " said I. "Do you mean that Miss Buckner saysthat, or that you say it?"

"Why, the poor thing says nothing!" exclaimed the lady. "It's like a manto think she would. And I'll not say anything, either, for you're alljust the same, except when you're worse; and that Lin McLean is going toknow what I think of him next time we meet. "

He did. On that occasion the kind old dame told him he was the best boyin the country, and stood on her toes and kissed him. But meanwhile wedid not know why he had gone, and Jessamine (though he was never subtleor cruel enough to plan such a thing) missed him, and thus in herloneliness had the chance to learn how much he had been to her. 

Though pressed to stay indefinitely beneath Mrs. Pierce's hospitableroof, the girl, after lingering awhile, and going often to that nook inthe hill by Riverside, took her departure. She was restless, yet clungto the neighborhood. It was with a wrench that she fixed her going whenI told her of my own journey back to the railroad. In Buffalo she walkedto the court-house and stood a moment as if bidding this site of onelife-memory farewell, and from the stage she watched and watched thereceding town and mountains. "It's awful to be leaving him!" she said. "Excuse me for acting so in front of you. " With the poignant emptinessovercoming her in new guise, she blamed herself for not waiting inIllinois until he had been sent to Joliet, for then, so near home, hemust have gone with her. 

How could I tell her that Nate's death was the best end that could havecome to him? But I said: "You know you don't think it was your fault. You know you would do the same again. " She listened to me, but her eyeshad no interest in them. "He never knew pain, " I pursued, "and he dieddoing the thing he liked best in the world. He was happy and enjoyinghimself, and you gave him that. It's bad only for you. Some would talkreligion, but I can't. "

"Yes, " she answered, "I can think of him so glad to be free. Thank youfor saying that about religion. Do you think it's wicked not to wantit--to hate it sometimes? I hope it's not. Thank you, truly. "

During our journey she summoned her cheerfulness, and all that she saidwas wholesome. In the robust, coarse soundness of her fibre, thewounds of grief would heal and leave no sickness--perhaps no highersensitiveness to human sufferings than her broad native kindness alreadyheld. We touched upon religion again, and my views shocked her Kentuckynotions, for I told her Kentucky locked its religion in an iron cagecalled Sunday, which made it very savage and fond of biting strangers. Now and again I would run upon that vein of deep-seated prejudice thatwas in her character like some fine wire. In short, our disagreementsbrought us to terms more familiar than we had reached hitherto. But whenat last Separ came, where was I? There stood Mr. McLean waiting, and atthe suddenness of him she had no time to remember herself, but steppedout of the stage with such a smile that the ardent cow-puncher flushedand beamed. 

"So I went away without telling you goodbye!" he began, not wisely. "Mrs. Pierce has been circulating war talk about me, you bet!"

The maiden in Jessamine spoke instantly. "Indeed? There was no specialobligation for you to call on me, or her to notice if you didn't. "

"Oh!" said Lin, crestfallen. "Yu' sure don't mean that?"

She looked at him, and was compelled to melt. "No, neighbor, I don'tmean it. "

"Neighbor!" he exclaimed; and again, "Neighbor, " much pleased. "Now itwould sound kind o' pleasant if you'd call me that for a steady thing. "

"It would sound kind of odd, Mr. McLean, thank you. "

"Blamed if I understand her, " cried Lin. "Blamed if I do. But you'regoing to understand me sure quick!" He rushed inside the station, spokesharply to the agent, and returned in the same tremor of elation thathad pushed him to forwardness with his girl, and with which he seemednear bursting. "I've been here three days to meet you. There's a letter, and I expect I know what's in it. Tubercle has got it here. " He tookit from the less hasty agent and thrust it in Jessamine's hand. "Youneedn't to fear. Please open it; it's good news this time, you bet!"He watched it in her hand as the boy of eight watches the string of aChristmas parcel he wishes his father would cut instead of so carefullyuntie. "Open it, " he urged again. "Keeping me waiting this way!"

"What in the world does all this mean?" cried Jessamine, stopping shortat the first sentence. 

"Read, " said Lin. 

"You've done this!" she exclaimed. 

"Read, read!"

So she read, with big eyes. It was an official letter of the railroad, written by the division superintendent at Edgeford. It hoped MissBuckner might feel like taking the position of agent at Separ. If shewas willing to consider this, would she stop over at Edgeford, on herway east, and talk with the superintendent? In case the duties were morethan she had been accustomed to on the Louisville and Nashville, shecould continue east with the loss of only a day. The superintendentbelieved the salary could be arranged satisfactorily. Enclosed please tofind an order for a free ride to Edgeford. 

Jessamine turned her wondering eyes on Lin. "You did do this, " sherepeated, but this time with extraordinary quietness. 

"Yes, " said he. "And I am plumb proud of it. "

She gave a rich laugh of pleasure and amusement; a long laugh, andstopped. "Did anybody ever!" she said. 

"We can call each other neighbors now, yu' see, " said the cow-puncher. 

"Oh no! oh no!" Jessamine declared. "Though how am I ever to thank you?"

"By not argufying, " Lin answered. 

"Oh no, no! I can do no such thing. Don't you see I can't? I believe youare crazy. "

"I've been waiting to hear yu' say that, " said the complacent McLean. "I'm not argufying. We'll eat supper now. The east-bound is due in anhour, and I expect you'll be wanting to go on it. "

"And I expect I'll go, too, " said the girl. 

"I'll be plumb proud to have yu', " the cow-puncher assented. 

"I'm going to get my ticket to Chicago right now, " said Jessamine, againlaughing, sunny and defiant. 

"You bet you are!" said the incorrigible McLean. He let her go intothe station serenely. "You can't get used to new ideas in a minute, " heremarked to me. "I've figured on all that, of course. But that's why, "he broke out, impetuously, "I quit you on Bear Creek so sudden. 'Whenshe goes back away home, ' I'd been saying to myself every day, 'what'llyou do then, Lin McLean?' Well, I knew I'd go to Kentucky too. Justknew I'd have to, yu' see, and it was inconvenient, turrubleinconvenient--Billy here and my ranch, and the beef round-up comin'--buthow could I let her go and forget me? Take up, maybe, with someBlue-grass son-of-a-gun back there? And I hated the fix I was in tillthat morning, getting up, I was joshin' the Virginia man that's afterMiss Wood. I'd been sayin' no educated lady would think of a man whotalked with an African accent. 'It's repotted you have a Southern rivalyourself, ' says he, joshin' back. So I said I guessed the rival wouldfind life uneasy. 'He does, ' says he. 'Any man with his voice broke intwo halves, and one down in his stomach and one up among the angels, isgoin' to feel uneasy. But Texas talks a heap about his lady vigilante inthe freight-car. ' 'Vigilante!' I said; and I must have jumped, for theyall asked where the lightning had struck. And in fifteen minutes afterwriting you I'd hit the trail for Separ. Oh, I figured things out onthat ride!" (Mr. McLean here clapped me on the back. ) "Got to Separ. Gotthe sheriff's address--the sheriff that saw her that night they held upthe locomotive. Got him to meet me at Edgeford and make a big talk tothe superintendent. Made a big talk myself. I said, 'Put that girl incharge of Separ, and the boys'll quit shooting your water-tank. ButTubercle can't influence 'em. ' 'Tubercle?' says the superintendent. 'What's that?' And when I told him it was the agent, he flapped his twohands down on the chair arms each side of him and went to rockin' up anddown. I said the agent was just a temptation to the boys to be gay rightalong, and they'd keep a-shooting. 'You can choose between Tubercle andyour tank, ' I said; 'but you've got to move one of 'em from Separ if yu'went peace. ' The sheriff backed me up good, too. He said a man couldn'tdo much with Separ the way it was now; but a decent woman would berespected there, and the only question was if she could conduct thebusiness. So I spoke up about Shawhan, and when the whole idea began tosoak into that superintendent his eyeballs jingled and he looked as wiseas a work-ox. 'I'll see her, ' says he. And he's going to see her. "

"Well, " said I, "you deserve success after thinking of a thing likethat! You're wholly wasted punching cattle. But she's going to Chicago. By eleven o'clock she will have passed by your superintendent. "

"Why, so she will!" said Lin, affecting surprise. 

He baffled me, and he baffled Jessamine. Indeed, his eagerness with herparcels, his assistance in checking her trunk, his cheerful examinationof check and ticket to be sure they read over the same route, plainlyfailed to gratify her. 

Her firmness about going was sincere, but she had looked for moredissuasion; and this sprightly abettal of her departure seemed to leavesomething vacant in the ceremonies She fell singularly taciturn duringsupper at the Hotel Brunswick, and presently observed, "I hope I shallsee Mr. Donohoe. "

"Texas?" said Lin. "I expect they'll have tucked him in bed by now up atthe ranch. The little fellow is growing yet. "

"He can walk round a freight-car all night, " said Miss Buckner, stoutly. "I've always wanted to thank him for looking after me. "

Mr. McLean smiled elaborately at his plate

"Well, if he's not actually thinking he'll tease me!" cried outJessamine "Though he claims not to be foolish like Mr. Donohoe. Why, Mr. McLean, you surely must have been young once! See if you can'tremember!"

"Shucks!" began Lin. 

But her laughter routed him. "Maybe you didn't notice you were young, "she said. "But don't you reckon perhaps the men around did? Why, maybeeven the girls kind o' did!"

"She's hard to beat, ain't she?" inquired Lin, admiringly, of me. 

In my opinion she was. She had her wish, too about Texas; for we foundhim waiting on the railroad platform, dressed in his best, to saygood-bye. The friendly things she told him left him shuffling andrepeating that it was a mistake to go, a big mistake; but when she saidthe butter was not good enough, his laugh cracked joyously up into thetreble. The train's arrival brought quick sadness to her face, but shemade herself bright again with a special farewell for each acquaintance. 

"Don't you ride any more cow-catchers, " she warned Billy Lusk, "or I'llhave to come back and look after you. "

"You said you and me were going for a ride, and we ain't, " shoutedthe long-memoried nine-year-old. "You will, " murmured Mr. McLean, oracularly. 

As the train's pace quickened he did not step off, and Miss Bucknercried "Jump!"

"Too late, " said he, placidly. Then he called to me, "I'm hard to beat, too!" So the train took them both away, as I might have guessed was hisintention all along. 

"Is that marriage again?" said Billy, anxiously. "He wouldn't tell menothing. "

"He's just seeing Miss Buckner as far as Edgeford, " said the agent. "Beback to-morrow. "

"Then I don't see why he wouldn't take me along, " Billy complained. AndSepar laughed. 

But the lover was not back to-morrow. He was capable of anything, gossipremarked, and took up new themes. The sun rose and set, the two trainsmade their daily slight event and gathering; the water-tank, glaringbulkily in the sun beaconed unmolested; and the agent's natural sleepwas unbroken by pistols, for the cow-boys did not happen to be in town. Separ lay a clot of torpor that I was glad to leave behind me for awhile. But news is a strange, permeating substance, and it began to besifted through the air that Tubercle was going to God's country. 

That is how they phrased it in cow-camp, meaning not the next world, butthe Eastern States. 

"It's certainly a shame him leaving after we've got him so good and usedto us, " said the Virginian. 

"We can't tell him good-bye, " said Honey Wiggin. "Separ'll be slow. "

"We can give his successor a right hearty welcome, " the Virginiansuggested. 

"That's you!" said Honey. "Schemin' mischief away ahead. You'rethe leadin' devil in this country, and just because yu' wear afaithful-looking face you're tryin' to fool a poor school-marm. "

"Yes, " drawled the Southerner, "that's what I'm aiming to do. "

So now they were curious about the successor, planning their heartywelcome for that official, and were encouraged in this by Mr. McLean. He reappeared in the neighborhood with a manner and conversation highlycasual. 

"Bring your new wife?" they inquired. 

"No; she preferred Kentucky, " Lin said. 

"Bring the old one?"

"No; she preferred Laramie. "

"Kentucky's a right smart way to chase after a girl, " said theVirginian. 

"Sure!" said Mr. McLean. "I quit at Edgeford. "

He met their few remarks so smoothly that they got no joy from him; andbeing asked had he seen the new agent, he answered yes, that Tuberclehad gone Wednesday, and his successor did not seem to be much of a man. 

But to me Lin had nothing to say until noon camp was scattering fromits lunch to work, when he passed close, and whispered, "You'll see herto-morrow if you go in with the outfit. " Then, looking round tomake sure we were alone in the sage-brush, he drew from his pocket, cherishingly, a little shining pistol. "Hers, " said he, simply. 

I looked at him. 

"We've exchanged, " he said. 

He turned the token in his hand, caressing it as on that first nightwhen Jessamine had taken his heart captive. 

"My idea, " he added, unable to lift his eyes from the treasure. "Seethis, too. "

I looked, and there was the word "Neighbor" engraved on it. 

"Her idea, " said he. 

"A good one!" I murmured. 

"It's on both, yu' know. We had it put on the day she settled to acceptthe superintendent's proposition. " Here Lin fired his small exchangedweapon at a cotton-wood, striking low. "She can beat that with mine!" heexclaimed, proud and tender. "She took four days deciding at Edgeford, and I learned her to hit the ace of clubs. " He showed me the cards theyhad practiced upon during those four days of indecision; he had them ina book as if they were pressed flowers. "They won't get crumpled thatway, " said he; and he further showed me a tintype. "She's got the otherat Separ, " he finished. 

