THE LONESOME TRAIL AND OTHER STORIES

by

B. M. BOWER(B. M. SINCLAIR)

Author of _Chip of the Flying U_, _The Range Dwellers_, _Her Prairie Knight_, _The Lure of the Dim Trails_, _The Happy Family_, _The Long Shadow_, etc. 

New YorkGrosset & DunlapPublishers

1904

CONTENTS

 THE LONESOME TRAIL

 FIRST AID TO CUPID

 WHEN THE COOK FELL ILL

 THE LAMB

 THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE

 THE REVELER

 THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS

THE LONESOME TRAIL

PART ONE

A man is very much like a horse. Once thoroughly frightened bysomething he meets on the road, he will invariably shy at the sameplace afterwards, until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to thespot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his ownimagining; after which he will throw up his head and deny that he everwas afraid--and be quite amusingly sincere in the denial. 

It is true of every man with high-keyed nature, a decent opinion ofhimself and a healthy pride of power. It was true of Will Davidson, ofthe Flying U--commonly known among his associates, particularly theHappy Family, as "Weary. " As to the cause of his shying at a certainobject, that happened long ago. Many miles east of the Bear Paws, inthe town where Weary had minced painfully along the streets on pink, protesting, bare soles before the frost was half out of the ground; hadyelled himself hoarse and run himself lame in the redoubtable base-ballnine which was to make that town some day famous--the nine where theyoften played with seven "men" because the other two had to "bug"potatoes or do some other menial task and where the umpire frequentlyengaged in throwing lumps of dried mud at refractory players, --therehad lived a Girl. 

She might have lived there a century and Weary been none the worse, hadhe not acquired the unfortunate habit of growing up. Even then hemight have escaped injury had he not persisted in growing up and up, astraight six-feet-two of lovable good looks, with the sunniest oftempers and blue eyes that reflected the warm sweetness of that nature, and a smile to tell what the eyes left unsaid. 

Such being the tempting length of him, the Girl saw that he was worthan effort; she took to smoking the chimney of her bedroom lamp, heatingcurling irons, wearing her best hat and best ribbons on a weekday, andinsisting upon crowding number four-and-a-half feet into numberthree-and-a-half shoes and managing to look as if she were perfectlycomfortable. When a girl does all those things, and when she has agood complexion and hair vividly red and long, heavy-lidded blue eyesthat have a fashion of looking side-long at a man, it were well forthat man to travel--if he would keep the lightness of his heart and thesunny look in his eyes and his smile. 

Weary traveled, but the trouble was that he did not go soon enough. When he did go, his eyes were somber instead of sunny, and he smilednot at all. And in his heart he carried a deep-rooted impulse to shyalways at women--and so came to resemble a horse. 

He shied at long, blue eyes and turned his own uncompromisingly away. He never would dance with a woman who had red hair, except inquadrilles where he could not help himself; and then his hand-clasp wasbrief and perfunctory when it came to "Grand right-and-left. " Ifcommanded to "Balance-_swing_" the red-haired woman was swung airily bythe finger-tips--; which was not the way in which Weary swung theothers. 

And then came the schoolma'am. The schoolma'am's hair was the darkestbrown and had a shine to it where the light struck at the proper angle, and her eyes were large and came near being round, and they were avelvety brown and also had a shine in them. 

Still Weary shied consistently and systematically. 

At the leap-year ball, given on New Year's night, when the ladies wereinvited to "choose your pardners for the hull dance, regardless of whobrought yuh, " the schoolma'am had forsaken Joe Meeker, with whoseparents she boarded, and had deliberately chosen Weary. The HappyFamily had, with one accord, grinned at him in a way that promised manythings and, up to the coming of the Fourth of July, every promise hadbeen conscientiously fulfilled. 

They brought him many friendly messages from the schoolma'am, to whichhe returned unfriendly answers. When he accused them openly of tryingto "load" him; they were shocked and grieved. They told him theschoolma'am said she felt drawn to him--he looked so like her darlingbrother who had spilled his precious blood on San Juan Hill. CalEmmett was exceedingly proud of this invention, since it seemed to "godown" with Weary better than most of the lies they told. 

It was the coming of the Fourth and the celebration of that day whichprovoked further effort to tease Weary. 

"Who are _you_ going to take, Weary?" Cal Emmett lowered his lefteyelid very gently, for the benefit of the others, and drew a matchsharply along the wall just over his head. 

"Myself, " answered Weary sweetly, though it was becoming a sore subject. 

"You're sure going in bum company, then, " retorted Cal. 

"Who's going to pilot the schoolma'am?" blurted Happy Jack, who wasnever consciously ambiguous. 

"You can search me, " said Weary, in a you-make-me-tired tone. "Shesure isn't going with Yours Truly. "

"Ain't she asked yuh yet?" fleered Cal. "That's funny. She told methe other day she was going to take advantage of woman's privilege, this year, and choose her own escort for the dance. Then she asked meif I knew whether you were spoke for, and when I told her yuh wasn't, she wanted to know if I'd bring a note over. But I was in a dickens ofa hurry, and couldn't wait for it; anyhow, I was headed the other way. "

"Not toward Len Adams, were you?" asked Weary sympathetically. 

"Aw, she'll give you an invite, all right, " Happy Jack declared. "Little Willie ain't going to be forgot, yuh can gamble on that. He'stoo much like Darling Brother--"

At this point, Happy Jack ducked precipitately and a flapping, four-buckled overshoe, a relic of the winter gone, hurtled past hishead and landed with considerable force upon the unsuspecting stomachof Cal, stretched luxuriously upon his bunk. Cal doubled like athreatened caterpillar and groaned, and Weary, feeling that justice hadnot been defeated even though he had aimed at another culprit, grinnedcomplacently. 

"What horse are you going to take?" asked Chip, to turn the subject. 

"Glory. I'm thinking of putting him up against Bert Rogers' Flopper. Bert's getting altogether too nifty over that cayuse of his. He needsto be walked away from, once; Glory's the little horse that can learn'em things about running, if--"

"Yeah--_if_!" This from Cal, who had recovered speech. "Have yuh gota written guarantee from Glory, that he'll run?"

"Aw, " croaked Happy Jack, "if he runs at all, it'll likely bebackwards--if it ain't a dancing-bear stunt on his hind feet. You cangamble it'll be what yuh don't expect and ain't got any money on; thatthere's Glory, from the ground up. "

"Oh, I don't know, " Weary drawled placidly. "I'm not setting himbefore the public as a twin to Mary's little lamb, but I'm willing torisk him. He's a good little horse--when he feels that way--and he canrun. And darn him, he's _got_ to run!"

Shorty quit snoring and rolled over. "Betche ten dollars, two to one, he won't run, " he said, digging his fists into his eyes like a baby. 

Weary, dead game, took him up, though he knew what desperate chances hewas taking. 

"Betche five dollars, even up, he runs backwards, " grinned Happy Jack, and Weary accepted that wager also. 

The rest of the afternoon was filled with Glory--so to speak--and muchcoin was hazarded upon his doing every unseemly thing that a horse canpossibly do at a race, except the one thing which he did do; which goesto prove that Glory was not an ordinary cayuse, and that he had areputation to maintain. To the day of his death, it may be said, hemaintained it. 

Dry Lake was nothing if not patriotic. Every legal holiday wasobserved in true Dry Lake manner, to the tune of violins and theswish-swish of slippered feet upon a more-or-less polished floor. TheGlorious Fourth, however, was celebrated with more elaborateamusements. On that day men met, organized and played a matched gameof ball with much shouting and great gusto, and with an umpire whoaimed to please. 

After that they arranged their horseraces over the bar of the saloon, and rode, ran or walked to the quarter-mile stretch of level trailbeyond the stockyards to witness the running; when they would hurryback to settle their bets over the bar where they had drunk to thepreliminaries. 

Bert Rogers came early, riding Flopper. Men hurried from the saloon togather round the horse that held the record of beating a "realrace-horse" the summer before. They felt his legs sagely and wonderedthat anyone should seem anxious to question his ability to beatanything in the country in a straightaway quarter-mile dash. 

When the Flying U boys clattered into town in a bunch, they weregreeted enthusiastically; for old Jim Whitmore's "Happy Family" wasliked to a man. The enthusiasm did not extend to Glory, however. Hewas eyed askance by those who knew him or who had heard of hisexploits. If the Happy Family had not backed him loyally to a man, hewould not have had a dollar risked upon him; and this not because hecould not run. 

Glory was an alien, one of a carload of horses shipped in from Arizonathe summer before. He was a bright sorrel, with the silvery mane andtan and white feet which one so seldom sees--a beauty, none could deny. His temper was not so beautiful. 

Sometimes for days he was lamblike in his obedience, touching in hismuzzling affection till Weary was lulled into unwatchful love for thehorse. Then things would happen. 

Once, Weary walked with a cane for two weeks. Another time he walkedten miles in the rain. Once he did not walk at all, but sat on a rockand smoked cigarettes till his tobacco sack ran empty, waiting forGlory to quit sulking, flat on his side, and get up and carry him home. 

Any man but Weary would have ruined the horse with harshness, but Wearywas really proud of his deviltry and would laugh till the tears camewhile he told of some new and undreamed bit of cussedness in his pet. 

On this day, Glory was behaving beautifully. True, he had nearlysqueezed the life out of Weary that morning when he went to saddle himin the stall, and he had afterwards snatched Cal Emmet's hat off withhis teeth, and had dropped it to the ground and had stood upon it; buton the whole, the Happy Family regarded those trifles as a good sign. 

When Bert Rogers and Weary ambled away down the dusty trail to thestarting point, accompanied by most of the Flying U boys and two orthree from Bert's outfit, the crowd in the grand-stand (which was thetop rail of the stockyard fence) hushed expectantly. 

When a pistol cracked, far down the road, and a faint yell cameshrilling through the quiet sunshine, they craned necks till theirmuscles ached. Like a summer sand-storm they came, and behind themclattered their friends, the dust concealing horse and rider alike. Whooping encouraging words at random, they waited till a black noseshot out from the rushing cloud. That was Flopper. Beside it a whitestreak, a flying, silvery mane--Glory was running! Happy Jack gave araucous yell. 

Lifting reluctantly, the dust gave hazy glimpses of a long, black bodyhugging jealously close to earth, its rider lying low upon thestraining neck--that was Flopper and Bert. 

Close beside, a sheeny glimmer of red, a tossing fringe of white, aleaning, wiry, exultant form above--that was Glory and Weary. 

There were groans as well as shouting when the whirlwind had swept pastand on down the hill toward town, and the reason thereof was plain. Glory had won by a good length of him. 

Bert Rogers said something savage and set his weight upon the bit tillFlopper, snorting and disgusted--for a horse knows when he isbeaten--took shorter leaps, stiffened his front legs and stopped, digging furrows with his feet. 

Glory sailed on down the trail, scattering Mrs. Jenson's chickens andjumping clean over a lumbering, protesting sow. "Come on--he's goingto set up the drinks!" yelled someone, and the crowd leaped from thefence and followed. 

But Glory did not stop. He whipped around the saloon, whirled past theblacksmith shop and was headed for the mouth of the lane before anyoneunderstood. Then Chip, suddenly grasping the situation, dug deep withhis spurs and yelled. 

"He's broken the bit--it's a runaway!"

Thus began the second race, a free-for-all dash up the lane. At thevery start they knew it was hopeless to attempt overtaking that redstreak, but they galloped a mile for good manners' sake; Cal thenpulled up. 

"No use, " he said. "Glory's headed for home and we ain't got thepapers to stop him. He can't hurt Weary--and the dance opens up atsix, and I've got a girl in town. "

"Same here, " grinned Bert. "It's after four, now. "

Chip, who at that time hadn't a girl--and didn't want one--let Silverout for another long gallop, seeing it was Weary. Then he, too, gaveup the chase and turned back. 

Glory settled to a long lope and kept steadily on, gleefully rattlingthe broken bit which dangled beneath his jaws. Weary, helpless andamused and triumphant because the race was his, sat unconcernedly inthe saddle and laid imaginary bets with himself on the outcome. Without doubt, Glory was headed for home. Weary figured that, barringaccidents, he could catch up Blazes, in the little pasture, and rideback to Dry Lake by the time the dance was in full swing--for thedancing before dark would be desultory and without much spirit. 

But the gate into the big field was closed and tied securely with arope. Glory comprehended the fact with one roll of his knowing eyes, turned away to the left and took the trail which wound like a snakeinto the foothills. Clinging warily to the level where choice wasgiven him, trotting where the way was rough, mile after mile he coveredtill even Weary's patience showed signs of weakening. 

Just then Glory turned, where a wire gate lay flat upon the ground, crossed a pebbly creek and galloped stiffly up to the very steps of asquat, vine-covered ranch-house where, like the Discontented Pendulumin the fable, he suddenly stopped. 

"Damn you, Glory--I could kill yuh for this!" gritted Weary, and slidreluctantly from the saddle. For while the place seemed deserted, itwas not. There was a girl. 

She lay in a hammock; sprawled would come nearer describing herposition. She had some magazines scattered around upon the porch, andher hair hung down to the floor in a thick, dark braid. She wasdressed in a dark skirt and what, to Weary's untrained, masculine eyes, looked like a pink gunny sack. In reality it was a kimono. Sheappeared to be asleep. 

Weary saw a chance of leading Glory quietly to the corral before shewoke. There he could borrow a bridle and ride back whence he came, andhe could explain about the bridle to Joe Meeker in town. Joe wasalways good about lending things, anyway. He gathered the fragments ofthe bit in one hand and clucked under his breath, in an agony lest hisspurs should jingle. 

Glory turned upon him his beautiful, brown eyes, reproachfullyquestioning. 

Weary pulled steadily. Glory stretched neck and nose obediently, butas to feet, they were down to stay. 

Weary glanced anxiously toward the hammock and perspired, then stoodback and whispered language it would be a sin to repeat. Glory, listening with unruffled calm, stood perfectly still, like a red statuein the sunshine. 

The face of the girl was hidden under one round, loose-sleeved arm. She did not move. A faint breeze, freshening in spasmodic puffs, seized upon the hammock, and set it swaying gently. 

"Oh, damn you, Glory!" whispered Weary through his teeth. But Glory, accustomed to being damned since he was a yearling, displayedabsolutely no interest. Indeed, he seemed inclined to doze there inthe sun. 

Taking his hat--his best hat--from his head, he belabored Gloryviciously over the jaws with it; silently except for the soft thud andslap of felt on flesh. And the mood of him was as near murder as Wearycould come. Glory had been belabored with worse things than hatsduring his eventful career; he laid back his ears, shut his eyes tightand took it meekly. 

There came a gasping gurgle from the hammock, and Weary's hand stoppedin mid-air. The girl's head was burrowed in a pillow and her slipperstapped the floor while she laughed and laughed. 

Weary delivered a parting whack, put on his hat and looked at heruncertainly; grinned sheepishly when the humor of the thing came to himslowly, and finally sat down upon the porch steps and laughed with her. 

"Oh, gee! It was too funny, " gasped the girl, sitting up and wipingher eyes. 

Weary gasped also, though it was a small matter--a common little wordof three letters. In all the messages sent him by the schoolma'am, itwas the precise, school-grammar wording of them which had irritated himmost and impressed him insensibly with the belief that she was too primto be quite human. The Happy Family had felt all along that they wereartists in that line, and they knew that the precise sentences evercarried conviction of their truth. Weary mopped his perspiring faceupon a white silk handkerchief and meditated wonderingly. 

"You aren't a train-robber or a horsethief, or--anything, are you?" sheasked him presently. "You seemed quite upset at seeing the placewasn't deserted; but I'm sure, if you are a robber running away from asheriff, I'd never dream of stopping you. Please don't mind me; justmake yourself at home. "

Weary turned his head and looked straight up at her. "I'm afraid I'llhave to disappoint yuh, Miss Satterly, " he said blandly. "I'm just anordinary human, and my name is Davidson--better known as Weary. Youdon't appear to remember me. We've met before. "

She eyed him attentively. "Perhaps we have--it you say so. I'mwretched about remembering strange names and faces. Was it at a dance?I meet so many fellows at dances--" She waved a brown little hand andsmiled deprecatingly. 

"Yes, " said Weary laconically, still looking into her face. "It was. "

She stared down at him, her brows puckered. "I know, now. It was atthe Saint Patrick's dance in Dry Lake! How silly of me to forget. "

Weary turned his gaze to the hill beyond the creek, and fanned his hotface with his hat. "It was not. It wasn't at that dance, at all. "Funny she didn't remember him! He suspected her of trying to fool him, now that he was actually in her presence, and he refused absolutely tobe fooled. 

He could see that she threw out her hand helplessly. "Well, I may aswell 'fess up. I don't remember you at all. It's horrid of me, whenyou rode up in that lovely, unconventional way. But you see, at dancesone doesn't think of the men as individuals; they're just good or badpartners. It resolves itself, you see, into a question of feet. If Ishould dance with you again, --_did_ I dance with you?"

Weary shot a quick, eloquent glance in her direction. He did not sayanything. 

Miss Satterly blushed. "I was going to say, if I danced with you againI should no doubt remember you perfectly. "

Weary was betrayed into a smile. "If I could dance in these boots, I'dtake off my spurs and try and identify myself. But I guess I'll haveto ask yuh to take my word for it that we're acquainted. "

"Oh, I will. I meant to, all along. Why aren't you in town, celebrating? I thought I was the only unpatriotic person in thecountry. "

"I just came from town, " Weary told her, choosing, his words carefullywhile yet striving to be truthful. No man likes confessing to a womanthat he has been run away with. "I--er--broke my bridle-bit, back afew miles" (it was fifteen, if it were a rod) "and so I rode in here toget one of Joe's. I didn't want to bother anybody, but Glory seemed tothink this was where the trail ended. "

Miss Satterly laughed again. "It certainly was funny--you trying toget him away, and being so still about it. I _heard_ you whisperingswear-words, and I wanted to scream! I just couldn't keep still anylonger. Is he balky?"

"I don't know what he is--now, " said Weary plaintively. "He was, atthat time. He's generally what happens to be the most dev--mean underthe circumstances. "

"Well, maybe he'll consent to being led to the stable; he looks as ifhe had a most unmerciful master!" (Weary, being perfectly innocent, blushed guiltily) "But I'll forgive you riding him like that, and makefor you a pitcher of lemonade and give you some cake while he rests. You certainly must not ride back with him so tired. "

Fresh lemonade sounded tempting, after that ride. And being lecturedwas not at all what he had expected from the schoolma'am--and who canfathom the mind of a man? Weary gave her one complex glance, laid hishand upon the bridle and discovered that Glory, having done whatmischief he could, was disposed to be very meek. At the corral gateWeary looked back. 

"At dances, " he mused aloud, "one doesn't consider men asindividuals--it's merely a question of feet. She took me for a trainrobber; and I danced with her about forty times, that night, and tookher over to supper and we whacked up on our chicken salad because therewas only one dish for the two of us--oh, mamma!"

He pulled off the saddle with a preoccupied air and rubbed Glory downmechanically. After that he went over and sat down on the oats' boxand smoked two cigarettes while he pondered many things. 

He stood up and thoughtfully surveyed himself, brushed sundry brightsorrel hairs from his coat sleeves, stooped and tried to pinch creasesinto the knees of his trousers, which showed symptoms of "bagging. " Hetook off his hat and polished it with his sleeve he had just brushed socarefully, pinched four big dimples in the crown, turned it aroundthree times for critical inspection, placed it upon his head at astudiously unstudied angle, felt anxiously at his neck-gear and slappedGlory affectionately upon the rump--and came near getting kicked intoeternity. Then he swung off up the path, softly whistling "In thegood, old summer-time. " An old hen, hovering her chicks in the shadeof the hay-rack, eyed him distrustfully and cried "k-r-_r-r-r_" in ashocked tone that sent her chickens burrowing deeper under her feathers. 

Miss Satterly had changed her pink kimono for a white shirt-waist andhad fluffed her hair into a smooth coil on the top of her head. Wearythought she looked very nice. She could make excellent lemonade, hediscovered, and she proved herself altogether different from what themessages she sent him had led him to expect. Weary wondered, until hebecame too interested to think about it. 

Presently, without quite knowing how it came about, he was telling herall about the race. Miss Satterly helped him reckon hiswinnings--which was not easy to do, since he had been offered all sortsof odds and had accepted them all with a recklessness that wasappalling. While her dark head was bent above the piece of paper, andher pencil was setting down figures with precise little jabs, hewatched her. He quite forgot the messages he had received from herthrough the medium of the Happy Family, and he quite forgot that womencould hurt a man. 

"Mr. Davidson, " she announced severely, when the figures had all beendabbed upon the paper, "You ought to have lost. It would be a lessonto you. I haven't quite figured all your winnings, these six-to-onesand ten-to-ones and--and all that, take time to unravel. But you, yourself, stood to lose just three hundred and sixty-five dollars. Gee! but you cowboys are reckless. "

There was more that she said, but Weary did not mind. He haddiscovered that he liked to look at the schoolma'am. After that, nothing else was of much importance. He began to wish he might prolonghis opportunity for looking. 

"Say, " he said suddenly, "Come on and let's go to the dance. "

The schoolma'am bit at her pencil and looked at him. "It's late--"

"Oh, there's time enough, " urged Weary. 

"Maybe--but--"

"Do yuh think we aren't well enough acquainted?"

"Well we're not exactly old friends, " she laughed. 

"We're going to be, so it's all the same, " Weary surprised himself bydeclaring with much emphasis. "You'd go, wouldn't you, if I was--well, say your brother?"

Miss Satterly rested her chin in her palms and regarded himmeasuringly. "I don't know. I never had one--except three or fourthat I--er--adopted, at one time or another. I suppose one could go, though--with a brother. "

Weary made a rapid, mental note for the benefit of the HappyFamily--and particularly Cal Emmett. "Darling Brother" was a myth, then; he ought to have known it, all along. And if that were a myth, so probably were all those messages and things that he had hated. Shedidn't care anything about him--and suddenly that struck himunpleasantly, instead of being a relief, as it consistently should havebeen. 

"I wish you'd adopt me, just for to-night, and go;" he said, and hiseyes backed the wish. "You see, " he added artfully, "it's a sin towaste all that good music--a real, honest-to-God stringed orchestrafrom Great Falls, and--"

"Meekers have taken both rigs, " objected she, weakly. 

"I noticed a side saddle hanging in the stable, " he wheedled, "and I'llgamble I can rustle something to put it on. I--"

"I should think you'd gambled enough for one day, " she quelled. "Butthat chunky little gray in the pasture is the horse I always ride. Iexpect, " she sighed, "my new dancing dress would be a sight to beholdwhen I got there--and it won't wash. But what does a mere man care--"

"Wrap it up in something, and I'll carry it for yuh, " Weary advisedeagerly. "You can change at the hotel. It's dead easy. " He picked uphis hat from the floor, rose and stood looking anxiously down at her. "About how soon, " he insinuated, "can you be ready?"

The schoolma'am looked up at him irresolutely, drew a long breath andthen laughed. "Oh, ten minutes will do, " she surrendered. "I shallput my new dress in a box, and go just as I am. Do you _always_ getyour own way, Mr. Davidson?"

"Always, " he lied convincingly over his shoulder, and jumped off theporch without bothering to use the steps. 

She was waiting when he led the little gray up to the house, and shecame down the steps with a large, flat, pasteboard box in her arms. 

"Don't get off, " she commanded. "I can mount alone--and you'll have tocarry the box. It's going to be awkward, but you _would_ have me go. "

Weary took the box and prudently remained in the saddle. Glory, havingthe man he did for master, was unused to the flutter of women's skirtsso close, and rolled his eyes till the whites showed all round. Moreover, he was not satisfied with that big, white thing in Weary'sarms. 

He stood quite still, however, until the schoolma'am was settled to herliking in the saddle, and had tucked her skirt down over the toe of herright foot. He watched the proceeding with much interest--as didWeary--and then walked sedately from the yard, through the pebbly creekand up the slope beyond. He heard Weary give a sigh of relief at hisdocility, and straightway thrust his nose between his white front feet, and proceeded to carry out certain little plans of his own. Weary, taken by surprise and encumbered by the box, could not argue the point;he could only, in range parlance, "hang and rattle. "

"Oh, " cried Miss Satterly, "if he's going to act like that, give me thebox. "

Weary would like to have done so, but already he was half way to thegate, and his coat was standing straight out behind to prove the speedof his flight. He could not even look back. He just hung tight to thebox and rode. 

The little gray was no racer, but his wind was good; and with urging hekept the fleeing Glory in sight for a mile or so. Then, horse andrider were briefly silhouetted against the sunset as they topped adistant hill, and after that the schoolma'am rode by faith. 

At the gate which led into the big Flying U field she overtook them. Glory, placid as a sheep, was nibbling a frayed end of the rope whichheld the gate shut, and Weary, the big box balanced in front of himacross the saddle, was smoking a cigarette. 

"Well, " greeted Miss Satterly breathlessly, and rather tartly, "onlyfor you having my dress, I'd have gone straight back home. Do brothersalways act like this?"

"Search me, " said Weary, shaking his head. "Anyway, yuh better talk toGlory about it. He appears to be running this show. When I rode outto your place, I didn't have any bit in his mouth at all. Coming back, I've got one of Joe Meeker's teething rings, that wouldn't hold a petturkey. But we're going to the dance, Miss Satterly. Don't you worrynone about that. "

Miss Satterly laughed and rode ahead of them. "I'm going, " sheannounced firmly. "It's leap year, and I think I can rustle a partnerif you decide to sit and look through that gate all night. "

"You'll need your pretty dress. Glory ain't much used to escortingyoung ladies, but he's a gentleman; we're coming, all right. "

It was strange, perhaps, that Glory should miss the chance of provinghis master a liar, but he nevertheless ambled decorously to Dry Lakeand did nothing more unseemly than nipping occasionally at the neck ofthe little gray. 

That is how Weary learned that large, brown eyes do not look sidelongat a man after the manner of long, heavy-lidded blue ones; and that, also, is how he came to throw up his head and deny to himself and hisworld that he ever was shy of women. 

PART TWO

Weary rode stealthily around the corner of the little, frameschool-house and was not disappointed. The schoolma'am was sittingunconventionally upon the doorstep, her shoulder turned to him and herface turned to the trail by which a man naturally would be supposed toapproach the place. Her hair was shining darkly in the sun and theshorter locks were blowing about her face in a downright tantalizingfashion; they made a man want to brush them back and kiss the spot theywere caressing so wantonly. She was humming a tune softly to herself. Weary caught the words, sung absently, under her breath:

 "Didn't make no blunder--yuh couldn't confuse him. A perfect wonder, yuh had to choose him!"

The schoolma'am was addicted to coon songs of the period. 

She seemed to be very busy about something and Weary, craning his neckto see over her shoulder, wondered what. Also, he wished he knew whatshe was thinking about, and he hoped her thoughts were not remote fromhimself. Just then Glory showed unmistakable and malicious intentionsof sneezing, and Weary, catching a glimpse of something in MissSatterly's hand, hastened to make his presence known. 

"I hope yuh aren't limbering up that weapon of destruction on myaccount, Schoolma'am, " he observed mildly. 

The schoolma'am jumped and slid something out of sight under herruffled, white apron. "Weary Davidson, how long have you been standingthere? I believe you'd come straight down from the sky or straight upfrom the ground, if you could manage it. You seem capable of doingeverything except coming by the trail like a sensible man. " This withseverity. 

Weary swung a long leg over Glory's back and came lightly to earth, immediately taking possession of the vacant half of doorstep. Theschoolma'am obligingly drew skirts aside to make room for him--aninconsistent movement not at all in harmony with her eyebrows, whichwere disapproving. 

"Yuh don't like ordinary men. Yuh said so, once when I said I was justa plain, ordinary man. I've sworn off being ordinary since yuh gave methat tip, " he said cheerfully. "Let's have a look at that cannonyou're hiding under your apron. Where did yuh resurrect it? Out ofsome old Indian grave?

"Mamma! It won't go off sudden and unexpected, will it? What kind uhshells--oh, mamma!" He pushed his hat back off his forehead with agesture not left behind with his boyhood, held the object the length ofhis long arm away and regarded it gravely. 

It was an old, old "bull-dog" revolver, freckled with rust until itbore a strong resemblance to certain noses which Miss Satterly lookeddown upon daily. The cylinder was plugged with rolls of drab cottoncloth, supposedly in imitation of real bullets. It was obviouslyduring the plugging process that Miss Satterly had been interrupted, for a drab string hung limply from one hole. On the whole, the thingdid not look particularly formidable, and Weary's lips twitched. 

"A tramp stopped here the other day, and--I was frightened a little, "she was explaining, pink-cheeked. "So aunt Meeker found this up in theloft and she thought it would do to--to bluff with. "

Weary aimed carefully at a venturesome and highly inquisitive gopherand pulled, with some effort, the rusted trigger. The gopher stoodupon his hind feet and chipped derisively. 

"You see, it just insults him. Yuh could'nt scare a blind man withit-- Look here! If yuh go pouting up your lips like that again, something's going to happen 'em. There's a limit to what a man canstand. "

Miss Satterly hastily drew her mouth into a thin, untempting, redstreak, for she had not seen Weary Davidson, on an average, twice aweek for the last four months for nothing. He was not the man to bluff. 

"Of course, " she said resentfully, "you can make fun of it--but all thesame, it's better than nothing. It answers the purpose. "

Weary turned his head till he could look straight into her eyes--athing he seemed rather fond of doing, lately. "What purpose? It sureisn't ornamental; it's a little the hardest looker I ever saw in theshape of a gun. And it won't scare anything. If you want a gun, why, take one that can make good. You can have mine; just watch what adifferent effect it has. "

He reached backward and drew a shining thing from his pocket, flippedit downward--and the effect was unmistakably different. The gopherleaped and rolled backward and then lay still, and Miss Satterly gave alittle, startled scream and jumped quite off the doorstep. 

"Don't yuh see? You couldn't raise any such a dust with yours. If yuhpack a gun, you always want to pack one that's ready and willing to dobusiness on short notice. I'll let yuh have this, if you're sure it'ssafe with yuh. I'd hate to have you shooting yourself accidental. "

Weary raised innocent eyes to her face and polished the gun caressinglywith his handkerchief. "Try it once, " he urged. 

The schoolma'am was fond of boasting that she never screamed atanything. She had screamed just now, over a foolish little thing, andit goes without saying she was angry with the cause. She did not sitdown again beside him, and she did not take the gun he was holding upinvitingly to her. She put her hands behind her and stood accusinglybefore him with the look upon her face which never failed to makesundry small Beckmans and Pilgreens squirm on their benches when sheassumed it in school. 

"Mr. Davidson"--not Weary Davidson, as she was wont to call him--"youhave killed my pet gopher. All summer I have fed him, and he would eatout of my hand. "

Weary cast a jealous eye upon the limp, little animal, searched hisheart for remorse and found none. Ornery little brute, to get familiarwith _his_ schoolma'am!

"I did not think you could be so wantonly cruel, and I am astonishedand--and deeply pained to discover that fatal flaw in your character. "

Weary began to squirm, after the manner of delinquent Beckmans andPilgreens. One thing he had learned: When the schoolma'am rose toirreproachable English, there was trouble a-brew. It was a sign he hadnever known to fail. 

"I cannot understand the depraved instinct which prompts a man brutallyto destroy a life he cannot restore, and which in no way menaces hisown--or even interferes with his comfort. You may apologize to me; youmay even be sincerely repentant"--the schoolma'am's tone at this pointimplied considerable doubt--"but you are powerless to return the lifeyou have so heedlessly taken. You have revealed a low, brutal traitwhich I had hoped your nature could not harbor, and I am--am deeplyshocked and--and grieved. "

Just here a tiny, dry-weather whirlwind swept around the corner, caughtruffled, white apron and blue skirt in its gyrations and, pushing themwickedly aside, gave Weary a brief, delicious glimpse of two small, slippered feet and two distracting ankles. The schoolma'am blushed andretreated to the doorstep, but she did not sit down. She still stoodstraight and displeased beside him. Evidently she was still shockedand grieved. 

Weary tipped his head to one side so that be might look up at her fromunder his hat-brim. "I'll get yuh another gopher; six, if yuh say so, "he soothed, "The woods is full of 'em. "

The angry, brown eyes of Miss Satterly swept the barren hillscontemptuously. She would not even look at him. "Pray do notinconvenience yourself, Mr. Davidson. It is not the gopher that I carefor so much--it is the principle. "

Weary sighed and slid the gun back into his pocket. It seemed to himthat Miss Satterly, adorable as she always was, was also ratherunreasonable at times. "All right, I'll get yuh another principle, then. "

"Mr. Davidson, " she said sternly, "you are perfectly odious!"