I shook his hand with all my might. Yes, he was worthy of her! Yes, hedeserved this smooth course his love was running! And I shook his handagain. To tonic her grief Jessamine had longed for some activity, somework, and he had shown her Wyoming might hold this for her as well asKentucky. "But how in the world, " I asked him, "did you persuade her tostop over at Edgeford at all?"

"Yu' mustn't forget, " said the lover (and he blushed), "that I had herfour hours alone on the train. "

But his face that evening round the fire, when they talked of their nextday's welcome to the new agent, became comedy of the highest, and he wasso desperately canny in the moments he chose for silence or for comment!He had not been sure of their ignorance until he arrived, and it wasa joke with him too deep for laughter. He had a special eye upon theVirginian, his mate in such a tale of mischiefs, and now he led him on. He suggested to the Southerner that caution might be wise; this changeat Separ was perhaps some new trick of the company's. 

"We mostly take their tricks, " observed the Virginian. 

"Yes, " said Lin, nodding sagely at the fire, "that's so, too. "

Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessnessof the outcome. They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes oflegend--more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting andno serious horde would go on so. Our final hundred yards of speed andcopious howling brought all dwellers in Separ out to gaze and disappearlike rabbits--all save the new agent in the station. Nobody ran out orin there, and the horde whirled up to the tiny, defenceless building andleaped to earth--except Lin and me; we sat watching. The innocent doorstood open wide to any cool breeze or invasion, and Honey Wiggin trampedin foremost, hat lowering over eyes and pistol prominent. He stoppedrooted, staring, and his mouth came open slowly; his hand went feelingup for his hat, and came down with it by degrees as by degrees hisgrin spread. Then in a milky voice, he said: "Why, excuse me, ma'am!Good-morning. "

There answered a clear, long, rippling, ample laugh. It came out of theopen door into the heat; it made the sun-baked air merry; it seemed towelcome and mock; it genially hovered about us in the dusty quiet ofSepar; for there was no other sound anywhere at all in the place, and the great plain stretched away silent all round it. The bulgingwater-tank shone overhead in bland, ironic safety. 

The horde stood blank; then it shifted its legs, looked sideways atitself, and in a hesitating clump reached the door, shambled in, andremoved its foolish hat. 

"Good-morning, gentlemen, " said Jessamine Buckner, seated behind herrailing; and various voices endeavored to reply conventionally. 

"If you have any letters, ma'am, " said the Virginian, more inventive, "I'll take them. Letters for Judge Henry's. " He knew the judge's officewas seventy miles from here. 

"Any for the C. Y. ?" muttered another, likewise knowing better. 

It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for themail. Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, whichsome did guiltily: they foresaw how soon the lady would find out noletters ever came for these names!

There was no letter for any one present. 

"I'm sorry, truly, " said Jessamine behind the railing. "For you seemedreal anxious to get news. Better luck next time! And if I make mistakes, please everybody set me straight, for of course I don't understandthings yet. "

"Yes, m'm. "

"Good-day, m'm. "

"Thank yu', m'm. "

They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles. 

"No, she don't understand things yet, " soliloquized the Virginian. "Ohdear, no. " He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us. "You Lin McLean, " saidhe, in his gentle voice, "you have cert'nly fooled me plumb through thismawnin'. "

Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quitesmall across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it. It sped suddenlyand vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I, and here towered the water-tank, shining and shining. 

Thus did Separ's vigilante take possession and vindicate Lin's knowledgeof his kind. It was not three days until the Virginian, that lynxobserver, fixed his grave eyes upon McLean "'Neighbor' is as cute a namefor a six-shooter as ever I heard, " said he. "But she'll never have needof your gun in Separ--only to shoot up peaceful playin'-cyards while shehearkens to your courtin'. "

That was his way of congratulation to a brother lover. "Plumb strange, "he said to me one morning after an hour of riding in silence, "how a manwill win two women while another man gets aged waitin' for one. "

"Your hair seems black as ever, " said I. 

"My hopes ain't so glossy any more, " he answered. "Lin has done betterthis second trip. "

"Mrs. Lusk don't count, " said I. 

"I reckon she counted mighty plentiful when he thought he'd got herclamped to him by lawful marriage. But Lin's lucky. " And the Virginianfell silent again. 

Lucky Lin bestirred him over his work, his plans, his ranch on Box Elderthat was one day to be a home for his lady. He came and went, seeing hisidea triumph and his girl respected. Not only was she a girl, but agood shot too. And as if she and her small, neat home were a sort ofpossession, the cow-punchers would boast of her to strangers. Theywould have dealt heavily now with the wretch who should trifle with thewater-tank. When camp came within visiting distance, you would see oneor another shaving and parting his hair. They wrote unnecessary letters, and brought them to mail as excuses for an afternoon call. Honey Wiggin, more original, would look in the door with his grin, and hold up anace of clubs. "I thought maybe yu' could spare a minute for ashootin'-match, " he would insinuate; and Separ now heard no moreobjectionable shooting than this. Texas brought her presents ofgame--antelope, sage-chickens--but, shyness intervening, he left themoutside the door, and entering, dressed in all the "Sunday" that he had, would sit dumbly in the lady's presence. I remember his emergingfrom one of these placid interviews straight into the hands of histormentors. 

"If she don't notice your clothes, Texas, " said the Virginian, "justmention them to her. "

"Now yer've done offended her, " shrilled Manassas Donohoe. "She heardthat. "

"She'll hear you singin' sooprano, " said Honey Wiggin. "It's good thiscountry has reformed, or they'd have you warblin' in some dance-hall andcorrupt your morals. "

"You sca'cely can corrupt the morals of a soprano man, " observed theVirginian. "Go and play with Billy till you can talk bass. "

But it was the boldest adults that Billy chose for playmates. Texas hefound immature. Moreover, when next he came, he desired play with noone. Summer was done. September's full moon was several nights ago; hehad gone on his hunt with Lin, and now spelling-books were at hand. Butmore than this clouded his mind, he had been brought to say good-byeto Jessamine Buckner, who had scarcely seen him, and to give her awolverene-skin, a hunting trophy. "She can have it, " he told me. "I likeher. " Then he stole a look at his guardian. "If they get married andsend me back to mother, " said he, "I'll run away sure. " So school andthis old dread haunted the child, while for the man, Lin the lucky, who suspected nothing of it, time was ever bringing love nearer to hishearth. His Jessamine had visited Box Elder, and even said she wantedchickens there; since when Mr. McLean might occasionally have been seenat his cabin, worrying over barn-yard fowls, feeding and cursing themwith equal care. Spring would see him married, he told me. 

"This time right!" he exclaimed. "And I want her to know Billy some morebefore he goes to Bear Creek. "

"Ah, Bear Creek!" said Billy, acidly. "Why can't I stay home?"

"Home sounds kind o' slick, " said Lin to me. "Don't it, now? 'Home' iscloser than 'neighbor, ' you bet! Billy, put the horses in the corral, and ask Miss Buckner if we can come and see her after supper. If you'regood, maybe she'll take yu' for a ride to-morrow. And, kid, ask herabout Laramie. "

Again suspicion quivered over Billy's face, and he dragged his horsesangrily to the corral. 

Lin nudged me, laughing. "I can rile him every time about Laramie, " saidhe, affectionately. "I wouldn't have believed the kid set so much storeby me. Nor I didn't need to ask Jessamine to love him for my sake. Whatdo yu' suppose? Before I'd got far as thinking of Billy at all--rightafter Edgeford, when my head was just a whirl of joy--Jessamine says tome one day, 'Read that. ' It was Governor Barker writin' to her about herbrother and her sorrow. " Lin paused. "And about me. I can't never tellyou--but he said a heap I didn't deserve. And he told her about mepicking up Billy in Denver streets that time, and doing for him becausehis own home was not a good one. Governor Barker wrote Jessamine allthat; and she said, 'Why did you never tell me?' And I said it wasn'tanything to tell. And she just said to me, 'It shall be as if he wasyour son and I was his mother. ' And that's the first regular kiss sheever gave me I didn't have to take myself. God bless her! God blessher!"

As we ate our supper, young Billy burst out of brooding silence: "Ididn't ask her about Laramie. So there!"

"Well, well, kid, " said the cow-puncher, patting his head, "yu' needn'tto, I guess. "

But Billy's eye remained sullen and jealous. He paid slight attentionto the picture-book of soldiers and war that Jessamine gave him when wewent over to the station. She had her own books, some flowers in pots, a rocking-chair, and a cosey lamp that shone on her bright face and darkdress. We drew stools from the office desks, and Billy perched silentlyon one. 

"Scanty room for company!" Jessamine said. "But we must make out thisway--till we have another way. " She smiled on Lin, and Billy's facedarkened. "Do you know, " she pursued to me, "with all those chickens Mr. McLean tells me about, never a one has he thought to bring here. "

"Livin' or dead do you want 'em?" inquired Lin. 

"Oh, I'll not bother you. Mr. Donohoe says he will--"

"Texas? Chickens? Him? Then he'll have to steal 'em!" And we all laughedtogether. 

"You won't make me go back to Laramie, will you?" spoke Billy, suddenly, from his stool. 

"I'd like to see anybody try to make you?" exclaimed Jessamine. "Whosays any such thing?"

"Lin did, " said Billy. 

Jessamine looked at her lover reproachfully. "What a way to tease him!"she said. "And you so kind. Why, you've hurt his feelings!"

"I never thought, " said Lin the boisterous. "I wouldn't have. "

"Come sit here, Billy, " said Jessamine. "Whenever he teases, you tellme, and we'll make him behave. "

"Honest?" persisted Billy. 

"Shake hands on it, " said Jessamine. 

"Cause I'll go to school. But I won't go back to Laramie for no one. Andyou're a-going to be Lin's wife, honest?"

"Honest! Honest!" And Jessamine, laughing, grew red beside her lamp. 

"Then I guess mother can't never come back to Lin, either, " statedBilly, relieved. 

Jessamine let fall the child's hand. 

"Cause she liked him onced, and he liked her. "

Jessamine gazed at Lin. 

"It's simple, " said the cow-puncher. "It's all right. "

But Jessamine sat by her lamp, very pale. 

"It's all right, " repeated Lin in the silence, shifting his foot andlooking down. "Once I made a fool of myself. Worse than usual. "

"Billy?" whispered Jessamine. "Then you--But his name is Lusk!"

"Course it is, " said Billy. "Father and mother are living in Laramie. "

"It's all straight, " said the cow-puncher. "I never saw her till threeyears ago. I haven't anything to hide, only--only--only it don't comeeasy to tell. "

I rose. "Miss Buckner, " said I, "he will tell you. But he will not tellyou he paid dearly for what was no fault of his. It has been no secret. It is only something his friends and his enemies have forgotten. "

But all the while I was speaking this, Jessamine's eyes were fixed onLin, and her face remained white. 

I left the girl and the man and the little boy together, and crossed tothe hotel. But its air was foul, and I got my roll of camp blanketsto sleep in the clean night, if sleeping-time should come; meanwhileI walked about in the silence To have taken a wife once in good faith, ignorant she was another's, left no stain, raised no barrier. I couldhave told Jessamine the same old story myself--or almost; but what hadit to do with her at all? Why need she know? Reasoning thus, yet withsomething left uncleared by reason that I could not state, I watchedthe moon edge into sight, heavy and rich-hued, a melon-slice of glow, seemingly near, like a great lantern tilted over the plain. The smell ofthe sage-brush flavored the air; the hush of Wyoming folded distant andnear things, and all Separ but those three inside the lighted windowwere in bed. Dark windows were everywhere else, and looming above rosethe water-tank, a dull mass in the night, and forever somehow to me aSphinx emblem, the vision I instantly see when I think of Separ. Soon Iheard a door creaking. It was Billy, coming alone, and on seeing me hewalked up and spoke in a half-awed voice. 

"She's a-crying, " said he. 

I withheld from questions, and as he kept along by my side he said: "I'msorry. Do you think she's mad with Lin for what he's told her? She justsat, and when she started crying he made me go away. "

"I don't believe she's mad, " I told Billy; and I sat down on my blanket, he beside me, talking while the moon grew small as it rose over theplain, and the light steadily shone in Jessamine's window. Soon youngBilly fell asleep, and I looked at him, thinking how in a way it was hewho had brought this trouble on the man who had saved him and loved him. But that man had no such untender thoughts. Once more the door opened, and it was he who came this time, alone also. She did not follow himand stand to watch him from the threshold, though he forgot to close thedoor, and, coming over to me, stood looking down. 

"What?" I said at length. 

I don't know that he heard me. He stooped over Billy and shook himgently. "Wake, son, " said he. "You and I must get to our camp now. "

"Now?" said Billy. "Can't we wait till morning?"

"No, son. We can't wait here any more. Go and get the horses and put thesaddles on. " As Billy obeyed, Lin looked at the lighted window. "She isin there, " he said. "She's in there. So near. " He looked, and turned tothe hotel, from which he brought his chaps and spurs and put them on. "I understand her words, " he continued. "Her words, the meaning of them. But not what she means, I guess. It will take studyin' over. Why, shedon't blame me!" he suddenly said, speaking to me instead of to himself. 