"Is that something nice, Girlie?" Weary smiled trustfully up at her. 

"Odious, " explained the schoolma'am haughtily, "is not something nice. I'm sorry your education has been so neglected. Odious, Mr. Davidson, is a synonym for hateful, obnoxious, repulsive, disagreeable, despicable--"

"I never did like cinnamon, anyhow, " put in Weary, cheerfully. 

"I did not mention cinnamon. I said--"

"Say, yuh look out uh sight with your hair fixed that way. I wishyou'd wear it like that all the time, " he observed irrelevantly, looking up at her with his sunniest smile. 

"I wish to goodness I were really out of sight, " snapped theschoolma'am. "You make me exceedingly weary. "

"_Mrs. _ Weary, " corrected he, complacently. "That's what I'm sureaiming at. "

"You aim wide of the mark, then, " she retorted valiantly, thoughconfusion waved a red flag in either cheek. 

"Oh, I don't know. A minute ago you were roasting me because my aimwas too good, " he contended mildly, glancing involuntarily toward thegopher stretched upon its little, yellow back, its four small feetturned pitifully up to the blue. 

"If you had an atom of decency you'd be ashamed to mention that tributeto your diabolical marksmanship. "

"Oh, mamma!" ejaculated Weary under his breath, and began to makehimself a smoke. His guardian angel was exhorting him to silence, butit preached, as usual, to unsentient ears. 

"_I_ never mentioned all those things, " he denied meekly. "It's youthat keeps on mentioning. I wish yuh wouldn't. I like to hear youtalk, all right, and flop all those big words easy as roping a calf;but I wish you'd let me choose your subject for yuh. I could easy nameone where you could use words just as high and wide and handsome, and aheap more pleasant than the brand you've got corralled. Try admirationand felicitation and exhilarating, ecstatic osculation--" He stoppedto run the edge of paper along his tongue, and perhaps it was as wellhe did; there was no need of making her any angrier. Miss Satterlyhated to feel that she was worsted, and it was quite clear that Wearyhad all along been "guying" her. 

"If you came here to make me _hate_ you, you have accomplished yourerrand admirably; it would be advisable now for you to hike. "

Weary, struck by that incongruous last word, did an unforgivable thing. He laughed and laughed, while the match he had just lighted flared, sent up a blue thread of brimstone smoke, licked along the white woodand scorched his fingers painfully before he remembered his cigarette. 

Miss Satterly turned abruptly and went into the house, put on her hatand took up the little, tin lard-pail in which her aunt Meeker alwayspacked her lunch. She was back, had the key turned in the lock and wasslowly pulling on her gloves by the time Weary recovered from his mirth. 

"Since you will not leave the place, I shall do so. I want to sayfirst, however, that I not only think you odious, but all the synonymsI mentioned besides. You need not come for me to go to the Labor Daydance, because I will not go with you. I shall go with Joe. "

Weary gave her a startled glance and almost dropped his cigarette. This seemed going rather far, he thought--but of course she didn'treally mean it; the schoolma'am, he heartened himself with thinking, was an awful, little bluffer. 

"Don't go off mad, Girlie. I'm sorry I killed your gopher--on thedead, I am. I just didn't think, That's a habit I've got--not thinking. 

"Say! You stay, and we'll have a funeral. It isn't every common, scrub gopher that can have a real funeral with mourners and music whenhe goes over the Big Divide. He--he'll appreciate the honor; I would, I know, if it was me. "

The schoolma'am took a few steps and stopped, evidently in somedifficulty with her glove. From the look of her, no human being waswithin a mile of her; she certainly did not seem to hear anything Wearywas saying. 

"Say! I'll sing a song over him, if you'll wait a minute. I know twowhole verses of 'Bill Bailey, ' and the chorus to 'Good Old Summertime. 'I can shuffle the two together and make a full deck. I believe they'dgo fine together. 

"Say, you never heard me sing, did yuh? It's worth waiting for--onlyyuh want to hang tight to something when I start. Come on--I'll letyou be the mourner. "

Since Miss Satterly had been taking steps quite regularly while Wearywas speaking, she was now several rods away--and she had, more thanever, the appearance of not hearing him and of not wanting to hear. 

"Say, Tee-e-cher!"

The schoolma'am refused to stop, or to turn her head a fraction of aninch, and Weary's face sobered a little. It was the first time thatinimitable "Tee-e-cher" of his had failed to bring the smile back intothe eyes of Miss Satterly. He looked after her dubiously. Hershoulders were thrown well back and her feet pressed their imprintfirmly into the yellow dust of the trail. In a minute she would bequite out of hearing. 

Weary got up, took a step and grasped Glory's trailing bridle-rein andhurried after her much faster than Glory liked and which he reprovedwith stiffened knees and a general pulling back on the reins. 

"Say! You wouldn't get mad at a little thing like that, would yuh?"expostulated Weary, when he overtook her. "You know I didn't meananything, Girlie. "

"I do not consider it a little thing, " said the schoolma'am, icily. 

Thus rebuffed, Weary walked silently beside her up the hill--silently, that is, save for the subdued jingling of his spurs. He was beginningto realize that there was an uncomfortable, heavy feeling in his chest, on the side where his heart was. Still, he was of a hopeful nature andpresently tried again. 

"How many times must I say I'm sorry, Schoolma'am? You don't look sopretty when you're mad; you've got dimples, remember, and yuh ought togive 'em a chance. Let's sit down on this rock while I square myself. Come on. " His tone was wheedling in the extreme. 

Miss Satterly, not replying a word, kept straight on up the hill; andWeary, sighing heavily, followed. 

"Don't you want to ride Glory a ways? He's real good, to-day. He putin the whole of yesterday working out all the cussedness that's beenaccumulating in his system for a week, so he's dead gentle. I'll leadhim, for yuh. "

"Thank you, " said Miss Satterly. "I prefer to walk. "

Weary sighed again, but clung to his general hopefulness, as was hisnature. It took a great deal to rouse Weary; perhaps the schoolma'amwas trying to find just how much. 

"Say, you'd a died laughing if you'd seen old Glory yesterday; he likedto scared Slim plumb to death. We were working in the big corral andSlim got down on one knee to fix his spur. Glory saw him kneel down, and gave a running jump and went clear over Slim's head. Slim hit forthe closest fence, and he never looked back till he was clean over onthe other side. Mamma! I was sure amused. I thought Glory had doneabout everything there was to do--but I tell yuh, that horse has got animagination that will make him famous some day. "

For the first time since the day of his spectacular introduction toher, Miss Satterly displayed absolutely no interest in theeccentricities of Glory. Slowly it began to dawn upon Weary that shedid not intend to thaw that evening. He glanced at her sidelong, andhis eyes had a certain gleam that was not there five minutes before. He swung along beside her till they reached the top of the hill, fellbehind without a word and mounted Glory. 

When he overtook Miss Satterly, he lifted his hat to her nonchalantly, touched up Glory with his spurs, and clattered away down the coulee, leaving the schoolma'am in a haze of yellow dust and bewilderment farin the rear. 

The next morning Miss Satterly went very early to the school-house--forwhat purpose she did not say. A meadow-lark on the doorstep greetedher with his short, sweet ripple of sound and then flew to a nearbysage bush and watched her curiously. She looked about her halfexpectant, half disappointed. 

A little, fresh mound marked the spot where the dead gopher had been, and a narrow strip of shingle stood upright at the end. Someone hadscratched the words with a knife:

 GONE BUT NOT FORGOT. 

Probably the last word would have been given its full complement ofsyllables, had the shingle been wider; as it was, the "forgot" wascramped until it was barely intelligible. 

Miss Satterly, observing the mark of high-heeled boots in the immediatevicinity of the grave, caught herself wondering if the remains had beenlaid away to the tune of "Bill Bailey, " with the chorus of "Good OldSummertime" shuffled in to make a full deck. She started to laugh andfound that laughter was quite impossible. 

Suddenly the schoolma'am did a strange thing. She glanced about tomake sure no one was in sight, knelt and patted the tiny mound verytenderly; then, stooping quickly, she pressed her lips impulsively uponthe rude lettering of the shingle. When she sprang up her cheeks werevery red, her eyes dewy and lovely, and the little laugh she gave atherself was all atremble. If lovers could be summoned as opportunelyin real life as they are in stories, hearts would not ache so often andlife would be quite monotonously serene. 

Weary was at that moment twenty miles away, busily engaged inchastising Glory, that had refused point-blank to cross a certainwashout. His mind being wholly absorbed in the argument, he was notsusceptible to telepathic messages from the Meeker school-house--whichwas a pity. 

Also, it was a pity he could not know that Miss Satterly lingered lateat the school-house that night, doing nothing but watch the trail whereit lay, brown and distinct and utterly deserted, on the top of the billa quarter of a mile away. It is true she had artfully scattered aprofusion of papers over her desk and would undoubtedly have beendiscovered hard at work upon them and very much astonished at beholdinghim--if he had come. It is probable that Weary would have found herquite unapproachable, intrenched behind a bulwark of dignity andcorrect English. 

When the shadow of the schoolhouse stretched somberly away to the veryedge of the coulee. Miss Satterly gathered up the studied confusion onher desk, bundled the papers inside, and turned the key with a snap, jabbed three hatpins viciously through her hat and her hair and wenthome--and perhaps it were well that Weary was not there at that time. 

The next night, papers strewed the desk as before, and the schoolma'amstood by the window, her elbows planted on the unpainted sill, andwatched the trail listlessly. Her eyes were big and wistful, like ahurt child's, and her cheeks were not red as usual, nor even pink. Butthe trail lay again brown, and silent, and lonesome, with no quickhoof-beats to send the dust swirling up in a cloud. 

The shadows flowed into the coulee until it was full to the brim andthreatening the golden hilltop with a brown veil of shade before MissSatterly locked her door and went home. When she reached her auntMeeker's she did not want any supper and she said her head ached. Butthat was not quite true; it was not her head that ached so much; it washer heart. 

The third day, the schoolma'am fussed a long time with her hair, whichshe did in four different styles. The last style was the one whichWeary had pronounced "out uh sight"--only she added a white chiffon bowwhich she had before kept sacred to dances and which Weary alwaysadmired. At noon she encouraged the children to gather wild flowersfrom the coulee, and she filled several tin cans with water from thespring and arranged the bouquets with much care. Weary loved flowers. Nearly every time he came he had a little bunch stuck under hishat-band. A few she put in her hair, along with the chiffon bow. Sheurged the children through their work and dismissed them at elevenminutes to four and told them to go straight home. 

After she had swept the floor and dusted everything that could bedusted so that the school-room had the peculiar, immaculate emptinessand forlornness, like a church on a week day, and had taken a few ofthe brightest flowers and pinned them upon her white shirt-waist. MissSatterly tuned her guitar in minor and went out and sat upon the shadydoorstep and waited frankly, strumming plaintive little airs while shewatched the trail. To-morrow was Labor Day, and so he would certainlyride over to-night to see if she had really meant it (Miss Satterly didnot explain to herself what "it" was; surely, there was no need). 

At half-past five--Miss Satterly had looked at her watch seventeentimes during the interval--a tiny cloud of dust rose over the brow ofthe hill, and her heart danced in her chest until she could scarcebreathe. 

The cloud grew and grew and began drifting down the trail, and behindit a black something rose over the hilltop and followed it, soproclaiming itself a horseman galloping swiftly towards her. The colorspread from the schoolma'am's cheeks to her brow and throat. Herfingers forgot their cunning and plucked harrowing discords from thestrings, but her lips were parted and smiling tremulously. It waslate--she had almost given up looking--but he was coming! She knew bewould come. Coming at a breakneck pace--he must be pretty anxious, too. The schoolma'am recovered a bit of control and revolved in hermind several pert forms of greeting. She would not be too ready toforgive him--it would do him good to keep him anxious and uncertain fora while before she gave in. 

Now he was near the place where he would turn off the main road andgallop straight to her. Glory always made that turn of his own accord, lately. Weary had told her, last Sunday, how he could never get Glorypast that turn, any more, without a fight, no matter what might be theday or the hour. 

Now he would swing into the school-house trail. Miss Satterly raisedboth hands with a very feminine gesture and patted her hairtentatively, tucking in a stray lock here and there. 

Her hands dropped heavily to her lap, just as the blood dropped awayfrom her cheeks and the happy glow dulled in her eyes. It was notWeary. It was the Swede who worked for Jim Adams and who rode a sorrelhorse which, at a distance, resembled Glory. 

Mechanically she watched him go on down the trail and out of sight;picked up her guitar which had grown suddenly heavy, crept inside andclosed the door and locked it She looked around the clean, eerilysilent schoolroom, walked with echoing steps to the desk and laid herhead down among the cans of sweet-smelling, prairie flowers and criedsoftly, in a tired, heartbreaking fashion that made her throat ache, and her head. 

The shadows had flowed over the coulee-rim and the hilltops weresmothered in gloom when Miss Satterly went home that night, and heraunt Meeker sent her straight to bed and dosed her with horrible homeremedies. 

By morning she had recovered her spirit--her revengeful spirit, whichshe kept as the hours wore on and Weary did not come. She would teachhim a lesson, she told herself often. By evening, however, her moodsoftened. There were many things that could have kept him away againsthis will; he was not his own master, and it was shipping time. Probably he had been out with the roundup, or something. She decidedthat petty revenge is unwomanly besides giving evidence of a narrowmind and shallow, and if Weary could show a good and sufficient reasonfor staying away like that when there were matters to be settledbetween them, she would not be petty and mean about it; she would bedivine--and forgive. 

PART THREE

Weary was standing pensively by the door, debating with himself theadvisability of going boldly over and claiming the first waltz with theschoolma'am--and taking a chance on being refused--when Cal Emmett gavehim a vicious poke in the ribs by way of securing his attention. 

"Do yuh see that bunch uh red loco over there by the organ?" he wantedto know. "That's Bert Rogers' cousin from Iowa. "

Weary looked and wilted against the wall. "Oh, Mamma!" he gasped. 

"Ain't she a peach? There'll be more than one pair uh hands go intothe air to-night. It's a good thing Len got the drop on me first orI'd be making seven kinds of a fool uh myself, chances is. Bert saysshe's bad medicine--a man-killer from away back. 

"Say, she's giving us the bad-eye. Don't rubber like that, Weary; itain't good manners, and besides; the schoolma'am's getting fighty, ifI'm any judge. "

Weary pulled himself together and tried to look away, but a pair oflong blue eyes with heavy white lids drew him hypnotically across theroom. He did not want to go; he did not mean to go, but the first heknew he was standing before her and she was smiling up at him just asshe used to do. And an evil spell seemed to fall upon Weary, so thathe thought one set of thoughts while his lips uttered sentences quiteapart from his wishes. He was telling her, for instance, that he wasglad to see her; and he was not glad. He was wishing the train whichbrought her to Montana had jumped the track and gone over a highcut-bank, somewhere. 

She continued to smile up at him, and she called him Will and held outher hand. When, squirming inward protest, he took it, she laid herleft hand upon his and somehow made him feel as if he were in a trap. Her left hand was soft and plump and cool, and it was covered withrings that gave flashes and sparkles of light when she moved, and hernails were manicured to a degree not often seen in Dry Lake. She drewher fingers caressingly over his hand and spoke to him in _italics_, inthe way that had made many a man lose his head and say things extremelyfoolish. Her name was Myrtle Forsyth, as Weary had cause to remember. 

"How strange to see you away out here, " she murmured, and glanced towhere the musicians were beginning to play little preparatory strains. "Have you forgotten how to _waltz_, Will? You used to dance so _well_!"

What could a man do after a hint as broad as that one? Weary held outhis arm meekly, while mentally he was gnashing his teeth, and mutteredsomething about her giving him a trial. And she slipped her hand underhis elbow with a proprietary air that was not lost upon a certainbrown-eyed young woman across the hall. 

Weary had said some hard things to Myrtle Forsyth when he talked withher last, away back in Iowa; he had hoped to heaven he never would seeher again. Now, she observed that he had not lost his good looks ingrieving over her. She decided that he was even better looking; therewas an air of strength and a self poise that was very becoming to hisbroad shoulders and the six feet two inches of his height. Shethought, before the waltz was over, that she had made a mistake whenshe threw him over--a mistake which she ought to rectify at once. 

Weary never knew how she managed it--in truth, he was not aware thatshe did it at all--but he seemed to dance a great many times with herof the long eyes and the bright auburn hair. The schoolma'am seemedalways to be at the farther end of the room, and she appeared to beenjoying herself very much and to dance incessantly. 

Once he broke away from Miss Forsyth and went and asked Miss Satterlyfor the next waltz; but she opened her big eyes at him and assured himpolitely that she was engaged. He tried for a quadrille, a two-step, aschottische--even for a polka, which she knew he hated; but theschoolma'am was, apparently, the most engaged young woman in Dry Lakethat night. 

So Weary owned himself beaten and went back to Miss Forsyth, who hadbeen watching and learning many things and making certain plans. Wearydanced with her once and took a fit of sulking, when he stood over bythe door and smoked cigarettes and watched moodily the whirlingcouples. Miss Forsyth drifted to other acquaintances, which wasnatural; what was not so natural, to Weary's mind, was to see hersitting out a quadrille with the schoolma'am. 

That did not look good to Weary, and he came near going over anddemanding to know what they were talking about. He was ready to betthat Myrt Forsyte, with that smile, was up to some deviltry--and hewished he knew what. She reminded him somewhat of Glory when Glory wascloyed with peaceful living. He even told himself viciously that MyrtForsyth had hair the exact shade of Glory's, and it came near givinghim a dislike of the horse. 

The conversation in the corner, after certain conventional subjects hadbeen exhausted, came to Miss Forsyth's desire something like this: Shesaid how she loved to waltz, --with the right partner, that is. Aproposthe right partner, she glanced slyly from the end of her long eyes andremarked:

"Will--Mr. Davidson--is an _ideal_ partner, don't you think? Areyou--but of _course_ you must be _acquainted_ with him, living in thesame _neighborhood_?" Her inflection made a question of thedeclaration. 

"Certainly I am acquainted with Mr. Davidson, " said Miss Satterly withjust the right shade of indifference. "He does dance very well, thoughthere are others I like better. " That, of course, was a prevarication. "You knew him before tonight?"

Miss Forsyth laughed that sort of laugh which may mean anything youlike. "_Knew_ him? Why, we were en--that is, we grew _up_ in the same_town_. I was so perfectly _amazed_ to find him _here_, poor fellow. "

"Why poor fellow?" asked Miss Satterly, the direct. "Because you foundhim? or because he is here?"

The long eyes regarded her curiously. "Why, don't you _know_?Hasn't--hasn't it _followed_ him?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, " said the schoolma'am, calmly facing thestare. "If you mean a dog, he doesn't own one, I believe. Cowboysdon't seem to take to dogs; they're afraid they might be mistaken forsheep-herders, perhaps--and that would be a disgrace. "

Miss Forsyth leaned back and her eyes, half closed as they were, sawWeary away down by the door. "No, I didn't mean a _dog_. I'm _glad_if he has gotten _quite away_ from--he's such a _dear_ fellow! Even ifhe _did_--but I never believed it, you know. If only he had _trusted_me, and _stayed_ to face-- But he went without telling me _goodbye_, even, and we-- But he was _afraid_, you see--"

Miss Satterly also glanced across to where Weary stood gloomily alone, his hands thrust into his pockets. "I really can't imagine Mr. Davidson as being afraid, " she remarked defensively. 

"Oh, but you don't understand! Will is _physically_ brave--and he wasafraid I-- but I _believed_ in him, _always_--even when--" She brokeoff suddenly and became prettily diffident. "I wonder _why_ I amtalking to _you_ like this. But there is something so _sympathetic_ inyour very _atmosphere_--and seeing _him_ so _unexpectedly_ brought itall _back_--and it seemed as if I _must_ talk to _someone_, or I should_shriek_. " (Myrtle Forsyth was often just upon the point of"shrieking") "And he was _so_ glad to see me--and when I _told_ him Inever _believed_ a _word_-- But you see, _leaving_ the way he _did_--"

"Well, " said Miss Satterly rather unsympathetically, "and how did heleave, then?"

Miss Forsyth twisted her watch chain and hesitated. "I really ought_not_ to say a _word_--if you really don't _know_--what he _did_--"

"If it's to his discredit, " said the schoolma'am, looking straight ather, "I certainly don't know. It must have been something awful, judging from your tone. Did he"--she spoke solemnly--"did he_mur-r_der ten people, old men and children, and throw their bodiesinto--a _well_?"

It is saying much for Miss Forsyth that she did not look asdisconcerted as she felt. She did, however, show a rather catty lookin her eyes, and her voice was tinged faintly with malice. "There are_other_ crimes--beside--_murder_, " she reminded. "I won't tell _what_it was--but--but _Will_ found it necessary to _leave in the night_! Hedid not even come to tell _me_ goodbye, and I have--but now we have metby _chance_, and I could _explain_--and so, " she smiled tremulously atthe schoolma'am, "I _know_ you can _understand_--and you will not_mention_ to _anyone_ what I have told you. I'm too _impulsive_--and Ifelt _drawn_ to you, somehow. I--I would _die_ if I thought any _harm_could come to Will because of my _confiding_ in you. A woman, " sheadded pensively, "has so _much_ to bear--and this has been very_hard_--because it was not a thing I could _talk over_--not even withmy own _mother_!" Miss Forsyth had the knack of saying very littlethat was definite, and implying a great deal. This method saved herthe unpleasantness of retraction, and had quite as deep an effect is ifshe came out plainly. She smiled confidingly down at the schoolma'amand went off to waltz with Bert Rogers, apparently quite satisfied withwhat she had accomplished. 

Miss Satterly sat very still, scarce thinking consciously. She staredat Weary and tried to imagine him a fugitive from his native town, andin spite of herself wondered what it was he had done. It must besomething very bad, and she shrank from the thought. Then Cal Emmettcame up to ask her for a dance, and she went with him thankfully andtried to forget the things she had heard. 

Weary, after dancing with every woman but the one he wanted, andfinding himself beside Myrtle Forsyth with a frequency that puzzledhim, felt an unutterable disgust for the whole thing. After a waltzquadrille, during which he seemed to get her out of his arms only tofind her swinging into them again, and smiling up at him in a way heknew of old, he made desperately for the door; snatched up the firstgray hat he came to--which happened to belong to Chip--and went outinto the dewy darkness. 

It was half an hour before he could draw the hostler of the Dry Lakestable away from a crap game, and it was another half hour before hesucceeded in overcoming Glory's disinclination for a gallop over theprairie alone. 

But it was two hours before Miss Forsythe gave over watching furtivelythe door, and it was daylight before Chip Emmett found a gray hat underthe water bench--a hat which he finally recognized as Weary's and soappropriated to his own use. 

PART FOUR

Weary clattered up to the school-house door to find it erupting diversspecimens of young America--by adoption, some of them. He greeted eachone cheerfully by name and waited upon his horse in the shade. 

Close behind the last sun-bonnet came Miss Satterly, key in hand. Evidently she had no intention of lingering, that night; Weary smileddown upon her tentatively and made a hasty guess as to her state ofmind--a very important factor in view of what he had come to say. 

"It's awful hot, Schoolma'am; if I were you I'd wait a while--till thesun lets up a little. "

To his unbounded surprise, Miss Satterly calmly sat down upon thedoorstep. Weary promptly slid out of the saddle and sat down besideher, thankful that the step was not a wide one. "You've beenunmercifully hard to locate since the dance, " he complained. "I liketo lost my job, chasing over this way, when I was supposed to be headedanother direction. I came by here last night at five minutes afterfour, and you weren't in sight anywhere; was yesterday a holiday?"

"You probably didn't look in the window, " said the schoolma'am. "I waswriting letters here till after five. "

"With the door shut and locked?"

"The wind blew so, " explained Miss Satterly, lamely. "And that lock--"

"First I knew of the wind blowing yesterday. It was as hot as the hubsuh he--as blue blazes when I came by. There weren't any windows up, even--I hope you was real comfortable. "

"Perfectly, " she assured him. 

"I'll gamble yuh were! Well, and where were yuh cached last Sunday?"

"Nowhere. I went with Bert and Miss Forsyth up in the mountains. Wetook our lunch and had a perfectly lovely time. "

"I'm glad somebody had a good time. I got away at nine o'clock andcame over to Meeker's--and you weren't there; so I rode the rim-rockstill sundown, trying to locate yuh. It's easier hunting strays in theBad Lands. "

Miss Satterly seemed about to speak, but she changed her mind and gazedat the coulee-rim. 

"It's hard to get away, these days, " Weary went on explaining. "Iwanted to come before the dance, but we were gathering some stuff outthe other way, and I couldn't. The Old Man is shipping, yuh see; we'reholding a bunch right now, waiting for cars. I got Happy Jack to standherd in my place, is how I got here. "

The schoolma'am yawned apologetically into her palm. Evidently she wasnot greatly interested in the comings and goings of Weary Davidson. 

"How did yuh like the dance?" he asked, coming to the subject that heknew was the vital point. 

"Lovely, " said the schoolma'am briefly, but with fervor. 

"Different here, " asserted Weary. "I drifted, right before supper. "

"_Did_ you?" Miss Satterly accented the first word in a way she taughther pupils indicated surprise. "I don't reckon you noticed it. Youwere pretty busy, about then. "

Miss Satterly laughed languid assent. 

"I never knew before that Bert Rogers was any relation of MyrtForsyth, " observed Weary, edging still nearer the vital point. "Theysure aren't much alike. "

"You used to know her?" asked Miss Satterly, politely. 

"Well, I should say yes. I used to go to school with Myrt. How do youlike her?"

"Lovely, " said Miss Satterly, this time without fervor. 

Weary began digging a trench with his spurs. He wished the schoolma'amwould not limit herself so rigidly to that one adjective. It becameunmeaning with much use, so that it left a fellow completely in thedark. 

"Just about everybody says that about her--at first, " he remarked. 

"Did you?" she asked him, still politely. 

"I did a heap worse than that, " said Weary, grimly determined. "I hada bad case of calf-love and made a fool uh myself generally. "

"What fun!" chirped the schoolma'am with an unconvincing little laugh. 

"Not for me, it wasn't. Whilst I had it I used to pack a lock uh thatred hair in my breast pocket and heave sighs over it that near liftedme out uh my boots. Oh, I was sure earnest! But she did me thebiggest favor she could; a slick-haired piano-tuner come to town andshe turned me down for him. I was plumb certain my heart was bustedwide open, at the time, though. " Weary laughed reminiscently. 

"She said--I think you misunderstood her. She appears to--" MissSatterly, though she felt that she was being very generous, did notquite know how to finish. 

"Not on your life! It was the first time I ever did understand Myrt. When I left there I wasn't doing any guessing. "

"You shouldn't have left, " she told him suddenly; gripping her courageat this bold mention of his flight. How she wished she knew why heleft. 

"Oh, I don't know. It was about the only thing I could do, at thetime--the only thing, that is, that I wanted to do. It seemed like Icouldn't get away fast enough. " It was brazen of him, she thought, totreat it all so coolly. "And out here, " he added thoughtfully, "Icould get the proper focus on Myrt--which I couldn't do back there. "

"Distance lends--"

"Not in this case, " he interrupted. "It's when you're right with Myrtthat she kinda hypnotizes yuh into thinking what she wants yuh tothink. " He was remembering resentfully the dance. 

"But to sneak away--"

"That's a word I don't remember was ever shot at me before, " saidWeary, the blood showing through the skin on his cheeks. "If thatdamned Myrt has been telling yuh--"

"I didn't think you would speak like that about a woman, Mr. Davidson, "said the schoolma'am with disapproval in her tone; and the disapprovalnot going very deep, there was the more of it upon the surface. 

"I suppose it gives evidence of a low, brutal trait in my nature, thatyou hoped I couldn't harbor, " acceded Weary meekly. 

"It does, " snapped the schoolma'am, her cheeks hot. If she hadrepented her flare of temper over the gopher, she certainly did notintend letting him know it too soon. She seemed inclined to disciplinehim a bit. 

Weary smoked silently and raked up the sun-baked soil with his spurs. "How long is Myrt going to stay?" he ventured at last. 

"I never asked her, " she retorted. "You ought to know--you probablyhave seen her last. " The schoolma'am blundered, there. 

Weary drew a sigh of relief; if she were jealous, it must mean that shecared. "That's right. I saw her last night, " he stated calmly. 

Miss Satterly sat more erect, if that were possible. She had not knownof this last meeting, and she had merely shot at random, anyway. 

"At least, " he amended, watching her from the corner of his eye, "I sawa woman and a man ride over the hill back of Denson's, last night. Theman was Bert, and the woman had red hair; I took it to be Myrt. "

"You surely should be a good judge, " remarked Miss Satterly, irritatedbecause she knew he was teasing. 

Weary was quick to read the signs. "What did you mean, a while back, about me sneaking away from Chadville? And how did yuh happen to haveyour dances booked forty-in-advance, the other night? And what makesyuh so mean to me, lately? And will yuh take a jaunt over Eagle Butteway with me next Sunday--if I can get off?"

The schoolma'am, again feeling herself mistress of the situation, proceeded with her disciplining. She smiled, raised one hand andchecked off the questions upon her fingers. You never would guess howoddly her heart was behaving--she looked such a self-possessed youngwoman. 

"I'll begin at the last one and work backward, " she said, calmly. "AndI must hurry, for aunt Meeker hates to keep supper waiting. No, I will_not_ go for a jaunt over Eagle Butte way next Sunday. I have otherplans; if I _hadn't_ other plans I still would not go. I hope this isquite plain to you?"

"Oh, it's good and plain, " responded Weary. "But for the Lord's sakedon't take up that talking in italics like Myrt does. I can't standthis bearing down hard on every other word. It sets my teeth all onedge. "

The schoolma'am opened her eyes wider. Was it possible Weary wasacquiring an irritable temper? "_Second_, " she went on deliberately, "I do not _consider_ that I have been _mean_ to you; and if I _have_ itis because I _choose_ to be so. "

Weary, observing a most flagrant accent, shut his lips rather tightlytogether. 

"Third--let me see. Oh, that about the _dances_; I can only say thatwe _women_, as a means of _self-defence_, claim the privilege of_effacing_ undesirable, would-be partners by a certain _form_ ofrejection, which _eliminates_ the necessity of going into unpleasant_details_, and--er--lets the fellow down easy. " The schoolma'am'semphasis and English seemed to collapse together, but Weary did notnotice that. 

"I'm sure grateful to be let down easy, " he said softly, withoutlooking up; his head was bent so that his hat quite concealed from theschoolma'am his face, but if she had known him longer, perhaps shewould have gone carefully after that. 

"As to your sneaking away from--wherever it was--surely, you ought toknow about that better than I do. One must go far to outdistancedishonor, for a man's misdeeds are sure to follow him, soon or late. Iwill not go into details--but you understand what I mean. "

"No, " said Weary, still with bent head, "I'll be darned if I do. Andif I did, I know about where to locate the source of all theinformation you've loaded up on. Things were going smooth as silk tillMyrt Forsyth drifted out here--the red-headed little devil!"

"Mr. Davidson!" cried the schoolma'am, truly shocked. 

"Oh, I'm revealing some more low, brutal instincts, I expect I'm liableto reveal a lot more if I hang around much longer. " He stopped, as ifthere was more he wanted to say, and was doubtful of the wisdom ofsaying it. 

"I came over to say something--something particular--but I've changedmy mind. I guess yuh haven't much time to listen, and I don't believeit would interest yuh as much as I thought it would--a while back. Youjust go ahead and make a bosom friend uh Myrt Forsyth, Schoolma'am, andbelieve every blamed lie she tells yuh. I won't be here to argue thepoint. Looks to me like I'm about due to drift. "

Miss Satterly, dumb with fear of what his words might mean, sat stifflywhile Weary got up and mounted Glory in a business like manner that wasextremely disquieting. 

"I wish you could a cared, Girlie, " he said with a droop of hisunsmiling mouth and a gloom in his eyes when he looked at her. "I wasa chump, I reckon, to ever imagine yuh could. Good-bye--and be goodto--yourself. " He leaned to one side, swung backward his feet andGlory, obeying the signal, wheeled and bounded away. 

Miss Satterly watched him gallop up the long slope and the plucketypluckety of Glory's fleeing feet struck heavy, numbing blows upon herheart. She wondered why she had refused to ride with him, when she didwant to go--she did. And why had she been so utterly hateful, afterwaiting and watching, night after night, for him to come?