"Lin, " I answered, "she has only just heard this, you see. Wait awhile. "

"That's not the trouble. She knows what kind of man I have been, andshe forgives that just the way she did her brother. And she knows how Ididn't intentionally conceal anything. Billy hasn't been around, andshe never realized about his mother and me. We've talked awful open, but that was not pleasant to speak of, and the whole country knew it solong--and I never thought! She don't blame me. She says she understands;but she says I have a wife livin'. "

"That is nonsense, " I declared. 

"Yu' mustn't say that, " said he. "She don't claim she's a wife, either. She just shakes her head when I asked her why she feels so. It must bedifferent to you and me from the way it seems to her. I don't see herview; maybe I never can see it; but she's made me feel she has it, andthat she's honest, and loves me true--" His voice broke for a moment. "She said she'd wait. "

"You can't have a marriage broken that was never tied, " I said. "Butperhaps Governor Barker or Judge Henry--"

"No, " said the cow-puncher. "Law couldn't fool her. She's thinking ofsomething back of law. She said she'd wait--always. And when I took itin that this was all over and done, and when I thought of my ranch andthe chickens--well, I couldn't think of things at all, and I came andwaked Billy to clear out and quit. "

"What did you tell her?" I asked. 

"Tell her? Nothin', I guess. I don't remember getting out of the room. Why, here's actually her pistol, and she's got mine!"

"Man, man!" said I, "go back and tell her to keep it, and that you'llwait too--always!"

"Would yu'?"

"Look!" I pointed to Jessamine standing in the door. 

I saw his face as he turned to her, and I walked toward Billy and thehorses. Presently I heard steps on the wooden station, and from itsblack, brief shadow the two came walking, Lin and his sweetheart, intothe moonlight. They were not speaking, but merely walked together inthe clear radiance, hand in hand, like two children. I saw that shewas weeping, and that beneath the tyranny of her resolution her wholeloving, ample nature was wrung. But the strange, narrow fibre in herwould not yield! I saw them go to the horses, and Jessamine stood whileBilly and Lin mounted. Then quickly the cow-puncher sprang down againand folded her in his arms. 

"Lin, dear Lin! dear neighbor!" she sobbed. She could not withhold thislast good-bye. 

I do not think he spoke. In a moment the horses started and were gone, flying, rushing away into the great plain, until sight and sound of themwere lost, and only the sage-brush was there, bathed in the high, brightmoon. The last thing I remember as I lay in my blankets was Jessamine'swindow still lighted, and the water-tank, clear-lined and black, standing over Separ. 

DESTINY AT DRYBONE

PART I

Children have many special endowments, and of these the chiefest is toask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade. Married peopleand aunts and uncles commonly discover this, but mere instinct does notguide one to it. A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divineit. Now except in one unhappy hour of stress and surprise, MissJessamine Buckner had been more than equal to life thus far. But neveryet had she been shut up a whole day in one room with a boy of nine. Had this experience been hers, perhaps she would not have written to Mr. McLean the friendly and singular letter in which she hoped he was well, and said that she was very well, and how was dear little Billy? Shewas glad Mr. McLean had stayed away. That was just like his honorablenature, and what she expected of him. And she was perfectly happy atSepar, and "yours sincerely and always, 'Neighbor. '" Postscript. Talkingof Billy Lusk--if Lin was busy with gathering the cattle, why not sendBilly down to stop quietly with her. She would make him a bed in theticket-office, and there she would be to see after him all the time. Sheknew Lin did not like his adopted child to be too much in cow-camp withthe men. She would adopt him, too, for just as long as convenient toLin--until the school opened on Bear Creek, if Lin so wished. Jessaminewrote a good deal about how much better care any woman can take of a boyof Billy's age than any man knows. The stage-coach brought the answerto this remarkably soon--young Billy with a trunk and a letter of twelvepages in pencil and ink--the only writing of this length ever done byMr. McLean. 

"I can write a lot quicker than Lin, " said Billy, upon arriving. "He wasfussing at that away late by the fire in camp, an' waked me up crawlingin our bed. An' then he had to finish it next night when he went over tothe cabin for my clothes. "

"You don't say!" said Jessamine. And Billy suffered her to kiss himagain. 

When not otherwise occupied Jessamine took the letter out of its lockedbox and read it, or looked at it. Thus the first days had gone finelyat Separ, the weather being beautiful and Billy much out-of-doors. But sometimes the weather changes in Wyoming; and now it was that MissJessamine learned the talents of childhood. 

Soon after breakfast this stormy morning Billy observed the twelve pagesbeing taken out of their box, and spoke from his sudden brain. "HoneyWiggin says Lin's losing his grip about girls, " he remarked. "He saysyou couldn't 'a' downed him onced. You'd 'a' had to marry him. Honeysays Lin ain't worked it like he done in old times. "

"Now I shouldn't wonder if he was right, " said Jessamine, buoyantly. "And that being the case, I'm going to set to work at your things tillit clears, and then we'll go for our ride. "

"Yes, " said Billy. "When does a man get too old to marry?"

"I'm only a girl, you see. I don't know. "

"Yes. Honey said he wouldn't 'a' thought Lin was that old. But I guesshe must be thirty. "

"Old!" exclaimed Jessamine. And she looked at a photograph upon hertable. 

"But Lin ain't been married very much, " pursued Billy. "Mother's theonly one they speak of. You don't have to stay married always, do you?"

"It's better to, " said Jessamine. 

"Ah, I don't think so, " said Billy, with disparagement. "You ought tosee mother and father. I wish you would leave Lin marry you, though, "said the boy, coming to her with an impulse of affection. "Why won't youif he don't mind?"

She continued to parry him, but this was not a very smooth start foreight in the morning. Moments of lull there were, when the telegraphcalled her to the front room, and Billy's young mind shifted toinquiries about the cipher alphabet. And she gained at least an hourteaching him to read various words by the sound. At dinner, too, he wasrefreshingly silent. But such silences are unsafe, and the weather wasstill bad. Four o'clock found them much where they had been at eight. 

"Please tell me why you won't leave Lin marry you. " He was at thewindow, kicking the wall. 

"That's nine times since dinner, " she replied, with tireless good humor. "Now if you ask me twelve--"

"You'll tell?" said the boy, swiftly. 

She broke into a laugh. "No. I'll go riding and you'll stay at home. When I was little and would ask things beyond me, they only gave methree times. "

"I've got two more, anyway. Ha-ha!"

"Better save 'em up, though. "

"What did they do to you? Ah, I don't want to go a-riding. It's nastyall over. " He stared out at the day against which Separ's doors had beentight closed since morning. Eight hours of furious wind had raised thedust like a sea. "I wish the old train would come, " observed Billy, continuing to kick the wall. "I wish I was going somewheres. " Smoky, level, and hot, the south wind leapt into Separ across five hundredunbroken miles. The plain was blanketed in a tawny eclipse. Each minutethe near buildings became invisible in a turbulent herd of clouds. Abovethis travelling blur of the soil the top of the water-tank alone rosebulging into the clear sun. The sand spirals would lick like flamesalong the bulk of the lofty tub, and soar skyward. It was not shippingseason. The freight-cars stood idle in a long line. No cattle huddled inthe corrals. No strangers moved in town. No cow-ponies dozed in front ofthe saloon. Their riders were distant in ranch and camp. Human noise wasextinct in Separ. Beneath the thunder of the sultry blasts the placelay dead in its flapping shroud of dust. "Why won't you tell me?" dronedBilly. For some time he had been returning, like a mosquito brushedaway. 

"That's ten times, " said Jessamine, promptly. 

"Oh, goodness! Pretty soon I'll not be glad I came. I'm about twiced asless glad now. "

"Well, " said Jessamine, "there's a man coming to-day to mend thegovernment telegraph-line between Drybone and McKinney. Maybe he wouldtake you back as far as Box Elder, if you want to go very much. Shall Iask him?"

Billy was disappointed at this cordial seconding of his mood. He did notmake a direct rejoinder. "I guess I'll go outside now, " said he, with athreat in his tone. 

She continued mending his stockings. Finished ones lay rolled at oneside of her chair, and upon the other were more waiting her attention. 

"And I'm going to turn back hand-springs on top of all thefreight-cars, " he stated, more loudly. 

She indulged again in merriment, laughing sweetly at him, and withoutrestraint. 

"And I'm sick of what you all keep a-saying to me!" he shouted. "Just asif I was a baby. "

"Why, Billy, who ever said you were a baby?"

"All of you do. Honey, and Lin, and you, now, and everybody. What makesyou say 'that's nine times, Billy; oh, Billy, that's ten times, ' if youdon't mean I'm a baby? And you laugh me off, just like they do, and justlike I was a regular baby. You won't tell me--"

"Billy, listen. Did nobody ever ask you something you did not want totell them?"

"That's not a bit the same, because--because--because I treat 'em squareand because it's not their business. But every time I ask anybody 'mostanything, they say I'm not old enough to understand; and I'll be tensoon. And it is my business when it's about the kind of a mother I'magoing to have. Suppose I quit acting square, an' told 'em, when theybothered me, they weren't young enough to understand! Wish I had. GuessI will, too, and watch 'em step around. " For a moment his mind dweltupon this, and he whistled a revengeful strain. 

"Goodness, Billy!" said Jessamine, at the sight of the next stocking. "The whole heel is scorched off. "

He eyed the ruin with indifference. "Ah, that was last month when Iand Lin shot the bear in the swamp willows. He made me dry off my legs. Chuck it away. "

"And spoil the pair? No, indeed!"

"Mother always chucked 'em, an' father'd buy new ones till I skippedfrom home. Lin kind o' mends 'em. "

"Does he?" said Jessamine, softly. And she looked at the photograph. 

"Yes. What made you write him for to let me come and bring my stockin'sand things?"

"Don't you see, Billy, there is so little work at this station that I'dbe looking out of the window all day just the pitiful way you do?"

"Oh!" Billy pondered. "And so I said to Lin, " he continued, "why didn'the send down his own clothes, too, an' let you fix 'em all. And HoneyWiggin laughed right in his coffee-cup so it all sploshed out. And thecook he asked me if mother used to mend Lin's clothes. But I guess shechucked 'em like she always did father's and mine. I was with father, you know, when mother was married to Lin that time. " He paused again, while his thoughts and fears struggled. "But Lin says I needn't evergo back, " he went on, reasoning and confiding to her. "Lin don't likemother any more, I guess. " His pondering grew still deeper, and helooked at Jessamine for some while. Then his face wakened with a newtheory. "Don't Lin like you any more?" he inquired. 

"Oh, " cried Jessamine, crimsoning, "yes! Why, he sent you to me!"

"Well, he got hot in camp when I said that about sending his clothes toyou. He quit supper pretty soon, and went away off a walking. And that'sanother time they said I was too young. But Lin don't come to see youany more. "

"Why, I hope he loves me, " murmured Jessamine. "Always. "

"Well, I hope so too, " said Billy, earnestly. "For I like you. When Iseen him show you our cabin on Box Elder, and the room he had fixedfor you, I was glad you were coming to be my mother. Mother used to beawful. I wouldn't 'a' minded her licking me if she'd done other things. Ah, pshaw! I wasn't going to stand that. " Billy now came close toJessamine. "I do wish you would come and live with me and Lin, " said he. "Lin's awful nice. "

"Don't I know it?" said Jessamine, tenderly. 

"Cause I heard you say you were going to marry him, " went on Billy. "And I seen him kiss you and you let him that time we went away when youfound out about mother. And you're not mad, and he's not, and nothinghappens at all, all the same! Won't you tell me, please?"

Jessamine's eyes were glistening, and she took him in her lap. She wasnot going to tell him that he was too young this time. But whateverthings she had shaped to say to the boy were never said. 

Through the noise of the gale came the steadier sound of the train, and the girl rose quickly to preside over her ticket-office and dutiesbehind the railing in the front room of the station. The boy ran to thewindow to watch the great event of Separ's day. The locomotive loomedout from the yellow clots of drift, paused at the water-tank, and thenwith steam and humming came slowly on by the platform. Slowly its longdust-choked train emerged trundling behind it, and ponderously halted. There was no one to go. No one came to buy a ticket of Jessamine. Theconductor looked in on business, but she had no telegraphic ordersfor him. The express agent jumped off and looked in for pleasure. Hereceived his daily smile and nod of friendly discouragement. Then thelight bundle of mail was flung inside the door. Separ had no mail togo out. As she was picking up the letters young Billy passed her like ashadow, and fled out. Two passengers had descended from the train, a manand a large woman. His clothes were loose and careless upon him. He heldvalises, and stood uncertainly looking about him in the storm. Herfirm, heavy body was closely dressed. In her hat was a large, handsomefeather. Along between the several cars brakemen leaned out, watchedher, and grinned to each other. But her big, hard-shining blue eyes werefixed curiously upon the station where Jessamine was. 

"It's all night we may be here, is it?" she said to the man, harshly. 

"How am I to help that?" he retorted. 