And just how much did he mean by being due to drift? He couldn't bereally angry--and what was he going to say--the thing he changed hismind about. Was it--Well, he would come again in a few days, and then--

PART FIVE

Weary did not go back. When the hurry of shipping was over he went toShorty and asked for his time, much to the foreman's astonishment anddisgust. The Happy Family was incensed and wasted profanity andargument trying to make him give up the crazy notion of quitting. 

It seemed to Weary that he warded off their curiosity and answeredtheir arguments very adroitly. He was sick of punching cows, he said, and he wasn't hankering for a chance to shovel hay another winter to anungrateful bunch of bawling calves. He was going to drift, for achange--but he didn't know where. It didn't much matter, so long as hegot a change uh scenery. He just merely wanted to knock around and getthe alkali dust out of his lungs and see something grow besides calvesand cactus. His eyes plumb ached for sight of an apple tree with real, live apples on it--that weren't wrapped up in a paper napkin. 

When was he coming back? Well, now, that was a question; he hadn't gotstarted yet, man. What he was figuring on wasn't the coming back part, but the getting started. 

The schoolma'am? Oh, he guessed she could get along without him, allright. Seeing they mentioned her, would some of them tell her hellofor him--and so long?

This last was at the station, where they had ridden in a body to seehim off. Weary waved his hat as long as the town was in sight, and theHappy Family ran their horses to keep pace with the train when itpulled out, emptied their six-shooters into the air and yelled partingwords till the Pullman windows were filled with shocked, Eastern faces, eager to see a real, wild cowboy on his native soil. 

Then Weary went into the smoker, sought a place where he could stretchthe long legs of him over two seats, made him a cigarette and forgot tosmoke it while he watched the gray plains slide away behind him; tillsomething went wrong with his eyes. It was just four o'clock, andschool was out. The schoolma'am was looking down the trail, maybe--At any rate she was a good many miles away from him now--so many thateven if he got off and had Glory right there and ran him every foot ofthe way, he could not possibly get to her--and the way the train wasgalloping over the rails, she was every minute getting farther off, and-- What a damn fool a man can make of himself, rushing off likethat when, maybe--

After that, a fellow who traveled for a San Francisco wine house spoketo him pleasantly and Weary thrust vain longings from him and washimself again. 

For two months he wandered aimlessly and, then, not quite at the pointof going back and not being rich or an idler by nature, he started out, one gloomy morning in late November, looking for work. He was inPortland and the city was strange to him, for he had dropped off anorth-bound train the night before. 

People hurried past without a glance in his direction, and even aftertwo months this made him lonesome, coming as he did from a place whereevery man hailed him jovially by his adopted name. 

There was little that he could do--or would do. He tried diggingditches for the city, along with a motley collection of the sons of allnations but his, seemingly. 

The first day be blistered both hands and got a "crick" in his back. 

The second day, he quit. 

On the third day, he brought up at the door of a livery stable. A manwith a slate-colored, silk waistcoat was standing aggressively in thedoorway, one hand deep in his pocket and the other energeticallypunctuating the remarks he was making to a droop-shouldered hostler. Some of the remarks were interesting in the extreme and Weary, listening, drew a deep sigh of thankfulness that they were not directedat himself, because his back was still lame and his hands sore, and inPortland law-abiding citizens are not supposed to "pack" a gun. 

The droop-shouldered man waited humbly for the climax--which reached sohigh a tension that the speaker rose upon his toes to deliver it, anddrew his right hand from his pocket to aid in the punctuation--when hepulled his hat down on his head and slunk away. 

It was while the orator was gazing contemptuously after him that heheard Weary cheerfully asking for work. For Weary was a straightguesser; he knew when he stood in the presence of the Great and Only. The man wheeled and measured Weary slowly with his eyes--and therebeing a good deal of Weary if you measured lengthwise, he consumedseveral seconds doing it. 

"Humph!" when the survey was over. "What do _you_ know about horses?"His tone was colored still by the oration he had just delivered, and itwas not encouraging. 

Weary looked down upon him and smiled indulgence of the tone. "If youaren't busy right now, I'll start in and tell yuh. Yuh better sit downon that bucket whilst I'm doing it--if I'm thorough it'll take time. "

"Humph!" said the man again and carefully pared the end of a fat, blackcigar. "You seem to think you know it all. What's your trade?"

"Punching cows--in Northern Montana, " answered Weary, mildly. 

The man took the trouble to look at him again, this time morecritically--and more favorably, perhaps. "Bronco-buster?" he demanded, briefly. 

"Some, " grinned Weary, his thoughts whirling back to the dust anduproar in the Flying U corrals--and to Glory. 

The man seemed to read what was in his eyes. "You ought to know betterthan to founder a three-hundred-dollar trotter, then, " he remarked, with some of the growl smoothed out of his voice. 

"I sure had, " agreed Weary, sympathetically. 

"That's why I fired that four-or-five-kinds-of idiot just now, "confided the other, rising to the sympathy in Weary's tone. "I needmen that know a little something about horses--the foreman can't alwaysbe at a man's elbow. You can start right in--pay's good. Go tell theforeman I've hired you; that's him back there in the office. "

Then came the rain. Week after week of drab clouds and drizzle, and nosun to hearten a man for his work. Week after week of bobbingumbrellas, muddy crossings, sloppy pavements and dripping eaves--and acold that chilled the marrow in his bones. 

Weary, after a week of poking along in the rain of an evening when hiswork was done, threw up his hands, figuratively, and bought him anumbrella, hoping devoutly they would never get to hear of it in DryLake. He stood for two minutes in the deep doorway of the store beforehe found nerve to open the awkward thing, and when he did so he glancedsheepishly around him as if it were a weak thing to do and adisgraceful. 

Fog and rain and mud and mist, day after day through long months. Feeding hungry horses their breakfast at five o'clock in the morning;brushing, currying, combing till they shone satin-smooth. Harnessing, unharnessing; washing mud from rigs that would be splashed andplastered again before night. Driving to houses that were known by thenumber over the door, giving the reins over to somebody and walkingback in the rain. Piling mangers with hay, strewing the stalls deepwith straw. Patting this horse as he passed, commanding the next tomove over, stopping to whisper caressing words into the ear of afavorite. Sitting listlessly in the balcony of some theatre in theevening while a mimic world lived its joys and sorrows below and anorchestra played soft accompaniment to his vagrant thoughts. All thiswas Weary's life in Portland. 

Not exactly hilarious, that life. Not a homelike one to a man freshfrom eating, sleeping, working, reveling with fellows who wouldcheerfully give him the coat upon their straight backs if he needed it;fight for him, laugh at him, or laugh with him, tease him, bully him, love him like a brother--in short, fresh from Jim Whitmore's HappyFamily. 

No one hailed him as Weary; his fellow hostlers called him simply Bill. No one knew the life he knew or loved the things he loved. His storiesof wild rides and hard drives must be explained as he went along andfell even then upon barren soil; so he gave up telling them. Even hisspeech, colored as it was with the West which lies East of theCascades, sounded strange in their ears and set him apart. Theyreferred to him as "the cowboy". 

Sometimes, when the skies were leaden and the dead atmosphere pressedhis very soul to the dank earth, Weary would hoist his umbrella andwalk and walk and walk, till the streets grew empty around him and hisfootsteps sounded hollow on the pavements. One Sunday when it was notactually raining he hired a horse and rode into the country--and hecame back draggled and unhappy from plodding through the mud, and henever repeated the experiment. 

Sometimes he would sit all the evening in his damp-walled room andsmoke cigarettes and wonder what the boys were doing, down in thebunk-house at home. He wondered if they kept Glory up--or if he wasrustling on the range, his sorrel back humped to the storms and thedeviltry gone out of him with the grim battle for mere life. 

Perhaps there was a dance somewhere; it was a cinch they would all bethere--and Happy Jack would wear the same red necktie and the samepainful smile of embarrassment, and there would be a squabble over thepiece of bar mirror to shave by. And the schoolma'am-- But hereWeary's thoughts would shy and stop abruptly, and if it were not toolate he would put on his hat and go to a show; one of those ten-centcontinuous-performance places, where the Swede and the Dutchmanflourish and the Boneless Man ties himself in knots. 

A man will grow accustomed to anything, give him time enough. Whenfour months had passed in this fashion, Weary began insensibly to turnmore to the present and less often, to the past. His work was nothard, the pay was good and he learned the ways of the town and got morein touch with his acquaintances. They came to fill his life, so thathe thought less often of Chip and Cal and Happy Jack and Slim. Otherswere gradually taking their places. 

No one had as yet come to lift Miss Satterly's brown eyes from the deepplaces of his heart, because he again shied at women; but he was ableto draw a veil before them so that they did not haunt him so much. Hebegan to whistle once more, as he went about his work; but he neverwhistled "Good Old Summertime. " There were other foolish songs becomepopular; he rather fancied "Navajo" these days. 

It was past April Fool's day, and Weary was singing "Nava, Nava, myNavajo, " melodiously while he spread the straw bedding with his fork. It was a beastly day, even for that climate, but he was glad of it. Hehad only to fill a dozen mangers and his morning's work was done, withthe prospect of an idle forenoon; for no one would want to drive, today, unless it was absolutely necessary. 

 "I have a love for-r you that will grow-ow; If you'll have a coon for a beau--"

trilled Weary, and snapped the wires off a bale of hay and tore itopen, in a hurry to finish. 

A familiar, pungent odor smote his nostrils and he straightened. For aminute he stood perfectly still; then his fingers groped tremblingly inthe hay, closed upon something, and every nerve in him quivered. Heheld it fast in his shaking hands and sat down weakly upon the tornbale. 

It was a branch off a sage bush--dry, shapeless, bruised in the press, but it carried its message bravely. Holding it close to his face, drinking in the smell of it greedily, he closed his eyes involuntarily. 

Great, gray plains closed in upon him--dear, familial plains, scarredand broken with sharp-nosed hills and deep, water-worn coulees gleamingbarren and yellow in the sun. The blue, blue sky was bending down tomeet the hills, with feathery, white clouds trailing lazily across. His cheeks felt the cool winds which flapped his hat-brim and tingledhis blood. His knees pressed the throb and life, the splendid, workingmuscles of a galloping horse. 

Weary's head went down upon his hands, with the bit of sage pressedhard against his cheek. 

Now he was racing over the springy sod which sent a sweet, grassy smellup to meet him. Wild range cattle lumbered out of his way, ran a fewpaces and stopped to gaze after him with big, curious eyes. Before himstood the white-tented camp of the round-up, and the rope corral wasfilled with circling horses half hidden by the veil of dust thrownupward by their restless, trampling hoofs. Now he was in the midst ofthem, a coil of rope in his left hand; his right swung the loopcircling over his head. And the choking dust was in his eyes andthroat, and in his nostrils the rank odor of many horses. Men wereshouting to one another above the confusion. Oaths were hurled after ahorse which warily dodged the rope. Saddles strewed the ground, bitsclanked, spurs jingled, care-free laughs brightened the clamor. 

The scene shifted. He was sitting, helpless, in the saddle while Glorycarried him wantonly over the hills, shaking his head to make thebroken bridle rattle. Now he was stopping in front of a vine-coveredporch, where a girl lay sleeping in a hammock--a girl with soft, darkhair falling down to the floor in a heavy braid. Again, he was sittingon the school-house steps, holding a smoking gun in his hand, and theschoolma'am was standing, flushed and reproving, before him. The windcame and fluttered her skirts--

"What's the matter, Bill? Yuh sick?"

Weary raised a white, haggard face. The plains, the blue sky, thesunshine, the wind, the girl--were gone. He was sitting upon a tornbale of hay in a livery stable in Portland. Through the wide, opendoor he could see the muddy street. Gray water-needles dartedincessantly up from the pavement where the straight lines of rainstruck. On the roof the rain was drumming a monotone. In his fingerswas a crumpled bit of gray sage-brush. 

"Sick, Bill?" repeated the foreman, sympathetically. 

"Oh, go to hell!" said Weary, ungratefully. He felt tired, and weakand old. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted--God, how he wantedthe dream to come back to him, and to come back to him true! To closeabout him and wrap him in its sunny folds; to steep his senses in thelight and the life, the sound and the smell of the plains; to hear thewind rushing over the treeless hills; to see the wild range cattlenosing the crisp, prairie grass. 

He got unsteadily upon his legs and went slowly to his room; droppedwearily upon the bed, and buried his face in the pillow like a hurtchild. In his fingers he clutched a pungent, gray weed. 

PART SIX

Late that night Weary, his belongings stuffed hurriedly into thesuit-case he called his "war-bag, " started home; so impatient he had achildish desire to ride upon the engine so that he might arrive thesooner, and failing that he spent much of his time lurching betweensmoking car and tourist sleeper, unable to sit quietly in any place forlonger than ten minutes or so. In his coat pocket, where his fingerstouched it often, was a crumpled bit of sage-brush. Dry it was, and thegray leaves were crumbling under the touch of his homesick fingers, butthe smell of it, aromatic and fresh and strong, breathed of the plains heloved. 

At Kalispell he went out on the platform and filled his lungs again andagain with Montana air, that was clean of fog and had a nip to it. Thesun shone, the sky was blue and the clouds reminded him of a band ofnew-washed sheep scattered and feeding quietly. The wind blew keen inhis face and set his blood a-dance, his blood, which for long months hadmoved sluggishly in his veins. 

At Shelby, a half-dozen cowboys galloped briefly into view as the trainwhizzed by down the valley, and Weary raised the car window and leanedfar out to gaze after them with hungry eyes. He wanted to swing his hatand give a whoop that would get the last wisps of fog and gray murk outof his system--but there were other passengers already shivering andeyeing him in unfriendly fashion because of the open window. He wantedto get out and run and run bareheaded, over the bleak, brown hills; buthe closed the window and behaved as well as he could. 

The stars came out and winked at him just as they used to do when he saton Meeker's front porch and listened to the schoolma'am singing softly inthe hammock, her guitar tinkling a mellow undertone. It was too earlynow for the hammock to be swinging in the porch. School must be startedagain, though, and seeing the schoolma'am lived right there with her auntMeeker, they weren't likely to hire another teacher. 

He hoped Myrt Forsyth had gone back to Chadville where she belonged. Hewished now that he had written to some of the boys and kept posted onwhat was happening. He had never sent back so much as a picture postal, and he had consequently not heard a word. But Weary's nature was everhopeful except when he was extremely angry, and then he did not care muchabout anything. So now, he took it for granted things had gone alongsmoothly and that nothing would be changed. 

 * * * * *

Miss Satterly had just finished listlessly hearing the last spellingclass recite, when she glanced through the window and saw Glory, bearinga familiar figure, race down the hill and whip into the school-housepath. Her heart gave a flop, so that she caught at the desk to steadyher and she felt the color go out of her face. Then her presence of mindreturned so that she said "School's dismissed"--without going through theform of "Attention, turn, stand, pass. "

The children eyed her curiously, hesitated and then rushed noisily out, and she sank down upon a bench and covered her face with her hands. Itwas queer that she could not seem to get hold of herself and be calm; itwas disgraceful that she should tremble so. Outside she could hear themshouting, "Hello, Weary!" in a dozen different keys, and each time herblood jumped. Her eyes had not tricked her, then--though it was not thefirst time she had trembled to see a sorrel horse gallop down that hill, and then turned numb when came disillusionment. Would those childrennever start home? By degrees their shrill voices sounded further away, and the place grew still. But the schoolma'am kept her face covered. 

Spurred heels clanked on the threshold, stopped there, and the door shutwith a slam. But she did not look up; she did not dare. 

Steps came down the room toward her--long, hurrying steps, determinedsteps. Close beside her they stopped, and for a space that seemed to herlong minutes there was no sound. 

"Say hello to me--won't you, Girlie?" said a wistful voice that thrilledto the tips of the schoolma'am's shaking fingers. She dropped her handsthen, reluctantly. Her lips quivered as Weary had never before seen themdo. 

"Hello, " she obeyed, faintly. 

He stood for a moment, studying her face. 

"Look up here, Schoolma'am, " he commanded at last. "I hate to have myfeet get so much attention. I've come back to fight it out--to a finish, this time. Yuh can't stampede me again--look up here. I've been plumbsick for a sight of those big eyes of yours. "

Miss Satterly persisted in gazing at the boots of Weary. 

"Well, are yuh going to?" There was a new, masterful note in Weary'svoice, that the schoolma'am felt but did not quite understand--then. Shedid not, perhaps, realize how plainly her whole attitude spoke surrender. 

Weary waited what seemed to him a reasonable time, but her lashes droopedlower, if anything. Then he made one of the quick, unlooked-for moveswhich made him a master of horses. Before she quite knew what wasoccurring, the schoolma'am was upon her feet and snuggled close inWeary's eager arms. More, he had a hand under her chin, her face wastilted back and he was smiling down into her wide, startled eyes. 

"I didn't burn a streak a thousand miles long in the atmosphere, gettingback here, to be scared out now by a little woman like you, " he remarked, and tucked a stray, brown lock solicitously behind her ear. Then he bentand kissed her deliberately upon the mouth. 

"Now, say you're my little schoolma'am. Quick, before I do it again. " Hethreatened with his lips, and he looked as if he were quite anxious tocarry out his threat. 

"I'm your--" the schoolma'am hid her face from him. "Oh, Will! Whatevermade you go off like that, and I--I nearly died wanting to see you--"

Weary laid his cheek very tenderly against hers, and held her close. Nowords came to either, just then. 

"What if I'd kept on being a fool--and hadn't come back at all, Girlie?"he asked softly, after a while. 

The schoolma'am shuddered eloquently in his arms. 

"It was sure lonesome--it was _hell_ out there alone, " he observed, reminiscently. 

"It was sure--h-hell back here alone, too, " murmured a smothered voicewhich did not sound much like the clear, self-assertive tones of MissSatterly. 

"Well, it come near serving you right, " Weary told her, relishfullygrinning over the word she used. 

"What made yuh chase me off?"

"I--don't know; I--"

"I guess yuh don't, all right, " agreed Weary, giving a little squeeze byway of making quite sure he had her there. "Say, what was that yarn MyrtForsyth told yuh about me?"

"I--I don't know. She--she hinted a lot--"

"I expect she did--that's Myrt, every rattle uh the box, " Weary cut indryly. 

"And she--she said you had to leave home--in the night--"

"Oh, she did, eh? Well, Girlie, if the time-table hasn't changed, MissMyrt Forsyth sneaked off the same way. The train west leaves--or didleave--Chadville along about midnight, so--Say, it feels good to be back, little schoolma'am. You don't know how good--"

"I guess I do, " cried the schoolma'am very emphatically. "I just guess Iknow something about that, myself. Oh you dear, great, tall--"

Something happened just then to the schoolma'am's lips, so that she couldnot finish the sentence. 

FIRST AID TO CUPID

The floor manager had just called out that it was "ladies' choice, " andHappy Jack, his eyes glued in rapturous apprehension upon the thin, expressionless face of Annie Pilgreen, backed diffidently into acorner. He hoped and he feared that she would discover him and leadhim out to dance; she had done that once, at the Labor Day ball, and hehad not slept soundly for several nights after. 

Someone laid proprietary hand upon his cinnamon-brown coat sleeve, andhe jumped and blushed; it was only the schoolma'am, however, smiling upat him ingratiatingly in a manner wholly bewildering to a simple mindedfellow like Happy Jack. She led him into another corner, plumpedgracefully and with much decision down upon a bench, drew her skirtsaside to make room for him and announced that she was tired and wanteda nice long talk with him. Happy Jack, sending a troubled glance afterAnnie, who was leading Joe Meeker out to dance, sighed a bit and satdown obediently--and thereby walked straight into the loop which theschoolma'am had spread for his unwary feet. 

The schoolma'am was sitting out an astonishing number of dances--for agirl who could dance from dark to dawn and never turn a hair--and thewomen were wondering why. If she had sat them out with Weary Davidsonthey would have smiled knowingly and thought no more of it; but she didnot. For every dance she had a different companion, and in every caseit ended in that particular young man looking rather scared andunhappy. After five minutes of low-toned monologue on the part of theschoolma'am, Happy Jack went the way of his predecessors and alsobecame scared and unhappy. 

"Aw, say! Miss Satterly, _I_ can't act, " he protested in a panic. 

"Oh, yes, you could, " declared the schoolma'am, with sweet assurance, "if you only thought so. "

"Aw, I couldn't get up before a crowd and say a piece, not if--"

"I'm not sure I want you to. There are other things to anentertainment besides reciting things. I only want you to promise thatyou will help me out. You will, won't you?" The schoolma'am's eyes, besides being pretty, were often disconcertingly direct in their gaze. 

Happy Jack wriggled and looked toward the door, which suddenly seemed avery long way off. "I--I've got to go up to the Falls, along aboutChristmas, " he stuttered feebly, avoiding her eyes. "I--I can't getoff any other time, and I've--I've got a tooth--"

"You're the fifth Flying-U man who has 'a tooth, '" the schoolma'aminterrupted impatiently. "A dentist ought to locate in Dry Lake; fromwhat I have heard confidentially to-night, there's a fortune to be madeoff the teeth of the Happy Family alone. "

Every drop of blood in Happy's body seemed to stand then in his face. "I--I'll pull the curtain for yuh, " he volunteered, meekly. 

"You're the seventh applicant for that place. " The schoolma'am wascrushingly calm. "Every fellow I've spoken to has evinced a morbidcraving for curtain-pulling. "

Happy Jack crumpled under her sarcasm and perspired, and tried to thinkof something, with his brain quite paralyzed and useless. 

The schoolma'am continued inexorably; plainly, _her_ brain was notparalyzed. "I've promised the neighborhood that I would give aChristmas tree and entertainment--and when a school-teacher promisesanything to a neighborhood, nothing short of death or smallpox will beaccepted as an excuse for failing to keep the promise; and I've seventongue-tied kids to work with!" (The schoolma'am was onlyspasmodically given to irreproachable English. ) "Of course, I reliedupon my friends to help me out. But when I come to calling the roll, I--I don't seem to _have_ any friends. " The schoolma'am was twirlingthe Montana sapphire ring which Weary had given her last spring, andher voice was trembly and made Happy Jack feel vaguely that he was alow-down cur and ought to be killed. 

He swallowed twice. "Aw, yuh don't want to go and feel bad about it; Inever meant--I'll do anything yuh ask me to. "

"Thank you. I knew I could count upon you, Jack. "

The schoolma'am recovered her spirits with a promptness that wassuspicious; patted his arm and called him an awfully good fellow, whichreduced Happy Jack to a state just this side imbecility. Also, shedrew a little memorandum book from somewhere, and wrote Happy Jack'sname in clear, convincing characters that made him shiver. He sawother names above his own on the page; quite a lot of them; seven infact. Miss Satterly, evidently, was not quite as destitute of friendsas her voice, awhile back, would lead one to believe. Happy Jackwondered. 

"I haven't quite decided what we will have, " she remarked briskly. "When I do, we'll all meet some evening in the school-house and talk itover. There's lots of fun getting up an entertainment; you'll like it, once you get started. "

Happy did not agree with her, but he did not tell her so; he managed tocontort his face into something resembling a grin, and retreated to thehotel, where he swallowed two glasses of whiskey to start his bloodmoving again, and then sat down and played poker disasterously untildaylight made the lamps grow a sickly yellow and the air of the roomseem suddenly stale and dead. But Happy never thought of blaming theschoolma'am for the eighteen dollars he lost. 

Neither did he blame her for the nightmares which tormented his sleepduring the week that followed or the vague uneasiness that filled hiswaking hour, even when he was not thinking directly of the ghost thatdogged him. For wherever he went, or whatever he did, Happy Jack wasconscious of the fact that his name was down on the schoolma'am's listand he was definitely committed to do anything she asked him to do, even to "speaking a piece"--which was in his eyes the acme of mentaltorture. 

When Cal Emmett, probably thinking of Miss Satterly's little book, pensively warbled in his ear:

 Is your name written there, On the page white and fair?

Happy Jack made no reply, though he suddenly felt chilly along thespinal column. It was. 

"Schoolma'am wants us all to go over to the schoolhousetonight--seven-thirty, sharp--to help make medicine over this SantaClaus round-up. Slim, she says you've got to be Santy and come downthe stovepipe and give the kids fits and popcorn strung on a string. She says you've got the figure. " Weary splashed into the wash basinlike a startled muskrat. 

The Happy Family looked at one another distressfully. 

"By golly, " Slim gulped, "you can just tell the schoolma'am to goplumb--" (Weary faced him suddenly, his brown hair running rivulets)"and ask the Old Man, " finished Slim hurriedly. "He's fifteen poundsfatter'n I be. "

"Go tell her yourself, " said Weary, appeased. "I promised her you'dall be there on time, if I had to hog-tie the whole bunch and haul yuhover in the hayrack. " He dried his face and hands leisurely andregarded the solemn group. "Oh, mamma! you're sure a nervy-lookingbunch uh dogies. Yuh look like--"

"Maybe you'll hog-tie the whole bunch, " Jack Bates observed irritably, "but if yuh do, you'll sure be late to meeting, sonny!"

The Happy Family laughed feeble acquiescence. 

"I won't need to, " Weary told them blandly. "You all gave theschoolma'am leave to put down your names, and its up to you to makegood. If yuh haven't got nerve enough to stay in the game till thedeck's shuffled yuh hadn't any right to buy a stack uh chips. "

"Yeah--that's right, " Cal Emmett admitted frankly, because shyness andCal were strangers. "The Happy Family sure ought to put this thingthrough a-whirling. We'll give 'em vaudeville till their eyes waterand their hands are plumb blistered applauding the show. Happy, you'reit. You've got to do a toe dance. "

Happy Jack grinned in sickly fashion and sought out his red necktie. 

"Say, Weary, " spoke up Jack Bates, "ain't there going to be any femalegirls in this opera troupe?"

"Sure. The Little Doctor's going to help run the thing, and RenaJackson and Lea Adams are in it--and Annie Pilgreen. Her and Happy aredown on the program for 'Under the Mistletoe', a tableau--the red fire, kiss-me-quick brand. "

"Aw gwan!" cried Happy Jack, much distressed and not observing Weary'slowered eyelid. 

His perturbed face and manner gave the Happy Family an idea. An idea, when entertained by the Happy Family, was a synonym for great mentalagony on the part of the object of the thought, and great enjoyment onthe part of the Family. 

"That's right, " Weary assured him sweetly, urged to further deceit bythe manifest approval of his friends. "Annie's ready and willing to doher part, but she's afraid you haven't got the nerve to go through withit; but the schoolma'am says you'll have to anyhow, because your name'sdown and you told her distinct you'd do anything she asked yuh to. Annie likes yuh a heap, Happy; she said so. Only she don't like theway yuh hang back on the halter. She told me, private, that she wishedyuh wasn't so bashful. "

"Aw, gwan!" adjured Happy Jack again, because that was his only form ofrepartee. 

"If I had a girl like Annie--"

"Aw, I never said I had a girl!"

"It wouldn't take me more than two minutes to convince her I wasn't asscared as I looked. You can gamble I'd go through with that livingpicture, and I'd sure kiss--"

"Aw, gwan! I ain't stampeding clear to salt water 'cause she said'Boo!' at me--and I don't need no cayuse t' show me the trail to agirl's house--"

At this point, Weary succeeded in getting a strangle-hold and thediscussion ended rather abruptly--as they had a way of doing in theFlying U bunk-house. 

Over at the school-house that night, when Miss Satterly's little, goldwatch told her it was seven-thirty, she came out of the corner whereshe had been whispering with the Little Doctor and faced a select, anxious-eyed audience. Even Weary was not as much at ease as he wouldhave one believe, and for the others--they were limp and miserable. 

She went straight at her subject. They all knew what they were therefor, she told them, and her audience looked her unwinkingly in the eye. They did _not_ know what they were there for, but they felt that theywere prepared for the worst. Cal Emmett went mentally over the only"piece" he knew, which he thought he might be called upon to speak. Itwas the one beginning, according to Cal's version:

 Twinkle, Twinkle little star, What in thunder are you at?

There were thirteen verses, and it was not particularly adapted to aChristmas entertainment. 

The schoolma'am went on explaining. There would be tableaux, she said(whereat Happy Jack came near swallowing his tongue) and the JarleyWax-works. 

"What're them?" Slim, leaning awkwardly forward and blinking up at her, interrupted stolidly. Everyone took advantage of the break andbreathed deeply. 

The schoolma'am told them what were the Jarley Wax-works, and evenreverted to Dickens and gave a vivid sketch of the original _Mrs. Jarley_. The audience finally understood that they would represent waxfigures of noted characters, would stand still and let _Mrs. Jarley_talk about them--without the satisfaction of talking back--and thatthey would be wound up at the psychological moment, when they would beexpected to go through a certain set of motions alleged to portray thelast conscious acts of the characters they represented. 

The schoolma'am sat down sidewise upon a desk, swung a neat little footunconventionally and grew confidential, and the Happy Family knew theywere in for it. 

"Will Davidson" (which was Weary) "is the tallest fellow in the lot, sohe must be the Japanese Dwarf and eat poisoned rice out of a choppingbowl, with a wooden spoon--the biggest we can find, " she announcedauthoritatively, and they grinned at Weary. 

"Mr. Bennett, " (which was Chip) "you can assume a most murderousexpression, so we'll allow you to be Captain Kidd and threaten to slayyour Little Doctor with a wooden sword--if we can't get hold of a realone. "

"Thanks, " said Chip, with doubtful gratitude. 

"Mr. Emmett, we'll ask you to be _Mrs. Jarley_ and deliver thelectures. "

When they heard that the Happy Family howled derision at Cal, who gotred in the face in spite of himself. The worst was over. The victimsscented fun in the thing and perked up, and the schoolma'am breathedrelief, for she knew the crowd. Things would go with a swing, afterthis, and success was, barring accidents, a foregone conclusion. 

Through all the clatter and cross-fire of jibes Happy Jack sat, nervousand distrait, in the seat nearest the door and farthest from AnniePilgreen. The pot-bellied stove yawned red-mouthed at him, a scantthree feet away. Someone coming in chilled with the nipping night airhad shoveled in coal with lavish hand, so that the stove door had to bethrown open as the readiest method of keeping the stove from meltingwhere it stood. Its body, swelling out corpulently below the ironbelt, glowed red; and Happy Jack's wolf-skin overcoat was beginning toexhale a rank, animal odor. It never occurred to him that he mightchange his seat; he unbuttoned the coat absently and perspired. 

He was waiting to see if the schoolma'am said anything about "Under theMistletoe" with red fire--and Annie Pilgreen. If she did, Happy Jackmeant to get out of the house with the least possible delay, for heknew well that no man might face the schoolma'am's direct gaze andrefuse to do her bidding, So far the Jarley Wax-works held the undivided attention of all saveHappy Jack; to him there were other things more important. Even whenhe was informed that he must be the Chinese Giant and stand upon acoal-oil box for added height, arrayed in one of the big-floweredcalico curtains which Annie Pilgreen said she could bring, he wasapathetic. He would be required to swing his head slowly from side toside when wound up--very well, it looked easy enough. He would nothave to say a word, and he supposed he might shut his eyes if he feltlike it. 

"As for the tableaux"--Happy Jack felt a prickling of the scalp andmeasured mentally the distance to the door--"We can arrange them later, for they will not require any rehearsing. The Wax-works we must get towork on as soon as possible. How often can you come and rehearse?"

"Every night and all day Sundays, " Weary drawled. 

Miss Satterly frowned him into good behavior and said twice a weekwould do. 

Happy Jack slipped out and went home feeling like a reprieved criminal;he even tried to argue himself into the belief that Weary was onlyloading him and didn't mean a word he said. Still, the schoolma'am hadsaid there would be tableaux, and it was a cinch she would tell Wearyall about it--seeing they were engaged. Weary was the kind that foundout things, anyway. 

What worried Happy Jack most was trying to discover how the dickensWeary found out he liked Annie Pilgreen; that was a secret which HappyJack had almost succeeded in keeping from himself, even. He would havebet money no one else suspected it--and yet here was Weary grinning andtelling him he and Annie were cut out for a tableau together. HappyJack pondered till he got a headache, and he did not come to anysatisfactory conclusion with himself, even then. 

The rest of the Happy Family stayed late at the school-house, and Wearyand Chip discussed something enthusiastically in a corner with theLittle Doctor and the schoolma'am. The Little Doctor said thatsomething was a shame, and that it was mean, to tease a fellow asbashful as Happy Jack. 

Weary urged that sometimes Cupid needed a helping hand, and that itwould really be doing Happy a big favor, even if he didn't appreciateit at the time. So in the end the girls agreed and the thing wassettled. 