"I'll help it. If this hotel's the sty it used to be, I'll walk toTommy's. I've not saw him since I left Bear Creek. "

She stalked into the hotel, while the man went slowly to the station. Heentered, and found Jessamine behind her railing, sorting the slim mail. 

"Good-evening, " he said. "Excuse me. There was to be a wagon sent here. "

"For the telegraph-mender? Yes, sir. It came Tuesday. You're to find thepole-wagon at Drybone. "

This news was good, and all that he wished to know. He could drive outand escape a night at the Hotel Brunswick. But he lingered, becauseJessamine spoke so pleasantly to him. He had heard of her also. 

"Governor Barker has not been around here?" he said. 

"Not yet, sir. We understand he is expected through on a hunting-trip. "

"I suppose there is room for two and a trunk on that wagon?"

"I reckon so, sir. " Jessamine glanced at the man, and he took himselfout. Most men took themselves out if Jessamine so willed; and it wasmostly achieved thus, in amity. 

On the platform the man found his wife again. 

"Then I needn't to walk to Tommy's, " she said. "And we'll eat as wetravel. But you'll wait till I'm through with her. " She made a gesturetoward the station. 

"Why--why--what do you want with her. Don't you know who she is?"

"It was me told you who she was, James Lusk. You'll wait till I've beenand asked her after Lin McLean's health, and till I've saw how the likesof her talks to the likes of me. "

He made a feeble protest that this would do no one any good. 

"Sew yourself up, James Lusk. If it has been your idea I come with yusclear from Laramie to watch yus plant telegraph-poles in the sage-brush, why you're off. I ain't heard much 'o Lin since the day he learned itwas you and not him that was my husband. And I've come back in thiscountry to have a look at my old friends--and" (she laughed loudly andnodded at the station) "my old friends' new friends!"

Thus ordered, the husband wandered away to find his wagon and the horse. 

Jessamine, in the office, had finished her station duties and returnedto her needle. She sat contemplating the scorched sock of Billy's, andheard a heavy step at the threshold. She turned, and there was thelarge woman with the feather quietly surveying her. The words which thestranger spoke then were usual enough for a beginning. But there wassomething of threat in the strong animal countenance, something oflaughter ready to break out. Much beauty of its kind had evidently beenin the face, and now, as substitute for what was gone, was the braglook of assertion that it was still all there. Many stranded travellersknocked at Jessamine's door, and now, as always, she offered thehospitalities of her neat abode, the only room in Separ fit for a woman. As she spoke, and the guest surveyed and listened, the door blew shutwith a crash. 

Outside, in a shed, Billy had placed the wagon between himself and hisfather. 

"How you have grown!" the man was saying; and he smiled. "Come, shakehands. I did not think to see you here. "

"Dare you to touch me!" Billy screamed. "No, I'll never come with you. Lin says I needn't to. "

The man passed his hand across his forehead, and leaned against thewheel. "Lord, Lord!" he muttered. 

His son warily slid out of the shed and left him leaning there. 

PART II

Lin McLean, bachelor, sat out in front of his cabin, looking at a smallbright pistol that lay in his hand. He held it tenderly, cherishing it, and did not cease slowly to polish it. Revery filled his eyes, and inhis whole face was sadness unmasked, because only the animals werethere to perceive his true feelings. Sunlight and waving shadows movedtogether upon the green of his pasture, cattle and horses loiteredin the opens by the stream. Down Box Elder's course, its valley andgolden-chimneyed bluffs widened away into the level and the blue of thegreater valley. Upstream the branches and shining, quiet leaves enteredthe mountains where the rock chimneys narrowed to a gateway, a citadelof shafts and turrets, crimson and gold above the filmy emerald of thetrees. Through there the road went up from the cotton-woods into thecool quaking asps and pines, and so across the range and away to Separ. Along the ridge-pole of the new stable, two hundred yards down-stream, sat McLean's turkeys, and cocks and hens walked in front of him here byhis cabin and fenced garden. Slow smoke rose from the cabin's chimneyinto the air, in which were no sounds but the running water and theafternoon chirp of birds. Amid this framework of a home the cow-punchersat, lonely, inattentive, polishing the treasured weapon as if it werenot already long clean. His target stood some twenty steps in front ofhim--a small cottonwood-tree, its trunk chipped and honeycombed withbullets which he had fired into it each day for memory's sake. Presentlyhe lifted the pistol and looked at its name--the word "Neighbor"engraved upon it. 

"I wonder, " said he, aloud, "if she keeps the rust off mine?" Then helifted it slowly to his lips and kissed the word "Neighbor. "

The clank of wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quicklydown. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, butno one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a littledistance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched forthe vehicle to emerge upon the open where his cabin stood; and then theycame, a man and a woman. At sight of her Mr. McLean half rose, but satdown again. Neither of them had noticed him, sitting as they were insilence and the drowsiness of a long drive. The man was weak-faced, withgood looks sallowed by dissipation, and a vanquished glance of theeye. As the woman had stood on the platform at Separ, so she sat now, upright, bold, and massive. The brag of past beauty was a habit settledupon her stolid features. Both sat inattentive to each other and toeverything around them. The wheels turned slowly and with a dry, deadnoise, the reins bellied loosely to the shafts, the horse's head hunglow. So they drew close. Then the man saw McLean, and color came intohis face and went away. 

"Good-evening, " said he, clearing his throat. "We heard you was incow-camp. "

The cow-puncher noted how he tried to smile, and a freakish changecrossed his own countenance. He nodded slightly, and stretched his legsout as he sat. 

"You look natural, " said the woman, familiarly. 

"Seem to be fixed nice here, " continued the man. "Hadn't heard of it. Well, we'll be going along. Glad to have seen you. "

"Your wheel wants greasing, " said McLean, briefly, his eye upon the man. 

"Can't stop. I expect she'll last to Drybone. Good-evening. "

"Stay to supper, " said McLean, always seated on his chair. 

"Can't stop, thank you. I expect we can last to Drybone. " He twitchedthe reins. 

McLean levelled a pistol at a chicken, and knocked off its head. "Betterstay to supper, " he suggested, very distinctly. 

"It's business, I tell you. I've got to catch Governor Barker beforehe--"

The pistol cracked, and a second chicken shuffled in the dust. "Betterstay to supper, " drawled McLean. 

The man looked up at his wife. 

"So yus need me!" she broke out. "Ain't got heart enough in yerplayed-out body to stand up to a man. We'll eat here. Get down. "

The husband stepped to the ground. "I didn't suppose you'd want--"

"Ho! want? What's Lin, or you, or anything to me? Help me out. "

Both men came forward. She descended, leaning heavily upon each, herblue staring eyes fixed upon the cow-puncher. 

"No, yus ain't changed, " she said. "Same in your looks and same in youractions. Was you expecting you could scare me, you, Lin McLean?"

"I just wanted chickens for supper, " said he. 

Mrs. Lusk gave a hard high laugh. "I'll eat 'em. It's not I that cares. As for--" She stopped. Her eye had fallen upon the pistol and the name"Neighbor. " "As for you, " she continued to Mr. Lusk, "don't you bestanding dumb same as the horse. "

"Better take him to the stable, Lusk, " said McLean. 

He picked the chickens up, showed the woman to the best chair in hisroom, and went into his kitchen to cook supper for three. He gave hisguests no further attention, nor did either of them come in where hewas, nor did the husband rejoin the wife. He walked slowly up and downin the air, and she sat by herself in the room. Lin's steps as hemade ready round the stove and table, and Lusk's slow tread out in thesetting sunlight, were the only sounds about the cabin. When the hostlooked into the door of the next room to announce that his meal wasserved, the woman sat in her chair no longer, but stood with her backto him by a shelf. She gave a slight start at his summons, and replacedsomething. He saw that she had been examining "Neighbor, " and his facehardened suddenly to fierceness as he looked at her; but he repeatedquietly that she had better come in. Thus did the three sit down totheir meal. Occasionally a word about handing some dish fell from oneor other of them, but nothing more, until Lusk took out his watch andmentioned the hour. 

"Yu've not ate especially hearty, " said Lin, resting his arms upon thetable. 

"I'm going, " asserted Lusk. "Governor Barker may start out. I've got myinterests to look after. "

"Why, sure, " said Lin. "I can't hope you'll waste all your time on justme. "

Lusk rose and looked at his wife. "It'll be ten now before we get toDrybone, " said he. And he went down to the stable. 

The woman sat still, pressing the crumbs of her bread. "I know you seenme, " she said, without looking at him. 

"Saw you when?"

"I knowed it. And I seen how you looked at me. " She sat twisting andpressing the crumb. Sometimes it was round, sometimes it was a cube, nowand then she flattened it to a disk. Mr. McLean seemed to have nothingthat he wished to reply. 

"If you claim that pistol is yourn, " she said next, "I'll tell you Iknow better. If you ask me whose should it be if not yourn, I would nothave to guess the name. She has talked to me, and me to her. "

She was still looking away from him at the bread-crumb, or she couldhave seen that McLean's hand was trembling as he watched her leaning onhis arms. 

"Oh yes, she was willing to talk to me!" The woman uttered anothersudden laugh. "I knowed about her--all. Things get heard of in thisworld. Did not all about you and me come to her knowledge in its owngood time, and it done and gone how many years? My, my, my!" Her voicegrew slow and absent. She stopped for a moment, and then more rapidlyresumed: "It had travelled around about you and her like it always willtravel. It was known how you had asked her, and how she had told you shewould have you, and then told you she would not when she learned aboutyou and me. Folks that knowed yus and folks that never seen yus in theirlives had to have their word about her facing you down you had anotherwife, though she knowed the truth about me being married to Lusk and himlivin' the day you married me, and ten and twenty marriages couldnot have tied you and me up, no matter how honest you swore to nohinderance. Folks said it was plain she did not want yus. It give mea queer feelin' to see that girl. It give me a wish to tell her to herface that she did not love yus and did not know love. Wait--wait, Lin!Yu' never hit me yet. "

"No, " said the cow-puncher. "Nor now. I'm not Lusk. "

"Yu' looked so--so bad, Lin. I never seen yu' look so bad in old days. Wait, now, and I must tell it. I wished to laugh in her face and say, 'What do you know about love?' So I walked in. Lin, she does love yus!"

"Yes, " breathed McLean. 

"She was sittin' back in her room at Separ. Not the ticket-office, but--"

"I know, " the cow-puncher said. His eyes were burning. 

"It's snug, the way she has it. 'Good-afternoon, ' I says. 'Is this MissJessamine Buckner?'"

At his sweetheart's name the glow in Lin's eyes seemed to quiver to aflash. 

"And she spoke pleasant to me--pleasant and gay-like. But a woman cantell sorrow in a woman's eyes. And she asked me would I rest in her roomthere, and what was my name. 'They tell me you claim to know it betterthan I do, ' I says. 'They tell me you say it is Mrs. McLean. ' Sheput her hand on her breast, and she keeps lookin' at me without neverspeaking. 'Maybe I am not so welcome now, ' I says. 'One minute, ' saysshe. 'Let me get used to it. ' And she sat down. 

"Lin, she is a square-lookin' girl. I'll say that for her. 

"I never thought to sit down onced myself; I don't know why, but I kep'a-standing, and I took in that room of hers. She had flowers and thingsaround there, and I seen your picture standing on the table, and I seenyour six-shooter right by it--and, oh, Lin, hadn't I knowed your facebefore ever she did, and that gun you used to let me shoot on BearCreek? It took me that sudden! Why, it rushed over me so I spoke rightout different from what I'd meant and what I had ready fixed up to say. 

"'Why did you do it?' I says to her, while she was a-sitting. 'How couldyou act so, and you a woman?' She just sat, and her sad eyes made memadder at the idea of her. 'You have had real sorrow, ' says I, 'if theyreport correct. You have knowed your share of death, and misery, andhard work, and all. Great God! ain't there things enough that come toyus uncalled for and natural, but you must run around huntin' up morethat was leavin' yus alone and givin' yus a chance? I knowed him onced. I knowed your Lin McLean. And when that was over, I knowed for the firsttime how men can be different. ' I'm started, Lin, I'm started. Leave mego on, and when I'm through I'll quit. 'Some of 'em, anyway, ' I says toher, 'has hearts and self-respect, and ain't hogs clean through. '

"'I know, " she says, thoughtful-like. 

"And at her whispering that way I gets madder. 

"'You know!' I says then. 'What is it that you know? Do you know thatyou have hurt a good man's heart? For onced I hurt it myself, thoughdifferent. And hurts in them kind of hearts stays. Some hearts is thatluscious and pasty you can stab 'em and it closes up so yu'd neversuspicion the place--but Lin McLean! Nor yet don't yus believe his isthe kind that breaks--if any kind does that. You may sit till the grayhairs, and you may wall up your womanhood, but if a man has got manhoodlike him, he will never sit till the gray hairs. Grief over losin' thebest will not stop him from searchin' for a second best after awhile. He wants a home, and he has got a right to one, ' says I to MissJessamine. 'You have not walled up Lin McLean, ' I says to her. Wait, Lin, wait. Yus needn't to tell me that's a lie. I know a man thinks he'swalled up for a while. "

"She could have told you it was a lie, " said the cow-puncher. 

"She did not. 'Let him get a home, ' says she. 'I want him to be happy. ''That flash in your eyes talks different, ' says I. 'Sure enough yuswants him to be happy. Sure enough. But not happy along with Miss SecondBest. '

"Lin, she looked at me that piercin'!

"And I goes on, for I was wound away up. 'And he will be happy, too, ' Isays. 'Miss Second Best will have a talk with him about your picture andlittle "Neighbor, " which he'll not send back to yus, because the hurt inhis heart is there. And he will keep 'em out of sight somewheres afterhis talk with Miss Second Best. ' Lin, Lin, I laughed at them words ofmine, but I was that wound up I was strange to myself. And she watchin'me that way! And I says to her: 'Miss Second Best will not be the crazything to think I am any wife of his standing in her way. He will tellher about me. He will tell how onced he thought he was solid married tome till Lusk came back; and she will drop me out of sight along with therest that went nameless. They was not uncomprehensible to you, was they?You have learned something by livin', I guess! And Lin--your Lin, notmine, nor never mine in heart for a day so deep as he's yourn rightnow--he has been gay--gay as any I've knowed. Why, look at that face ofhis! Could a boy with a face like that help bein' gay? But that don'ttouch what's the true Lin deep down. Nor will his deep-down love foryou hinder him like it will hinder you. Don't you know men and us isdifferent when it comes to passion? We're all one thing then, but theyain't simple. They keep along with lots of other things. I can't makeyus know, and I guess it takes a woman like I have been to learn theirnature. But you did know he loved you, and you sent him away, and you'llbe homeless in yer house when he has done the right thing by himself andfound another girl. '

"Lin, all the while I was talkin' all I knowed to her, without knowin'what I'd be sayin' next, for it come that unexpected, she was lookin'at me with them steady eyes. And all she says when I quit was, 'If I sawhim I would tell him to find a home. '"

"Didn't she tell yu' she'd made me promise to keep away from seeingher?" asked the cow-puncher. 

Mrs. Lusk laughed. "Oh, you innocent!" said she. 

"She said if I came she would leave Separ, " muttered McLean, brooding. 

Again the large woman laughed out, but more harshly. 

"I have kept my promise, " Lin continued. 

"Keep it some more. Sit here rotting in your chair till she goes away. Maybe she's gone. "

"What's that?" said Lin. But still she only laughed harshly. "I couldbe there by to-morrow night, " he murmured. Then his face softened. "Shewould never do such a thing!" he said, to himself. 

He had forgotten the woman at the table. While she had told him mattersthat concerned him he had listened eagerly. Now she was of no moreinterest than she had been before her story was begun. She looked at hiseyes as he sat thinking and dwelling upon his sweetheart. She looked athim, and a longing welled up into her face. A certain youth and heavybeauty relighted the features. 

"You are the same, same Lin everyways, " she said. "A woman is too manyfor you still, Lin!" she whispered. 

At her summons he looked up from his revery. 

"Lin, I would not have treated you so. "

The caress that filled her voice was plain. His look met hers as he satquite still, his arms on the table. Then he took his turn at laughing. 

"You!" he said. "At least I've had plenty of education in you. "

"Lin, Lin, don't talk that brutal to me to-day. If yus knowed how near Icome shooting myself with 'Neighbor. ' That would have been funny!

"I knowed yus wanted to tear that pistol out of my hand because it washern. But yus never did such things to me, fer there's a gentleman inyou somewheres, Lin. And yus didn't never hit me, not even when you cometo know me well. And when I seen you so unexpected again to-night, andyou just the same old Lin, scaring Lusk with shooting them chickens, socomic and splendid, I could 'a' just killed Lusk sittin' in the wagon. Say, Lin, what made yus do that, anyway?"

"I can't hardly say, " said the cow-puncher. "Only noticing him soturruble anxious to quit me--well, a man acts without thinking. "

"You always did, Lin. You was always a comical genius. Lin, them weregood times. "

"Which times?"

"You know. You can't tell me you have forgot. "

"I have not forgot much. What's the sense in this?"

"Yus never loved me!" she exclaimed. 

"Shucks!"

"Lin, Lin, is it all over? You know yus loved me on Bear Creek. Say youdid. Only say it was once that way. " And as he sat, she came and put herarms round his neck. For a moment he did not move, letting himself beheld; and then she kissed him. The plates crashed as he beat and struckher down upon the table. He was on his feet, cursing himself. As he wentout of the door, she lay where she had fallen beneath his fist, lookingafter him and smiling. 

McLean walked down Box Elder Creek through the trees toward the stable, where Lusk had gone to put the horse in the wagon. Once he leaned hishand against a big cotton-wood, and stood still with half-closed eyes. Then he continued on his way. "Lusk!" he called, presently, and in a fewsteps more, "Lusk!" Then, as he came slowly out of the trees to meet thehusband he began, with quiet evenness, "Your wife wants to know--" Buthe stopped. No husband was there. Wagon and horse were not there. Thedoor was shut. The bewildered cow-puncher looked up the stream where theroad went, and he looked down. Out of the sky where daylight and starswere faintly shining together sounded the long cries of the night hawksas they sped and swooped to their hunting in the dusk. From among thetrees by the stream floated a cooler air, and distant and close bysounded the splashing water. About the meadow where Lin stood his horsesfed, quietly crunching. He went to the door, looked in, and shut itagain. He walked to his shed and stood contemplating his own wagon alonethere. Then he lifted away a piece of trailing vine from the gate ofthe corral, while the turkeys moved their heads and watched him from theroof. A rope was hanging from the corral, and seeing it, he dropped thevine. He opened the corral gate, and walked quickly back into the middleof the field, where the horses saw him and his rope, and scattered. Buthe ran and herded them, whirling the rope, and so drove them into thecorral, and flung his noose over two. He dragged two saddles--men'ssaddles--from the stable, and next he was again at his cabin door withthe horses saddled. She was sitting quite still by the table where shehad sat during the meal, nor did she speak or move when she saw him lookin at the door. 

"Lusk has gone, " said he. "I don't know what he expected you would do, or I would do. But we will catch him before he gets to Drybone. "

She looked at him with her dumb stare. "Gone?" she said. 

"Get up and ride, " said McLean. "You are going to Drybone. "

"Drybone?" she echoed. Her voice was toneless and dull. 

He made no more explanations to her, but went quickly about the cabin. Soon he had set it in order, the dishes on their shelves, the tableclean, the fire in the stove arranged; and all these movements shefollowed with a sort of blank mechanical patience. He made a smallbundle for his own journey, tied it behind his saddle, brought her horsebeside a stump. When at his sharp order she came out, he locked hiscabin and hung the key by a window, where travellers could find it andbe at home. 

She stood looking where her husband had slunk off. Then she laughed. "It's about his size, " she murmured. 

Her old lover helped her in silence to mount into the man's saddle--thisthey had often done together in former years--and so they took their waydown the silent road. They had not many miles to go, and after the firsttwo lay behind them, when the horses were limbered and had been put toa canter, they made time quickly. They had soon passed out of the treesand pastures of Box Elder and came among the vast low stretches of thegreater valley. Not even by day was the river's course often discerniblethrough the ridges and cheating sameness of this wilderness; and beneaththis half-darkness of stars and a quarter moon the sage spread shapelessto the looming mountains, or to nothing. 

"I will ask you one thing, " said Lin, after ten miles. 

The woman made no sign of attention as she rode beside him. 

"Did I understand that she--Miss Buckner, I mean--mentioned she might begoing away from Separ?"

"How do I know what you understood?"

"I thought you said--"

"Don't you bother me, Lin McLean. " Her laugh rang out, loud andforlorn--one brief burst that startled the horses and that must havesounded far across the sage-brush. "You men are rich, " she said. 

They rode on, side by side, and saying nothing after that. The Dryboneroad was a broad trail, a worn strip of bareness going onward overthe endless shelvings of the plain, visible even in this light; andpresently, moving upon its grayness on a hill in front of them, theymade out the wagon. They hastened and overtook it. 

"Put your carbine down, " said McLean to Lusk. "It's not robbers. It'syour wife I'm bringing you. " He spoke very quietly. 

The husband addressed no word to the cow-puncher "Get in, then, " he saidto his wife. 

"Town's not far now, " said Lin. "Maybe you would prefer riding thebalance of the way?"

"I'd--" But the note of pity that she felt in McLean's question overcameher, and her utterance choked. She nodded her head, and the threecontinued slowly climbing the hill together. 

From the narrows of the steep, sandy, weather-beaten banks that theroad slanted upward through for a while, they came out again upon theimmensity of the table-land. Here, abruptly like an ambush, was thewhole unsuspected river close below to their right, as if it had emergedfrom the earth. With a circling sweep from somewhere out in the gloomit cut in close to the lofty mesa beneath tall clean-graded descents ofsand, smooth as a railroad embankment. As they paused on the level tobreathe their horses, the wet gulp of its eddies rose to them throughthe stillness. Upstream they could make out the light of the Drybonebridge, but not the bridge itself; and two lights on the farther bankshowed where stood the hog-ranch opposite Drybone. They went on overthe table-land and reached the next herald of the town, Drybone'schief historian, the graveyard. Beneath its slanting headboards andwind-shifted sand lay many more people than lived in Drybone. Theypassed by the fence of this shelterless acre on the hill, and shoutingsand high music began to reach them. At the foot of the hill they saw thesparse lights and shapes of the town where ended the gray strip of road. The many sounds--feet, voices, and music--grew clearer, unravelling fromtheir muffled confusion, and the fiddling became a tune that could beknown. 

"There's a dance to-night, " said the wife to the husband. "Hurry. "

He drove as he had been driving. Perhaps he had not heard her. 

"I'm telling you to hurry, " she repeated. "My new dress is in thatwagon. There'll be folks to welcome me here that's older friends thanyou. "

She put her horse to a gallop down the broad road toward the music andthe older friends. The husband spoke to his horse, cleared his throatand spoke louder, cleared his throat again and this time his sullenvoice carried, and the animal started. So Lusk went ahead of Lin McLean, following his wife with the new dress at as good a pace as he might. Ifhe did not want her company, perhaps to be alone with the cow-puncherwas still less to his mind. 

"It ain't only her he's stopped caring for, " mused Lin, as he rodeslowly along. "He don't care for himself any more. "

PART III

To-day, Drybone has altogether returned to the dust. Even in that dayits hour could have been heard beginning to sound, but its inhabitantswere rather deaf. Gamblers, saloon-keepers, murderers, outlaws maleand female, all were so busy with their cards, their lovers, and theirbottles as to make the place seem young and vigorous; but it was secondchildhood which had set in. 

Drybone had known a wholesome adventurous youth, where manly lives anddeaths were plenty. It had been an army post. It had seen horse andfoot, and heard the trumpet. Brave wives had kept house for theircaptains upon its bluffs. Winter and summer they had made the best ofit. When the War Department ordered the captains to catch Indians, the wives bade them Godspeed. When the Interior Department ordered thecaptains to let the Indians go again, still they made the best of it. You must not waste Indians. Indians were a source of revenue to so manypeople in Washington and elsewhere. But the process of catching Indians, armed with weapons sold them by friends of the Interior Department, wasnot entirely harmless. Therefore there came to be graves in the Drybonegraveyard. The pale weather-washed head-boards told all about it:"Sacred to the memory of Private So-and-So, killed on the Dry Cheyenne, May 6, 1875. " Or it would be, "Mrs. So-and-So, found scalped on SageCreek. " But even the financiers at Washington could not wholly preservethe Indian in Drybone's neighborhood. As the cattle by ten thousandscame treading with the next step of civilization into this huge domain, the soldiers were taken away. Some of them went West to fight moreIndians in Idaho, Oregon, or Arizona. The battles of the others beingdone, they went East in better coffins to sleep where their mothers ortheir comrades wanted them. Though wind and rain wrought changes uponthe hill, the ready-made graves and boxes which these soldiers leftbehind proved heirlooms as serviceable in their way as were thetenements that the living had bequeathed to Drybone. Into theseempty barracks came to dwell and do business every joy that made thecow-puncher's holiday, and every hunted person who was baffling thesheriff. For the sheriff must stop outside the line of Drybone, asshall presently be made clear. The captain's quarters were a saloon now;professional cards were going in the adjutant's office night and day;and the commissary building made a good dance-hall and hotel. Insteadof guard-mounting, you would see a horse-race on the parade-ground, andthere was no provost-sergeant to gather up the broken bottles and oldboots. Heaps of these choked the rusty fountain. In the tufts of yellow, ragged grass that dotted the place plentifully were lodged many acesand queens and ten-spots, which the Drybone wind had blown wide from thedoors out of which they had been thrown when a new pack was called forinside. Among the grass tufts would lie visitors who had applied forbeds too late at the dance-hall, frankly sleeping their whiskey off inthe morning air. 

Above, on the hill, the graveyard quietly chronicled this new epoch ofDrybone. So-and-so was seldom killed very far out of town, and of coursescalping had disappeared. "Sacred to the memory of Four-ace Johnston, accidently shot, Sep. 4, 1885. " Perhaps one is still there unaltered:"Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Ryan's babe. Aged two months. " This uniquecorpse had succeeded in dying with its boots off. 