The Happy Family rode home in the crisp starlight gurgling and leaningover their saddle-horns in spasmodic fits of laughter. But when theytrooped into the bunk-house they might have been deacons returning fromprayer meeting so far as their decorous behavior was concerned. HappyJack was in bed, covered to his ears and he had his face to the wall. They cast covert glances at his carroty top-knot and went silently tobed--which was contrary to habit. 

At the third rehearsal, just as the Chinese Giant stepped off thecoal-oil box--thereby robbing himself miraculously of two feet ofstature--the schoolma'am approached him with a look in her big eyesthat set him shivering. When she laid a finger mysteriously upon hisarm and drew him into the corner sacred to secret consultations, theforehead of Happy Jack resembled the outside of a stone water-jar inhot weather. He knew beforehand just about what she would say. It wasthe tableau that had tormented his sleep and made his days a misery forthe last ten days--the tableau with red fire and Annie Pilgreen. 

Miss Satterly told him that she had already spoken to Annie, and thatAnnie was willing if Happy Jack had no objections. Happy Jack had, buthe could not bring himself to mention the fact. 

The schoolma'am had not quoted Annie's reply verbatim, but that wasmere detail. When she had asked Annie if she would take part in atableau with Happy Jack, Annie had dropped her pale eyelids and said:"Yes, ma'am. " Still it was as much as the schoolma'am, knowing Annie, could justly expect. 

Annie Pilgreen was an anaemic sort of creature with pale eyes, ash-colored hair that clung damply to her head, and a colorlesscomplexion; her conversational powers were limited to "Yes, sir" and"No, sir" (or Ma'am if sex demanded and Annie remembered in time). ButHappy Jack loved her; and when a woman loves and is loved, herexistence surely is justified for all time. 

Happy Jack sent a despairing glance of appeal at the Happy Family; butthe Family was very much engaged, down by the stove. Cal Emmett wasfanning himself with _Mrs. Jarley's_ poppy-loaded bonnet and refreshinghis halting memory of the lecture with sundry promptings from Len Adamswho held the book. Chip Bennett was whittling his sword into shape andWeary was drumming a tattoo in the great wooden bowl with the spoon heused to devour poisoned rice upon the stage. The others were variouslyengaged; not one of them appeared conscious of the fact that Happy Jackwas facing the tragedy of his bashful life. 

Before he realized it, Miss Satterly had somehow managed to worm fromhim a promise, and after that nothing mattered. The Wax-works, thetree, the whole entertainment dissolved into a blurred background, against which he was to stand with Annie Pilgreen, for the amusement ofhis neighbors, who would stamp their feet and shout derisive things athim. Very likely he would be subjected to the agony of an encore, andhe knew, beyond all doubt, that he would never be permitted to forgetthe figure he should cut; for Happy Jack knew he was as unbeautiful asa hippopotamus and as awkward. He wondered why he, of all the fellowswho were to take part, should be chosen for that tableau; it seemed tohim they ought to pick out someone who was at least passablygood-looking and hadn't such big, red hands and such immense feet. Hisplodding brain revolved the mystery slowly and persistently. 

When he remounted his wooden pedestal, thereby transforming himselfinto a Chinese Giant of wax, he looked the part. Where the otherstatues broke into giggles, to the detriment of their mechanicalperfection, or squirmed visibly when the broken alarm clock whirred itssignal against the small of their backs, Happy Jack stood immovablyupright, a gigantic figure with features inhumanly stolid. Theschoolma'am pointed him out as an example to the others, and pronouncedhim enthusiastically the best actor in the lot. 

"Happy's swallowed his medicine--that's what ails him, " the JapaneseDwarf whispered to Captain Kidd, and grinned. 

The Captain turned his head and studied the brooding features of thegiant. "He's doing some thinking, " he decided. "When he gets thething figured out, in six months or a year, and savvies it was a put-upjob from the start, somebody'll have it coming. "

"He can't pulverize the whole bunch, and he'll never wise up to who'sthe real sinner, " Weary comforted himself. 

"Don't you believe it. Happy doesn't think very often; when he doesthough, he can ring the bell--give him time enough. "

"Here, you statues over there want to let up on the chin-whacking orI'll hand yuh a few with this, " commanded _Mrs. Jarley_, and shook thestove-poker threateningly. 

The Japanese Dwarf returned to his poisoned rice and Captain Kiddapologized to his victim, who was frowning reproof at him, and therehearsal proceeded haltingly. 

That night, Weary rode home beside Happy Jack and tried to lift him outof the slough of despond. But Happy refused to budge, mentally, aninch. He rode humped in the saddle like a calf in its first blizzard, and he was discouragingly unresponsive; except once, when Wearyreminded him that the tableau would need no rehearsing and that itwould only last a minute, anyway, and wouldn't hurt. Whereupon HappyJack straightened and eyed him meditatively and finally growled, "Awgwan; I betche you put her up to it, yuh darned chump. "

After that Weary galloped ahead and overtook the others and told themHappy Jack was thinking and mustn't be disturbed, and that he thoughtit would not be fatal to anyone, though it was kinda hard on Happy. 

From that night till Christmas eve, Happy Jack continued to think. Itwas not, however, till the night of the entertainment, when he wasriding gloomily alone on his way to the school-house, that Happy Jackreally felt that his brain had struck pay dirt. He took off his hat, slapped his horse affectionately over the ears with it and grinned forthe first time since the Thanksgiving dance. "Yes sir, " he saidemphatically aloud, "I betche that's how it is, all right and Ibetche--"

The schoolma'am, her cheeks becomingly pink from excitement, flutteredbehind the curtain for a last, flurried survey of stage properties andactors. "Isn't Johnny here, yet?" she asked of Annie Pilgreen who hadjust come and still bore about her a whiff of frosty, night air. Johnny was first upon the program, with a ready-made address beginning, "Kind friends, we bid you welcome on this gladsome day, " and the timefor its delivery was overdue. 

Out beyond the curtain the Kind Friends were waxing impatient and thejuvenile contingent was showing violent symptoms of descendingprematurely upon the glittering little fir tree which stood in a cornernext the stage. Back near the door, feet were scuffling audibly uponthe bare floor and a suppressed whistle occasionally cut into the humof subdued voices. Miss Satterly was growing nervous at the delay, andshe repeated her question impatiently to Annie, who was staring atnothing very intently, as she had a fashion of doing. 

"Yes, ma'am, " she answered absently. Then, as an afterthought, "He'soutside, talking to Happy Jack. "

Annie was mistaken; Happy Jack was talking to Johnny. The schoolma'amtried to look through a frosted window. 

"I do wish they'd hurry in; it's getting late, and everybody's here andwaiting. " She looked at her watch. The suppressed whistle back nearthe door was gaining volume and insistence. 

"Can't we turn her loose, Girlie?" Weary came up and laid a handcaressingly upon her shoulder. 

"Johnny isn't here, yet, and he's to give the address of welcome. _Why_ must people whistle and make a fuss like that, Will?"

"They're just mad because they aren't in the show, " said Weary. "Say, can't we cut out the welcome and sail in anyway? I'm getting kindashaky, dreading it. "

The schoolma'am shook her head. It would not do to leave outJohnny--and besides, country entertainments demanded the usual Addressof Welcome. It is never pleasant to trifle with an unwritten law likethat. She looked again at her watch and waited; the audience, beingperfectly helpless, waited also. 

Weary, listening to the whistling and the shuffling of feet, felt aqueer, qualmy feeling in the region of his diaphragm, and he yielded toa hunger for consolation and company in his misery. He edged over towhere Chip and Cal were amusing themselves by peeping at the audiencefrom behind the tree. 

"Say, how do yuh stack up, Cal?" he whispered, forlornly. 

"Pretty lucky, " Cal told him inattentively, and the cheerfulness of hiswhole aspect grieved Weary sorely. But then, he explained to himself, Cal always did have the nerve of a mule. 

Weary sighed and wondered what in thunder ailed him, anyway; he wasuncertain whether he was sick, or just plain scared. "Feel all right, Chip?" he pursued; anxiously. 

"Sure, " said Chip, with characteristic brevity. "I wonder who thosesilver-mounted spurs are for, there on the tree? They've been put onsince this afternoon--can't yuh stretch your neck enough to read thename, Cal? They're the real thing, all right. "

Weary's dejection became more pronounced. "Oh, mamma! am I the onlyknock-kneed son-of-a-gun in this crowd?" he murmured, and turneddisconsolately away. His spine was creepy cold with stage fright; helistened to the sounds beyond the shielding curtain and shivered. 

Just then Johnny and Happy Jack appeared looking rather red and guilty, and Johnny was thrust unceremoniously forward to welcome his kindfriends and still the rising clamor. 

Things went smoothly after that. It is true that Weary, as theJapanese Dwarf, halted the Wax-works and glared glassily at the facesstaring back at him while the alarm clock buzzed unheeded against hisspine. _Mrs. Jarley_, however, was equal to the emergency. Sheproceeded calmly to wind him up the second time, gave Weary anadmonitory kick and whispered, "Come alive, yuh chump, " and turned tothe audience. 

"This here Japanese Dwarf I got second-handed at a bargain sale forthree-forty-nine, marked down for one week only, " she explainedblandly. "I got cheated like h--like I always do at them bargainsales, for it's about wore out. I guess I can make the thing work wellenough to show yuh what it's meant to represent, though. " She gaveWeary another kick, commanded him again to "Come out of it and getbusy, " and the Dwarf obediently ate its allotted portion of poison. And every one applauded Weary more enthusiastically than they had theothers, for they thought it was all his part. So much for justice. 

"Our last selection will be a tableau entitled, 'Under the Mistletoe, '"announced the schoolma'am's clear tones. Then she took up her guitarand went down from the stage to where the Little Doctor waited with hermandolin. While the tableau was being arranged they meant to playtogether in lieu of a regular orchestra. The schoolma'am's brow wassmooth, for the entertainment had been a success so far; and thetableau would be all right, she was sure--for Weary had charge of that. She hoped that Happy Jack would not hate it so very much, and that itwould help to break the ice between him and Annie Pilgreen. So sheplucked the guitar strings tentatively and began to play. 

Behind the curtain, Annie Pilgreen stood simpering in her place andHappy Jack went reluctantly forward, resigned and deplorablyinefficient. Weary, himself again now that his torment was over, posedhim cheerfully. But Happy Jack did not get the idea. He stood, asWeary told him disgustedly, looking like a hitching-post. Wearylabored with him desperately, his ear strained to keep in touch withthe music which would, at the proper time, die to a murmur which wouldbe a signal for the red fire and the tableau. Already the lamps werebeing turned low, out there beyond the curtain. 

Though it was primarily a scheme of torture for Happy Jack, Weary wasanxious that it should be technically perfect. He became impatient. "Say, _don't_ stand there like a kink-necked horse, Happy!" he imploredunder his breath. "Ain't there any joints in your arms?"

"I ain't never practised it, " Happy Jack protested in a hoarse whisper. "I never even seen a tableau in my life, even. If somebody'd show meonce, so's I could get the hang of it--"

"Oh, mamma! you're a peach, all right. Here, give me that sage brush!Now, watch. We haven't got all night to make medicine over it. See?Yuh want to hold it over her head and kinda bend down, like yuh weredaring yourself to kiss--"

Happy Jack backed off to get the effect; incidentally, he took thecurtain back with him; also incidentally--, Johnny dropped a match intothe red fire, which glowed beautifully. Weary caught his breath, buthe was game and never moved any eyelash. 

The red glow faded and left an abominable smell behind it, and somemerciful hand drew the curtain--but it was not the hand of Happy Jack. He had gone out through the window and was crouching beneath itdrinking in greedily the hand-clapping and the stamping of feet and thewhistling, with occasional shouts of mirth which he recognized ascoming from the rest of the Happy Family. It all sounded very sweet tothe great, red ears of Happy Jack. 

When the clatter showed signs of abatement he stole away to where hishorse was tied, his sorrel coat gleaming with frost sparkles in themoonlight. "It's you and me to hit the trail, Spider, " he croaked tothe horse, and with his bare hand scraped the frost from the saddle. 

A tall figure crept up from behind and grappled with him. Spiderdanced away as far as the rope would permit and snorted, and twostruggling forms squirmed away from his untrustworthy heels. 

"Aw, leggo!" cried Happy Jack when he could breathe again. 

"I won't. You've got to come back and square yourself with Annie. Howdo yuh reckon she's feeling at the trick yuh played on her, yuhlop-eared--"

Happy Jack jerked loose and stood grinning in the moonlight. "Aw, gwan. Annie knowed I was goin' to do it, " he retorted, loftily. "Annie and me's engaged. " He got into the saddle and rode off, shouting back taunts. 

Weary stood bareheaded in the cold and stared after him blankly. 

WHEN THE COOK FELL ILL

It was four o'clock, and there was consternation in the round-up campof the Flying U; when one eats breakfast before dawn--July dawn atthat--covers thirty miles of rough country before eleven o'clock dinnerand as many more after, supper seems, for the time being, the mostimportant thing in the life of a cowboy. 

Men stood about in various dejected attitudes, their thumbs tuckedinside their chap-belts, blank helplessness writ large upon theirperturbed countenances--they were the aliens, hired but to make a fullcrew during round-up. Long-legged fellows with spurs a-jingle hurriedin and out of the cook-tent, colliding often, shouting futilequestions, commands and maledictions--they were the Happy Family:loyal, first and last to the Flying U, feeling a certain degree ofproprietorship and a good deal of responsibility. 

Happy Jack was fanning an incipient blaze in the sheet-iron stove withhis hat, his face red and gloomy at the prospect of having to satisfyfifteen outdoor appetites with his amateur attempts at cooking. Behindthe stove, writhing bulkily upon a hastily unrolled bed, lay Patsy, groaning most pitiably. 

"What the devil's the matter with that hot water?" Cal Emmett yelled atHappy Jack from the bedside, where he was kneeling sympathetically. 

Happy Jack removed his somber gaze from the licking tongue of flamewhich showed in the stove-front. "Fire ain't going good, yet, " he saidin a matter-of-fact tone which contrasted sharply with Cal'sexcitement. "Teakettle's dry, too. I sent a man to the crick for abucket uh water; he'll be back in a minute. "

"Well, _move_! If it was you tied in a knot with cramp, yuh wouldn'ttake it so serene. "

"Aw, gwan. I got troubles enough, cooking chuck for this here layout. I got to have some help--and lots of it. Patsy ain't got enough stuffcooked up to feed a jack-rabbit. Somebody's got to mosey in here andpeel the spuds. "

"That's your funeral, " said Cal, unfeelingly. 

Chip stuck his head under the lifted tent-flap. "Say, I can't findthat cussed Three-H bottle, " he complained. "What went with it, Cal?"

"Ask Slim; he had it last. Ain't Shorty here, yet?" Cal turned againto Patsy, whose outcries were not nice to listen to, "Stay with it, old-timer; we'll have something hot to pour down yuh in a minute. "

Patsy replied, but pain made him incoherent. Cal caught the word"poison", and then "corn"; the rest of the sentence was merely asuccession of groans. 

The face of Cal lengthened perceptibly. He got up and went out towhere the others were wrangling with Slim over the missing bottle ofliniment. 

"I guess the old boy's up against it good and plenty, " he announcedgravely. "He says he's poisoned; he says it was the corn. "

"Well he had it coming to him, " declared Jack Pates. "He's stuck thatdarned canned corn under our noses every meal since round-up started. He--"

"Oh, shut up, " snarled Cal. "I guess it won't be so funny if he cashesin on the strength of it. I've known two or three fellows that waslaid out cold with tin-can poison. It's sure fierce. "

The Happy Family shifted uneasily before the impending tragedy, andtheir faces paled a little; for nearly every man of the range dreadsptomaine poisoning more than the bite of a rattler. One can kill arattler, and one is always warned of its presence; but one never cantell what dire suffering may lurk beneath the gay labels of cannedgoods. But since one must eat, and since canned vegetables are far andaway better than no vegetables at all, the Happy Family ate and tooktheir chance--only they did not eat canned corn, and they had discussedthe matter profanely and often with Patsy. 

Patsy was a slave of precedent. Many seasons had he cooked beneath around-up tent, and never had he stocked the mess-wagon for a long tripand left canned corn off the list. It was good to his palate and itwas easy to prepare, and no argument could wean him from imperturbablyopening can after can, eating plentifully of it himself and throwingthe rest to feed the gophers. 