But a succession of graves was not always needed to read the changingtale of the place, and how people died there; one grave would often beenough. The soldiers, of course, had kept treeless Drybone supplied withwood. But in these latter days wood was very scarce. None grew nearerthan twenty or thirty miles--none, that is, to make boards of asufficient width for epitaphs. And twenty miles was naturally far to goto hew a board for a man of whom you knew perhaps nothing but what hesaid his name was, and to whom you owed nothing, perhaps, but a triflingpoker debt. Hence it came to pass that headboards grew into a sort ofdirectory. They were light to lift from one place to another. A singlecoat of white paint would wipe out the first tenant's name sufficientlyto paint over it the next comer's. By this thrifty habit the originalboards belonging to the soldiers could go round, keeping pace with thenew civilian population; and though at first sight you might be puzzledby the layers of names still visible beneath the white paint, you couldbe sure that the clearest and blackest was the one to which the presenttenant had answered. 

So there on the hill lay the graveyard, steadily writing Drybone'shistory, and making that history lay the town at the bottom--one thinline of houses framing three sides of the old parade ground. In theseslowly rotting shells people rioted, believing the golden age was here, the age when everybody should have money and nobody should be arrested. For Drybone soil, you see, was still government soil, not yet handedover to Wyoming; and only government could arrest there, and only forgovernment crimes. But government had gone, and seldom worried Drybone!The spot was a postage-stamp of sanctuary pasted in the middle ofWyoming's big map, a paradise for the Four-ace Johnstons. Only, you mustnot steal a horse. That was really wicked, and brought you instantly tothe notice of Drybone's one official--the coroner! For they did keep acoroner--Judge Slaghammer. He was perfectly illegal, and lived next doorin Albany County. But that county paid fees and mileage to keep tally ofDrybone's casualties. His wife owned the dance-hall, and between theirindustries they made out a living. And all the citizens made out aliving. The happy cow-punchers on ranches far and near still earned andinstantly spent the high wages still paid them. With their bodiesfull of youth and their pockets full of gold, they rode into town bytwenties, by fifties, and out again next morning, penniless always andhappy. And then the Four-ace Johnstons would sit card-playing with eachother till the innocents should come to town again. 

To-night the innocents had certainly come to town, and Drybone wasfurnishing to them all its joys. Their many horses stood tied at everypost and corner--patient, experienced cow-ponies, well knowing it wasan all-night affair. The talk and laughter of the riders was in thesaloons; they leaned joking over the bars, they sat behind their cardsat the tables, they strolled to the post-trader's to buy presents fortheir easy sweethearts their boots were keeping audible time with thefiddle at Mrs. Slaghammer's. From the multitude and vigor of the soundsthere, the dance was being done regularly. "Regularly" meant that uponthe conclusion of each set the gentleman led his lady to the bar andinvited her to choose and it was also regular that the lady shouldchoose. Beer and whiskey were the alternatives. 

Lin McLean's horse took him across the square without guiding from thecow-puncher, who sat absently with his hands folded upon the horn of hissaddle. This horse, too, was patient and experienced, and could not knowwhat remote thoughts filled his master's mind. He looked around to seewhy his master did not get off lightly, as he had done during somany gallant years, and hasten in to the conviviality. But the lonelycow-puncher sat mechanically identifying the horses of acquaintances. 

"Toothpick Kid is here, " said he, "and Limber Jim, and the Doughie. You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he--I expect that pinto isJerky Bill's. "

"Go home!" said a hearty voice. 

McLean eagerly turned. For the moment his face lighted from itssombreness. "I'd forgot you'd be here, " said he. And he sprang to theground. "It's fine to see you. "

"Go home!" repeated the Governor of Wyoming, shaking his ancientfriend's hand. "You in Drybone to-night, and claim you're reformed?

"Yu' seem to be on hand yourself, " said the cow-puncher, bracing to bejocular, if he could. 

"Me! I've gone fishing. Don't you read the papers? If we poor governorscan't lock up the State House and take a whirl now and then--"

"Doc, " interrupted Lin, "it's plumb fine to see yu'!" Again he shookhands. 

"Why, yes! we've met here before, you and I. " His Excellency the Hon. Amory W. Barker, M. D. , stood laughing, familiar and genial, his soundwhite teeth shining. But behind his round spectacles he scrutinizedMcLean. For in this second hand-shaking was a fervor that seemed agrasp, a reaching out, for comfort. Barker had passed through Separ. Though an older acquaintance than Billy, he had asked Jessamine fewerand different questions. But he knew what he knew. "Well, Drybone's thesame old Drybone, " said he. "Sweet-scented hole of iniquity! Let's seehow you walk nowadays. "

Lin took a few steps. 

"Pooh! I said you'd never get over it. " And his Excellency beamed withprofessional pride. In his doctor days Barker had set the boy McLean'sleg; and before it was properly knit the boy had escaped from thehospital to revel loose in Drybone on such another night as this. Soonhe had been carried back, with the fracture split open again. 

"It shows, does it?" said Lin. "Well, it don't usually. Not except whenI'm--when I'm--"

"Down?" suggested his Excellency. 

"Yes, Doc. Down, " the cow-puncher confessed. 

Barker looked into his friend's clear hazel eyes. 

Beneath their dauntless sparkle was something that touched theGovernor's good heart. "I've got some whiskey along on the trip--Easternwhiskey, " said he. "Come over to my room awhile. "

"I used to sleep all night onced, " said McLean, as they went. "Then Icome to know different. But I'd never have believed just mere thoughtscould make yu'--make yu' feel like the steam was only half on. I eat, yu' know!" he stated, suddenly. "And I expect one or two in camp latelyhave not found my muscle lacking. Feel me, Doc. "

Barker dutifully obeyed, and praised the excellent sinews. 

Across from the dance-hall the whining of the fiddle came, high and gay;feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling offeet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark amongthe rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiardballs reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the starsand calm splendid dimness of the plain. "'Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile, '" he quoted. "But don't tell the Republican partyI said so. "

"It's awful true, though, Doc. I'm vile myself. Yu' don't know. Why, Ididn't know!"

And then they sat down to confidences and whiskey; for so long as theworld goes round a man must talk to a man sometimes, and both must drinkover it. The cow-puncher unburdened himself to the Governor; and theGovernor filled up his friend's glass with the Eastern whiskey, andnodded his spectacles, and listened, and advised, and said he shouldhave done the same, and like the good Governor that he was, neverremembered he was Governor at all with political friends here whohad begged a word or two. He became just Dr. Barker again, the younghospital surgeon (the hospital that now stood a ruin), and Lin was againhis patient----Lin, the sun-burnt free-lance of nineteen, reckless, engaging, disobedient, his leg broken and his heart light, with noJessamine or conscience to rob his salt of its savor. While he now toldhis troubles, the quadrilles fiddled away careless as ever, and thecrack of the billiard balls sounded as of old. 

"Nobody has told you about this, I expect, " said the lover. He broughtforth the little pistol, "Neighbor. " He did not hand it across toBarker, but walked over to Barker's chair, and stood holding it for thedoctor to see. When Barker reached for it to see better, since it washalf hidden in the cow-puncher's big hand, Lin yielded it to him, butstill stood and soon drew it back. "I take it around, " he said, "andwhen one of those stories comes along, like there's plenty of, that shewants to get rid of me, I just kind o' take a look at 'Neighbor' whenI'm off where it's handy, and it busts the story right out of my mind. Ihave to tell you what a fool I am. "

"The whiskey's your side, " said Barker. "Go on. "

"But, Doc, my courage has quit me. They see what I'm thinking about justlike I was a tenderfoot trying his first bluff. I can't stick it out nomore, and I'm going to see her, come what will. 

"I've got to. I'm going to ride right up to her window and shoot off'Neighbor, ' and if she don't come out I'll know--"

A knocking came at the Governor's room, and Judge Slaghammer entered. "Not been to our dance, Governor?" said he. 

The Governor thought that perhaps he was tired, that perhaps thisevening he must forego the pleasure. 

"It may be wiser. In your position it may be advisable, " said thecoroner. "They're getting on rollers over there. We do not like troublein Drybone, but trouble comes to us--as everywhere. "

"Shooting, " suggested his Excellency, recalling his hospital practice. 

"Well, Governor, you know how it is. Our boys are as big-hearted as anyin this big-hearted Western country. You know, Governor. Those generous, warm-blooded spirits are ever ready for anything. "

"Especially after Mrs. Slaghammer's whiskey, " remarked the Governor. 

The coroner shot a shrewd eye at Wyoming's chief executive. It was notpolitically harmonious to be reminded that but for his wife's liquor anumber of fine young men, with nothing save youth untrained and healththe matter with them, would to-day be riding their horses insteadof sleeping on the hill. But the coroner wanted support in the nextcampaign. "Boys will be boys, " said he. "They ain't pulled any gunsto-night. But I come away, though. Some of 'em's making up pretty freeto Mrs. Lusk. It ain't suitable for me to see too much. Lusk says he'safter you, " he mentioned incidentally to Lin. "He's fillin' up, and sayshe's after you. " McLean nodded placidly, and with scant politeness. He wished this visitor would go. But Judge Slaghammer had noticed thewhiskey. He filled himself a glass. "Governor, it has my compliments, "said he. "Ambrosier. Honey-doo. "

"Mrs. Slaghammer seems to have a large gathering, " said Barker. 

"Good boys, good boys!" The judge blew importantly, and waved his arm. "Bull-whackers, cow-punchers, mule-skinners, tin-horns. All spendinggenerous. Governor, once more! Ambrosier. Honey-doo. " He settled himselfdeep in a chair, and closed his eyes. 

McLean rose abruptly. "Good-night, " said he. "I'm going to Separ. "

"Separ!" exclaimed Slaghammer, rousing slightly. "Oh, stay with us, staywith us. " He closed his eyes again, but sustained his smile of office. 

"You know how well I wish you, " said Barker to Lin. "I'll just see youstart. "

Forthwith the friends left the coroner quiet beside his glass, andwalked toward the horses through Drybone's gaping quadrangle. The deadruins loomed among the lights of the card-halls, and always the keenjockey cadences of the fiddle sang across the night. But a calling andconfusion were set up, and the tune broke off. 

"Just like old times!" said his Excellency. "Where's the dump-pile!" Itwas where it should be, close by, and the two stepped behind it tobe screened from wandering bullets. "A man don't forget his habits, "declared the Governor. "Makes me feel young again. "

"Makes me feel old, " said McLean. "Hark!"

"Sounds like my name, " said Barker. They listened. "Oh yes. Of course. That's it. They're shouting for the doctor. But we'll just spare them aminute or so to finish their excitement. "

"I didn't hear any shooting, " said McLean. "It's something, though. "

As they waited, no shots came; but still the fiddle was silent, andthe murmur of many voices grew in the dance-hall, while single voiceswandered outside, calling the doctor's name. 

"I'm the Governor on a fishing-trip, " said he. "But it's to be done, Isuppose. "

They left their dump-hill and proceeded over to the dance. The musiciansat high and solitary upon two starch-boxes, fiddle on knee, staring andwaiting. Half the floor was bare; on the other half the revellers weredensely clotted. At the crowd's outer rim the young horsemen, flushedand swaying, retained their gaudy dance partners strongly by the waist, to be ready when the music should resume. "What is it?" they asked. "Whois it?" And they looked in across heads and shoulders, inattentive tothe caresses which the partners gave them. 

Mrs. Lusk was who it was, and she had taken poison here in their midst, after many dances and drinks. 

"Here's Doc!" cried an older one. 

"Here's Doc!" chorused the young blood that had come into this countrysince his day. And the throng caught up the words: "Here's Doc! here'sDoc!"

In a moment McLean and Barker were sundered from each other in thisflood. Barker, sucked in toward the centre but often eddied back bythose who meant to help him, heard the mixed explanations pass his earunfinished--versions, contradictions, a score of facts. It had beenwolf-poison. It had been "Rough on Rats. " It had been something in abottle. There was little steering in this clamorous sea; but Barkerreached his patient, where she sat in her new dress, hailing him withwild inebriate gayety. 

"I must get her to her room, friends, " said he. 

"He must get her to her room, " went the word. "Leave Doc get her to herroom. " And they tangled in their eagerness around him and his patient. 

"Give us 'Buffalo Girls!'" shouted Mrs. Lusk.... "'Buffalo Girls, ' youfiddler!"

"We'll come back, " said Barker to her. 

"'Buffalo Girls, ' I tell yus. Ho! There's no sense looking at thatbottle, Doc. Take yer dance while there's time!" She was holding thechair. 

"Help him!" said the crowd. "Help Doc. "

They took her from her chair, and she fought, a big pink mass ofribbons, fluttering and wrenching itself among them. 

"She has six ounces of laudanum in her, " Barker told them at the top ofhis voice. "It won't wait all night. "

"I'm a whirlwind!" said Mrs. Lusk. "That's my game! And you done yourshare, " she cried to the fiddler. "Here's my regards, old man! 'BuffaloGirls' once more!"

She flung out her hand, and from it fell notes and coins, rollingand ringing around the starch boxes. Some dragged her on, while somefiercely forbade the musician to touch the money, because it was hers, and she would want it when she came to. Thus they gathered it up forher. But now she had sunk down, asking in a new voice where was LinMcLean. And when one grinning intimate reminded her that Lusk had goneto shoot him, she laughed out richly, and the crowd joined her mirth. But even in the midst of the joke she asked again in the same voicewhere was Lin McLean. He came beside her among more jokes. He had kepthimself near, and now at sight of him she reached out and held him. "Tell them to leave me go to sleep, Lin, " said she. 

Barker saw a chance. "Persuade her to come along, " said he to McLean. "Minutes are counting now. "

"Oh, I'll come, " she said, with a laugh, overhearing him, and holdingstill to Lin. 

The rest of the old friends nudged each other. "Back seats for us, " theysaid. "But we've had our turn in front ones. " Then, thinking they wouldbe useful in encouraging her to walk, they clustered again, renderingBarker and McLean once more well-nigh helpless. Clumsily the escort madeits slow way across the quadrangle, cautioning itself about stones andholes. Thus, presently, she was brought into the room. The escort sether down, crowding the little place as thick as it would hold; the restgathered thick at the door, and all of them had no thought of departing. The notion to stay was plain on their faces. 

Barker surveyed them. "Give the doctor a show now, boys, " said he. "You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you, " hewhispered to McLean. 

At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veeringof wind. "Don't crowd his elbows, " they began to say at once, and toldeach other to come away. "We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't wantto be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye. You want to get yourself prettynear absent. " The room thinned of them forthwith. "Fix her up good, Doc, " they said, over their shoulders. They shuffled across thethreshold and porch with roundabout schemes to tread quietly. When oneor other stumbled on the steps and fell, he was jerked to his feet. "You want to tame yourself, " was the word. Then, suddenly, Chalkeyeand Toothpick Kid came precipitately back. "Her cash, " they said. Andleaving the notes and coins, they hastened to catch their comrades onthe way back to the dance. 

"I want you, " repeated Barker to McLean. 

"Him!" cried Mrs. Lusk, flashing alert again. "Jessamine wants him aboutnow, I guess. Don't keep him from his girl!" And she laughed her hard, rich laugh, looking from one to the other. "Not the two of yus can'tsave me, " she stated, defiantly. But even in these last words a sort ofthickness sounded. 

"Walk her up and down, " said Barker. "Keep her moving. I'll look whatI can find. Keep her moving brisk. " At once he was out of the door; andbefore his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tuneacross the quadrangle. 

"'Buffalo Girls!'" exclaimed the woman. "Old times! Old times!"

"Come, " said McLean. "Walk. " And he took her. 

Her head was full of the music. Forgetting all but that, she went withhim easily, and the two made their first turns around the room. Wheneverhe brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward theopen door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark. But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turnedsullen. 

"Walk, " said McLean. 

"Do you think so?" said she, laughing. But she found that she must gowith him. Thus they took a few more turns. 

"You're hurting me, " she said next. Then a look of drowsy cunning filledher eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean's dogged face. "He's gone, Lin, " she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared. 

She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pacethat he had set. 

"Leave me down. You hurt, " she pleaded, hanging on him. 

The cow-puncher put forth more strength. 

"Just the floor, " she pleaded again. "Just one minute on the floor. He'll think you could not keep me lifted. "

Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as hehad undertaken. 

"He's playing out!" she exclaimed. "You'll be played out soon. " Shelaughed herself half-awake. The man drew a breath, and she laughed moreto feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance. "Jessamine!" she whispered to him. "Jessamine! Doc'll never suspicionyou, Lin. "

"Talk sense, " said he. 

"It's sense I'm talking. Leave me go to sleep. Ah, ah, I'm going! I'llgo; you can't--"

"Walk, walk!" he repeated. He looked at the door. An ache was numbinghis arms. 

"Oh yes, walk! What can you and all your muscle--Ah, walk me to glory, then, craziness! I'm going; I'll go. I'm quitting this outfit for keeps. Lin, you're awful handsome to-night! I'll bet--I'll bet she has neverseen you look so. Let me--let me watch yus. Anyway, she knows I camefirst!"

He grasped her savagely. "First! You and twenty of yu' don't--God!! whatdo I talk to her for?"

"Because--because--I'm going; I'll go. He slung me off--but he had tosling--you can't--stop--"

Her head was rolling, while the lips smiled. Her words came throughdeeper and deeper veils, fearless, defiant, a challenge inarticulate, acontinuous mutter. Again he looked at the door as he struggled to movewith her dragging weight. The drops rolled on his forehead and neck, hisshirt was wet, his hands slipped upon her ribbons. Suddenly the druggedbody folded and sank with him, pulling him to his knees. While he tookbreath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jiggingfiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. "Buffalo Girls!" heshouted, hoarsely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with heras though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her towake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending loadin his grip, strove feebly to dance the laudanum away. 

Feet stumbled across the porch, and Lusk was in the room. "So I've gotyou!" he said. He had no weapon, but made a dive under the bed and cameup with a carbine. The two men locked, wrenching impotently, and felltogether. The carbine's loud shot rang in the room, but did no harm; andMcLean lay sick and panting upon Lusk as Barker rushed in. 

"Thank God!" said he, and flung Lusk's pistol down. The man, derangedand encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him, threatened him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had lefthim suddenly and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after himhere. He glanced at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men. The husband's brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, whohimself could not rise. Barker pulled them apart. 

"Lin, boy, you're not hurt?" he asked, affectionately, and lifted thecow-puncher. 

McLean sat passive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported. 

"You're not hurt?" repeated Barker. 

"No, " answered the cow-puncher, slowly. "I guess not. " He looked aboutthe room and at the door. "I got interrupted, " he said. 

"You'll be all right soon, " said Barker. 

"Nobody cares for me!" cried Lusk, suddenly, and took to querulousweeping. 

"Get up, " ordered Barker, sternly. 

"Don't accuse me, Governor, " screamed Lusk. "I'm innocent. " And he rose. 

Barker looked at the woman and then at the husband. "I'll not say therewas much chance for her, " he said. "But any she had is gone through you. She'll die. "

"Nobody cares for me!" repeated the man. "He has learned my boy to scornme. " He ran out aimlessly, and away into the night, leaving peace in theroom. 

"Stay sitting, " said Barker to McLean, and went to Mrs. Lusk. 

But the cow-puncher, seeing him begin to lift her toward the bed withouthelp, tried to rise. His strength was not sufficiently come back, and hesank as he had been. "I guess I don't amount to much, " said he. "I feellike I was nothing. "

"Well, I'm something, " said Barker, coming back to his friend, out ofbreath. "And I know what she weighs. " He stared admiringly through hisspectacles at the seated man. 

The cow-puncher's eyes slowly travelled over his body, and then soughtBarker's face. "Doc, " said he, "ain't I young to have my nerve quit methis way?"

His Excellency broke into his broad smile. 

"I know I've racketed some, but ain't it ruther early?" pursued McLean, wistfully. 

"You six-foot infant!" said Barker. "Look at your hand. "

Lin stared at it--the fingers quivering and bloody, and the skin groovedraw between them. That was the buckle of her belt, which in the strugglehad worked round and been held by him unknowingly. Both his wrists andhis shirt were ribbed with the pink of her sashes. He looked over at thebed where lay the woman heavily breathing. It was a something, a sound, not like the breath of life; and Barker saw the cow-puncher shudder. 

"She is strong, " he said. "Her system will fight to the end. Two hoursyet, maybe. Queer world!" he moralized. "People half killing themselvesto keep one in it who wanted to go--and one that nobody wanted to stay!"

McLean did not hear. He was musing, his eyes fixed absently in front ofhim. "I would not want, " he said, with hesitating utterance--"I'dnot wish for even my enemy to have a thing like what I've had to doto-night. "

Barker touched him on the arm. "If there had been another man I couldtrust--"

"Trust!" broke in the cow-puncher. "Why, Doc, it is the best turn yu'ever done me. I know I am a man now--if my nerve ain't gone. "

"I've known you were a man since I knew you!" said the hearty Governor. And he helped the still unsteady six-foot to a chair. "As for yournerve, I'll bring you some whiskey now. And after"--he glanced atthe bed--"and tomorrow you'll go try if Miss Jessamine won't put thenerve--"

"Yes, Doc, I'll go there, I know. But don't yu'--don't let's whileshe's--I'm going to be glad about this, Doc, after awhile, but--"

At the sight of a new-comer in the door, he stopped in what his soul wasstammering to say. "What do you want, Judge?" he inquired, coldly. 

"I understand, " began Slaghammer to Barker--"I am informed--"

"Speak quieter, Judge, " said the cow-puncher. 

"I understand, " repeated Slaghammer, more official than ever, "thatthere was a case for the coroner. "

"You'll be notified, " put in McLean again. "Meanwhile you'll talk quietin this room. "

Slaghammer turned, and saw the breathing mass on the bed. 

"You are a little early, Judge, " said Barker, "but--"

"But your ten dollars are safe, " said McLean. 

The coroner shot one of his shrewd glances at the cow-puncher, and satdown with an amiable countenance. His fee was, indeed, ten dollars; andhe was desirous of a second term. 

"Under the apprehension that it had already occurred--themisapprehension--I took steps to impanel a jury, " said he, addressingboth Barker and McLean. "They are--ah--waiting outside. Responsible men, Governor, and have sat before. Drybone has few responsible men to-night, but I procured these at a little game where they were--ah--losing. Youmay go back, gentlemen, " said he, going to the door. "I will summonyou in proper time. " He looked in the room again. "Is the husband notintending--"

"That's enough, Judge, " said McLean. "There's too many here withoutadding him. "

"Judge, " spoke a voice at the door, "ain't she ready yet?"

"She is still passing away, " observed Slaghammer, piously. 

"Because I was thinking, " said the man--"I was just--You see, us jury isdry and dead broke. Doggonedest cards I've held this year, and--Judge, would there be anything out of the way in me touching my fee in advance, if it's a sure thing?"

"I see none, my friend, " said Slaghammer, benevolently, "since it mustbe. " He shook his head and nodded it by turns. Then, with full-blownimportance, he sat again, and wrote a paper, his coroner's certificate. Next door, in Albany County, these vouchers brought their face value offive dollars to the holder; but on Drybone's neutral soil the saloonswould always pay four for them, and it was rare that any jury-man couldwithstand the temptation of four immediate dollars. This one gratefullyreceived his paper, and, cherishing it like a bird in the hand, he withhis colleagues bore it where they might wait for duty and slake theirthirst. 

In the silent room sat Lin McLean, his body coming to life more readilythan his shaken spirit. Barker, seeing that the cow-puncher meantto watch until the end, brought the whiskey to him. Slaghammer drewdocuments from his pocket to fill the time, but was soon in slumber overthem. In all precincts of the quadrangle Drybone was keeping it up late. The fiddle, the occasional shouts, and the crack of the billiard-ballstravelled clear and far through the vast darkness outside. Presentlysteps unsteadily drew near, and round the corner of the door a voice, plaintive and diffident, said, "Judge, ain't she most pretty nearready?"

"Wake up, Judge!" said Barker. "Your jury has gone dry again. "

The man appeared round the door--a handsome, dishevelled fellow--withhat in hand, balancing himself with respectful anxiety. Thus was asecond voucher made out, and the messenger strayed back happy to hisfriends. Barker and McLean sat wakeful, and Slaghammer fell at onceto napping. From time to time he was roused by new messengers, eacharriving more unsteady than the last, until every juryman had got hisfee and no more messengers came. The coroner slept undisturbed inhis chair. McLean and Barker sat. On the bed the mass, with its pinkribbons, breathed and breathed, while moths flew round the lamp, tappingand falling with light sounds. So did the heart of the darkness wearitself away, and through the stone-cold air the dawn began to filter andexpand. 

Barker rose, bent over the bed, and then stood. Seeing him, McLean stoodalso. 

"Judge, " said Barker, quietly, "you may call them now. " And with carefulsteps the judge got himself out of the room to summon his jury. 

For a short while the cow-puncher stood looking down upon the woman. Shelay lumped in her gaudiness, the ribbons darkly stained by the laudanum;but into the stolid, bold features death had called up the faint-coloredghost of youth, and McLean remembered all his Bear Creek days. "Hindsight is a turruble clear way o' seein' things, " said he. "I think I'lltake a walk. "

"Go, " said Barker. "The jury only need me, and I'll join you. "

But the jury needed no witness. Their long waiting and the advance payhad been too much for these responsible men. Like brothers they hadshared each others' vouchers until responsibility had melted from theirbrains and the whiskey was finished. Then, no longer entertained andgrowing weary of Drybone, they had remembered nothing but their distantbeds. Each had mounted his pony, holding trustingly to the saddle, andthus, unguided, the experienced ponies had taken them right. Across thewide sagebrush and up and down the river they were now asleep or riding, dispersed irrevocably. But the coroner was here. He duly receivedBarker's testimony, brought his verdict in, and signed it, and evenwhile he was issuing to himself his own proper voucher for ten dollarscame Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid on their ponies, galloping, eager intheir hopes and good wishes for Mrs. Lusk. Life ran strong in them both. The night had gone well with them. Here was the new day going to befine. It must be well with everybody. 

"You don't say!" they exclaimed, taken aback. "Too bad. "

They sat still in their saddles, and upon their reckless, kindly facesthought paused for a moment. "Her gone!" they murmured. "Hard to getused to the idea. What's anybody doing about the coffin?"

"Mr. Lusk, " answered Slaghammer, "doubtless--"

"Lusk! He'll not know anything this forenoon. He's out there in thegrass. She didn't think nothing of him. Tell Bill--not Dollar Bill, Jerky Bill, yu' know; he's over the bridge--to fix up a hearse, andwe'll be back. " The two drove their spurs in with vigorous heels, andinstantly were gone rushing up the road to the graveyard. 

The fiddle had lately ceased, and no dancers stayed any longer in thehall. Eastward the rose and gold began to flow down upon the plain overthe tops of the distant hills. Of the revellers, many had never gone tobed, and many now were already risen from their excesses to revive inthe cool glory of the morning. Some were drinking to stay their hungeruntil breakfast; some splashed and sported in the river, calling andjoking; and across the river some were holding horse-races upon thelevel beyond the hog-ranch. Drybone air rang with them. Their lusty, wandering shouts broke out in gusts of hilarity. Their pistols, aimedat cans or prairie dogs or anything, cracked as they galloped at large. Their speeding, clear-cut forms would shine upon the bluffs, and, descending, merge in the dust their horses had raised. Yet all this wasnothing in the vastness of the growing day. 

Beyond their voices the rim of the sun moved above the violet hills, andDrybone, amid the quiet, long, new fields of radiance, stood august andstrange. 

Down along the tall, bare slant from the graveyard the two horsemen wereriding back. They could be seen across the river, and the horse-racersgrew curious. As more and more watched, the crowd began to speak. It wasa calf the two were bringing. It was too small for a calf. It was dead. It was a coyote they had roped. See it swing! See it fall on the road!

"It's a coffin, boys!" said one, shrewd at guessing. 

At that the event of last night drifted across their memories, and theywheeled and spurred their ponies. Their crowding hoofs on the bridgebrought the swimmers from the waters below and, dressing, they climbedquickly to the plain and followed the gathering. By the door alreadywere Jerky Bill and Limber Jim and the Doughie and always more, dashingup with their ponies; halting with a sharp scatter of gravel to hear andcomment. Barker was gone, but the important coroner told his news. Andit amazed each comer, and set him speaking and remembering past thingswith the others. "Dead!" each one began. "Her, does he say?"

"Why, pshaw!"

"Why, Frenchy said Doc had her cured!"

Jack Saunders claimed she had rode to Box Elder with Lin McLean. "Dead?Why, pshaw!"

"Seems Doc couldn't swim her out. "

"Couldn't swim her out?"

"That's it. Doc couldn't swim her out. "

"Well--there's one less of us. "

"Sure! She was one of the boys. "

"She grub-staked me when I went broke in '84. "

"She gave me fifty dollars onced at Lander, to buy a saddle. "

"I run agin her when she was a biscuit-shooter. "

"Sidney, Nebraska. I run again her there, too. "

"I knowed her at Laramie. "

"Where's Lin? He knowed her all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne. "

They laughed loudly at this. 

"That's a lonesome coffin, " said the Doughie. "That the best you coulddo?"

"You'd say so!" said Toothpick Kid. 

"Choices are getting scarce up there, " said Chalkeye. "We looked the lotover. "

They were arriving from their search among the old dug-up graves onthe hill. Now they descended from their ponies, with the box roped andrattling between them. "Where's your hearse, Jerky?" asked Chalkeye. 

"Have her round in a minute, " said the cowboy, and galloped away withthree or four others. 

"Turruble lonesome coffin, all the same, " repeated the Doughie. And theysurveyed the box that had once held some soldier. 

"She did like fixin's, " said Limber Jim. 

"Fixin's!" said Toothpick Kid. "That's easy. "

While some six of them, with Chalkeye, bore the light, half-rottedcoffin into the room, many followed Toothpick Kid to the post-trader'sstore. Breaking in here, they found men sleeping on the counters. Thesehad been able to find no other beds in Drybone, and lay as they hadstretched themselves on entering. They sprawled in heavy slumber, somewith not even their hats taken off and some with their boots againstthe rough hair of the next one. They were quickly pushed together, fewwaking, and so there was space for spreading cloth and chintz. Stuffswere unrolled and flung aside till many folds and colors draped themotionless sleepers, and at length a choice was made. Unmeasured yardsof this drab chintz were ripped off, money treble its worth was thumpedupon the counter, and they returned, bearing it like a streamer to thecoffin. While the noise of their hammers filled the room, the hearsecame tottering to the door, pulled and pushed by twenty men. It was anambulance left behind by the soldiers, and of the old-fashioned shape, concave in body, its top blown away in winds of long ago; and as theyrevolved, its wheels dished in and out like hoops about to fall. Whilesome made a harness from ropes, and throwing the saddles off two poniesbacked them to the vehicle, the body was put in the coffin, now coveredby the chintz. But the laudanum upon the front of her dress revoltedthose who remembered their holidays with her, and turning the woman uponher face, they looked their last upon her flashing, colored ribbons, andnailed the lid down. So they carried her out, but the concave body ofthe hearse was too short for the coffin; the end reached out, and itmight have fallen. But Limber Jim, taking the reins, sat upon the otherend, waiting and smoking. For all Drybone was making ready to follow insome way. They had sought the husband, the chief mourner. He, however, still lay in the grass of the quadrangle, and despising him as she haddone, they left him to wake when he should choose. Those men who couldsit in their saddles rode escort, the old friends nearest, and four heldthe heads of the frightened cow-ponies who were to draw the hearse. Theyhad never known harness before, and they plunged with the men who heldthem. Behind the hearse the women followed in a large ranch-wagon, thismoment arrived in town. Two mares drew this, and their foals gambolledaround them. The great flat-topped dray for hauling poles came last, with its four government mules. The cow-boys had caught sight of it andcaptured it. Rushing to the post-trader's, they carried the sleepingmen from the counter and laid them on the dray. Then, searching Dryboneoutside and in for any more incapable of following, they brought them, and the dray was piled. 

Limber Jim called for another drink and, with his cigar between histeeth, cracked his long bull-whacker whip. The ponies, terrified, sprangaway, scattering the men that held them, and the swaying hearse leapedpast the husband, over the stones and the many playing-cards in thegrass. Masterfully steered, it came safe to an open level, while thethrong cheered the unmoved driver on his coffin, his cigar between histeeth. 

"Stay with it, Jim!" they shouted. "You're a king!"

A steep ditch lay across the flat where he was veering, abrupt andnearly hidden; but his eye caught the danger in time, and swinging fromit leftward so that two wheels of the leaning coach were in the air, he faced the open again, safe, as the rescue swooped down upon him. Thehorsemen came at the ditch, a body of daring, a sultry blast of youth. Wheeling at the brink, they turned, whirling their long ropes. Theskilful nooses flew, and the ponies, caught by the neck and foot, weredragged back to the quadrangle and held in line. So the pageant startedthe wild ponies quivering but subdued by the tightened ropes, and thecoffin steady in the ambulance beneath the driver. The escort, in theirfringed leather and broad hats, moved slowly beside and behind it, manyof them swaying, their faces full of health, and the sun and the strongdrink. The women followed, whispering a little; and behind them theslow dray jolted, with its heaps of men waking from the depths of theirwhiskey and asking what this was. So they went up the hill. When theriders reached the tilted gate of the graveyard, they sprang off andscattered among the hillocks, stumbling and eager. They nodded to Barkerand McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open, weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Theirfigures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing. 

"Here, " said the Doughie, "here's a good hole. "

"Here's a deep one, " said another. 

"We've struck a well here, " said some more. "Put her in here. "

The sand-hills became clamorous with voices until they arrived at achoice, when some one with a spade quickly squared the rain-washedopening. With lariats looping the coffin round, they brought it and wereabout to lower it, when Chalkeye, too near the edge, fell in, and oneend of the box rested upon him. He could not rise by himself, and theypulled the ropes helplessly above. 

McLean spoke to Barker. "I'd like to stop this, " said he, "but a manmight as well--"

"Might as well stop a cloud-burst, " said Barker. 

"Yes, Doc. But it feels--it feels like I was looking at ten dozen LinMcLeans. " And seeing them still helpless with Chalkeye, he joined themand lifted the cow-boy out. 

"I think, " said Slaghammer, stepping forward, "this should proceed nofurther without some--perhaps some friend would recite 'Now I lay me?"'

"They don't use that on funerals, " said the Doughie. 

"Will some gentleman give the Lord's Prayer?" inquired the coroner. 

Foreheads were knotted; triad mutterings ran among them; but some oneremembered a prayer book in one of the rooms in Drybone, and the notionwas hailed. Four mounted, and raced to bring it. They went down thehill in a flowing knot, shirts ballooning and elbows flapping, and soreturned. But the book was beyond them. "Take it, you; you take it, "each one said. False beginnings were made, big thumbs pushed the pagesback and forth, until impatience conquered them. They left the bookand lowered the coffin, helped again by McLean. The weight sank slowly, decently, steadily, down between the banks. The sound that it struck thebottom with was a slight sound, the grating of the load upon the solidsand; and a little sand strewed from the edge and fell on the box at thesame moment. The rattle came up from below, compact and brief, a singlejar, quietly smiting through the crowd, smiting it to silence. Oneremoved his hat, and then another, and then all. They stood eying eachhis neighbor, and shifting their eyes, looked away at the great valley. Then they filled in the grave, brought a head-board from a grave nearby, and wrote the name and date upon it by scratching with a stone. 

"She was sure one of us, " said Chalkeye. "Let's give her the Lament. "

And they followed his lead:

 "Once in the saddle, I used to go dashing, Once in the saddle, I used to go gay; First took to drinking, and then to card-playing; Got shot in the body, and now here I lay. 

 "Beat the drum slowly, Play the fife lowly, Sound the dead march as you bear me along. Take me to Boot-hill, and throw the sod over me-- I'm but a poor cow-boy, I know I done wrong. "

When the song was ended, they left the graveyard quietly and went downthe hill. The morning was growing warm. Their work waited them acrossmany sunny miles of range and plain. Soon their voices and themselveshad emptied away into the splendid vastness and silence, and they weregone--ready with all their might to live or to die, to be animals orheroes, as the hours might bring them opportunity. In Drybone's desertedquadrangle the sun shone down upon Lusk still sleeping, and the windshook the aces and kings in the grass. 

PART IV

Over at Separ, Jessamine Buckner had no more stockings of Billy's tomend, and much time for thinking and a change of mind. The day afterthat strange visit, when she had been told that she had hurt a goodman's heart without reason, she took up her work; and while her handsdespatched it her thoughts already accused her. Could she have seen thatvisitor now, she would have thanked her. She looked at the photograph onher table. "Why did he go away so quickly?" she sighed. But when youngBilly returned to his questions she was buoyant again, and more than amatch for him. He reached the forbidden twelfth time of asking why LinMcLean did not come back and marry her. Nor did she punish him as shehad threatened. She looked at him confidentially, and he drew near, fullof hope. 

"Billy, I'll tell you just why it is, " said she. "Lin thinks I'm not areal girl. "

"A--ah, " drawled Billy, backing from her with suspicion. 

"Indeed that's what it is, Billy. If he knew I was a real girl--"

"A--ah, " went the boy, entirely angry. "Anybody can tell you're a girl. "And he marched out, mystified, and nursing a sense of wrong. Nor did hisdignity allow him to reopen the subject. 

To-day, two miles out in the sage-brush by himself, he was shootingjack-rabbits, but began suddenly to run in toward Separ. A horseman hadpassed him, and he had loudly called; but the rider rode on, intent uponthe little distant station. Man and horse were soon far ahead of theboy, and the man came into town galloping. 

No need to fire the little pistol by her window, as he had once thoughtto do! She was outside before he could leap to the ground. And as heheld her, she could only laugh, and cry, and say "Forgive me! Oh, whyhave you been so long?" She took him back to the room where his picturewas, and made him sit, and sat herself close. "What is it?" she askedhim. For through the love she read something else in his serious face. So then he told her how nothing was wrong; and as she listened to allthat he had to tell, she, too, grew serious, and held very close to him. "Dear, dear neighbor!" she said. 

As they sat so, happy with deepening happiness, but not gay yet, youngBilly burst open the door. "There!" he cried. "I knowed Lin knowed youwere a girl!"

Thus did Billy also have his wish. For had he not told Jessamine that heliked her, and urged her to come and live with him and Lin? That cabinon Box Elder became a home in truth, with a woman inside taking theonly care of Mr. McLean that he had known since his childhood: thoughsingularly enough he has an impression that it is he who takes care ofJessamine!

IN THE AFTER-DAYS

 The black pines stand high up the hills, The white snow sifts their columns deep, While through the canyon's riven cleft From there, beyond, the rose clouds sweep. 

 Serene above their paling shapes One star hath wakened in the sky. And here in the gray world below Over the sage the wind blows by;

 Rides through the cotton-woods' ghost-ranks, And hums aloft a sturdy tune Among the river's tawny bluffs, Untenanted as is the moon. 

 Far 'neath the huge invading dusk Comes Silence awful through the plain; But yonder horseman's heart is gay, And he goes singing might and main.