"Ain't there anything to give him?" asked Jack, relenting. "ThatThree-H would fix him up all right--"

"Dig it up, then, " snapped Cal. "There's sure something got to bedone, or we'll have a dead cook on our hands. "

"Not even a drop uh whisky in camp!" mourned Weary. "Slim, you oughtto be killed for getting away with that liniment. "

Slim was too downhearted to resent the tone. "By golly, I can't thinkwhat I done with it after I used it on Banjo. Seems like I stood it onthat rock--"

"Oh, hell!" snorted Cal. "That's forty miles back. "

"Say, it's sure a fright!" sympathized Jack Bates as a muffled shriekcame through the cloth wall of the tent. "What's good for tincaneetis, I wonder?"

"A rattling good doctor, " retorted Chip, throwing things recklesslyabout, still searching. "There goes the damn butter--pick it up, Cal. "

"If old Dock was sober, he could do something, " suggested Weary. "Iguess I'd better go after him; what do yuh think?"

"He could send out some stuff--if he was sober enough; he's sure wiseon medicine. "

Weary made him a cigarette. "Well, it's me for Dry Lake, " he said, crisply. "I reckon Patsy can hang on till I get back; can poisondoesn't do the business inside several hours, and he hasn't been sicklong. He was all right when Happy Jack hit camp about two o'clock. I'll be back by dark--I'll ride Glory. " He swung up on the nearesthorse, which happened to be Chip's and raced out to the saddle bunch aquarter of a mile away. The Happy Family watched him go and calledafter him, urging him unnecessarily to speed. 

Weary did not waste time having the bunch corralled but rode in amongthe horses, his rope down and ready for business. Glory staredcuriously, tossed his crimpled, silver mane, dodged a second too lateand found himself caught. 

It was unusual, this interruption just when he was busy cropping sweetgrasses and taking his ease, but he supposed there was some good reasonfor it; at any rate he submitted quietly to being saddled and merelynipped Weary's shoulder once and struck out twice with an ivory-white, daintily rounded hoof--and Weary was grateful for the docile mood heshowed. 

He mounted hurriedly without a word of praise or condemnation, and hissilence was to Glory more unusual than being roped and saddled on therange. He seemed to understand that the stress was great, and fairlybolted up the long, western slope of the creek bottom straight towardthe slant of the sun. 

For two miles he kept the pace unbroken, though the way was not of thesmoothest and there was no trail to follow. Straight away to the west, with fifteen miles of hills and coulees between, lay Dry Lake; and inDry Lake lived the one man in the country who might save Patsy. 

"Old Dock" was a land-mark among old-timers. The oldest pioneer foundDock before him among the Indians and buffalo that ran riot over thewind-brushed prairie where now the nation's beef feeds quietly. Why hewas there no man could tell; he was a fresh-faced young Frenchman withmuch knowledge of medicine and many theories, and a reticenceun-French. From the Indians he learned to use strange herbs thathealed almost magically the ills of man; from the rough out-croppingsof civilization he learned to swallow vile whiskey in great gulps, andto thirst always for more. 

So he grew old while the West was yet young, until Dry Lake, which grewup around him, could not remember him as any but a white-bearded, stooped, shuffling old man who spoke a queer jargon and was always justgetting drunk or sober. When he was sober his medicines never failedto cure; when he was drunk he could not be induced to prescribe, sothat men trusted his wisdom at all times and tolerated his infirmities, and looked upon him with amused proprietorship. 

When Weary galloped up the trail which, because a few habitations arestrewn with fine contempt of regularity upon either side, is called bycourtesy a street, his eyes sought impatiently for the familiar, patriarchal figure of Old Dock. He felt that minutes were worth muchand that if he would save Patsy he must cut out all superfluities, sohe resolutely declined to remember that cold, foamy beer refreshes oneamazingly after a long, hot ride in the dust and the wind. 

Upon the porch of Rusty Brown's place men were gathered, and it wasevident even at a distance that they were mightily amused. Wearyheaded for the spot and stopped beside the hitching pole. Old Dockstood in the center of the group and his bent old figure was tremblingwith rage. With both hands he waved aloft his coat, on which wasplastered a sheet of "tangle-foot" fly-paper. 

"Das wass de mean treeck!" he was shouting. "I don'd do de harm wis nomans. I tend mine business, I buy me mine clothes. De mans wass dodees treeck, he buy me new clothes--you bet you! Dass wass de mean--"

"Say, Dock, " broke in Weary, towering over him, "you dig up some dopefor tin-can poison, and do it quick. Patsy's took bad. "

Old Dock looked up at him and shook his shaggy, white beard. "Das wassde mean treeck, " he repeated, waving the coat at Weary. "You see dass?Mine coat, she ruint; dass was new coat!"

"All right--I'll take your word for it, Dock. Tell me what's good fortin--"

"Aw, I knows you fellers. You t'inke Ole Dock, she Dock, she don'dknow nothings! You t'ink--"

Weary sighed and turned to the crowd. "Which end of a jag is this?" hewanted to know. "I've got to get some uh that dope-wisdom out uh him, somehow. Patsy's a goner, sure, if I don't connect with some medicine. "

The men crowded close and asked questions which Weary felt bound toanswer; everyone knew Patsy, who was almost as much a part of Dry Lakescenery as was Old Dock, and it was gratifying to a Flying-U man to seethe sympathy in their faces. But Patsy needed something more potentthan sympathy, and the minutes were passing. 

Old Dock still discoursed whimperingly upon the subject of his ruinedcoat and the meanness of mankind, and there was no weaning his interestfor a moment, try as Weary would. And fifteen miles away in apicturesque creek-bottom a man lay dying in great pain for want of onelittle part of the wisdom stored uselessly away in the brain of thisdrunken, doddering old man. 

Weary's gloved hand dropped in despair from Old Dock's bent shoulder. "Damn a drunkard!" he said bitterly, and got into the saddle. "Rusty, I'll want to borrow that calico cayuse uh yours. Have him saddled upright away, will yuh? I'll be back in a little bit. "

He jerked his hat down to his eyebrows and struck Glory with the quirt;but the trail he took was strange to Glory and he felt impelled to stopand argue--as only Glory could argue--with his master. Minutes passedtumultuously, with nothing accomplished save some weird hoof-prints inthe sod. Eventually, however, Glory gave over trying to stand upon hishead and his hind feet at one and the same instant, and permittedhimself to be guided toward a certain tiny, low-eaved cabin in a meadowjust over the hill from the town. 

Weary was not by nature given to burglary, but he wrenched open thedoor of the cabin and went in with not a whisper of conscience to sayhim nay. It was close and ill-smelling and very dirty inside, butafter the first whiff Weary did not notice it. He went over andstopped before a little, old-fashioned chest; it was padlocked, so heleft that as a last resort and searched elsewhere for what hewanted--medicine. Under the bed he found a flat, black case, such asold-fashioned doctors carried. He drew it out and examined ifcritically. This, also, was locked, but he shook it tentatively andheard the faintest possible jingle inside. 

"Bottles, " he said briefly, and grinned satisfaction. Somethingbrushed against his hat and he looked up into a very dusty bunch ofherbs. "You too, " he told them, breaking the string with one yank. "For all I know, yuh might stand ace-high in this game. Lord! if Icould trade brains with the old devil, just for to-night!"

He took a last look around, decided that he had found all he wanted, and went out and pulled the door shut. Then he tied the black medicinecase to the saddle in a way that would give it the least jar, stuffedthe bunch of dried herbs into his pocket and mounted for the homewardrace. As he did so the sun threw a red beam into his eyes as thoughreminding him of the passing hours, and ducked behind the ridge whichbounds Lonesome Prairie on the east. 

The afterglow filled sky and earth with a soft, departing radiance whenhe stopped again in front of the saloon. Old Doc was stillgesticulating wildly, and the sheet of fly-paper still clung to theback of his coat. The crowd had thinned somewhat and displayed lessinterest; otherwise the situation had not changed, except that a pintopony stood meekly, with head drooping, at the hitching-pole. 

"There's your horse, " Rusty Brown called to Weary. "Yours played out?"

"Not on your life, " Weary denied proudly. "When yuh see Glory playedout, you'll see him with four feet in the air. "

"I seen him that way half an hour ago, all right, " bantered Bert Rogers. 

Weary passed over the joke. "Mamma! Has it been that long?" he crieduneasily. "I've got to be moving some. Here, Dock, you put on thatcoat--and never mind the label; it's got to go--and so have you. "

"Aw, he's no good to yuh, Weary, " they protested. "He's too drunk totell chloroform from dried apricots. "

"That'll be all right, " Weary assured them confidently. "I guess he'llbe some sober by the time we hit camp. I went and dug up his dope-box, so he can get right to work when he arrives. Send him out here. "

"Say, he can't never top off Powderface, Weary. I thought yuh wasgoing to ride him yourself. It's plumb wicked to put that oldcenturion on him. He wouldn't be able to stay with him a mile. "

"That's a heap farther than he could get with Glory, " said Weary, unmoved. "Yuh don't seem to realize that Patsy's just next thing to adead man, and Dock has got the name of what'll cure him sloshing aroundamongst all that whiskey in his head. I can't wait for him to soberup--I'm just plumb obliged to take him along, jag and all. Come on, Dock; this is a lovely evening for a ride. "

Dock objected emphatically with head, arms, legs and much mixeddialect. But Weary climbed down and, with the help of Bert Rogers, carried him bodily and lifted him into the saddle. When the pintobegan to offer some objections, strong hands seized his bridle and heldhim angrily submissive. 

"He'll tumble off, sure as yuh live, " predicted Bert; but Weary neverdid things by halves; he shook his head and untied his coiled rope. 

"By the Lord! I hate to see a man ride into town and pack off the onlyheirloom we got, " complained Rusty Brown. "Dock's been handed downfrom generation to Genesis, and there ain't hardly a scratch on him. If yuh don't bring him back in good order Weary Davidson, there'll bethings doing. "

Weary looked up from taking the last half-hitch around the saddle horn. "Yuh needn't worry, " he said. "This medical monstrosity is morevaluable to me than he is to you, right now. I'll handle him careful. "

"Das wass de mean treeck!" cried Dock, for all the world like a parrot. 

"It sure is, old boy, " assented Weary cheerfully, and tied the pinto'sbridle-reins into a hard knot at the end. With the reins in his handhe mounted Glory. "Your pinto'll lead, won't he?" he asked Rusty then. It was like Weary to take a thing for granted first, and ask questionsabout it afterward. 

"Maybe he will--he never did, so far, " grinned Rusty. "It's plumbinsulting to a self-respecting cow-pony to make a pack-horse out uhhim. I wouldn't be none surprised if yuh heard his views on thesubjects before yuh git there. "

"It's an honor to pack heirlooms, " retorted Weary. "So-long, boys. "

Old Dock made a last, futile effort to free himself and then settleddown in the saddle and eyed the world sullenly from under frost-whiteeyebrows heavy as a military mustache. He did not at that time lookparticularly patriarchal; more nearly he resembled a humbled, entrappedSanta Claus. 

They started off quite tamely. The pinto leaned far back upon thebridle-reins and trotted with stiff, reluctant legs that did notpromise speed; but still h went, and Weary drew a relieved breath. Hisarm was like to ache frightfully before they covered a quarter of thefifteen miles, but he did not mind that much; besides, he guessedshrewdly that the pinto would travel better once they were well out oftown. 

The soft, warm dusk of a July evening crept over the land and a fewstars winked at them facetiously. Over by the reedy creek, frogs_cr-ek-ek-ekked_ in a tuneless medley and night-hawks flapped silentlythrough the still air, swooping suddenly with a queer, whooing rushlike wind blowing through a cavern. Familiar sounds they were toWeary--so familiar that he scarce heard them; though he would have felta vague, uneasy sense of something lost had they stilled unexpectedly. Out in the lane which leads to the open range-land between wide reachesof rank, blue-joint meadows, a new sound met them--the faint, insistenthumming of millions of mosquitoes. Weary dug Glory with his spurs andcame near having his arm jerked from its socket before he could pullhim in again. He swore a little and swung round in the saddle. 

"Can't yuh dig a little speed into that cayuse with your heels, Dock?"he cried to the resentful heirloom. "We're going to be naturallychewed up if we don't fan the breeze along here. "

"Ah don'd care--das wass de mean treeck!" growled Dock into his beard. 

Weary opened his mouth, came near swallowing a dozen mosquitoes alive, and closed it again. What would it profit him to argue with a drunkenman? He slowed till the pinto, still moving with stiff, reluctantknees, came alongside, and struck him sharply with his quirt; the pintosidled and Dock lurched over as far as Weary's rope would permit. 

"Come along, then!" admonished Weary, under his breath. 

The pinto snorted and ran backward until Weary wished he had beencontent with the pace of a snail. Then the mosquitoes swooped downupon them in a cloud and Glory struck out, fighting and kickingviciously. Presently Weary found himself with part of the pinto'sbridle-rein in his hand, and the memory of a pale object disappearinginto the darkness ahead. 

For the time being he was wholly occupied with his own horse; but whenGlory was minded to go straight ahead instead of in a circle, he gavethought to his mission and thanked the Lord that Dock was headed in theright direction. He gave chase joyfully; for every mile covered inthat fleet fashion meant an added chance for Patsy's life. Even themosquitoes found themselves hopelessly out of the race and beat upharmlessly in the rear. So he galloped steadily upon the homewardtrail; and a new discomfort forced itself upon his consciousness--thediscomfort of swift riding while a sharp-cornered medicine-case ofgenerous proportions thumped regularly against his leg. At first hedid not mind it so much, but after ten minutes of riding so, the thinggrew monotonously painful and disquieting to the nerves. 

Five miles from the town he sighted the pinto; it was just disappearingup a coulee which led nowhere--much less to camp. Weary'sself-congratulatory mood changed to impatience; he followed after. Twomiles, and he reached the unclimbable head of the coulee--and no pinto. He pulled up and gazed incredulously at the blank, sandstone walls;searched long for some hidden pathway to the top and gave it up. 

He rode back slowly under the stars, a much disheartened Weary. Hethought of Patsy's agony and gritted his teeth at his own impotence. After awhile he thought of Old Dock lashed to the pinto's saddle, andhis conscience awoke and badgered him unmercifully for the thing he haddone and the risk he had taken with one man's life that he might savethe life of another. 

Down near the mouth of the coulee he came upon a cattle trail windingup toward the stars. For the lack of a better clue he turned into itand urged Glory faster than was wise if he would save the strength ofhis horse; but Glory was game as long as he could stand, and took thehill at a lope with never a protest against the pace. 

Up on the top the prairie stretched mysteriously away to the sky-line, with no sound to mar the broody silence, and with never a movement todisturb the deep sleep of the grass-land. All day had the hills beenbuffeted by a sweeping West wind; but the breeze had dropped with thesun, as though tired with roistering and slept without so much as adream-puff to shake the dew from the grasses. 

Weary stopped to wind his horse and to listen, but not a hoof-beat cameto guide him in his search. He leaned and shifted the medicine case abit to ease his bruised leg, and wished he might unlock the healingmysteries and the magic stored within. It seemed to him a cruel worldand unjust that knowledge must be gleaned slowly, laboriously, whilemen died miserably for want of it. Worse, that men who had gleanedshould be permitted to smother such precious knowledge in thestupefying fumes of whiskey. 

If he could only have appropriated Dock's brain along with hismedicines, he might have been in camp by now, ministering to Patsybefore it was too late to do anything. Without a doubt the boys werescanning anxiously the ridge, confident that he would not fail themthough impatient for his coming. And here he sat helplessly upon ahilltop under the stars, many miles from camp, with much medicine justunder his knee and a pocket crammed with an unknown, healing herb, asuseless after all his effort as he had been in camp when they could notfind the Three-H liniment. 

Glory turned his head and regarded him gravely out of eyes near humanin their questioning, and Weary laid caressing hand upon his silverymane, grateful for the sense of companionship which it gave. 

"You're sure a wise little nag. " he said wistfully, and his voicesounded strange in the great silence. "Maybe you can find 'em--and ityou can, I'll sure be grateful; you can paw the stars out uh highheaven and I won't take my quirt off my saddle-horn; hope I may die ifI do!"

Glory stamped one white hoof and pointed both ears straight forward, threw up his head and whinnied a shrill question into the night. Wearyhopefully urged him with his knees. Glory challenged once again andstruck out eagerly, galloping lightly in spite of the miles he hadcovered. Far back on the bench-land came faint answer to his call, andWeary laughed from sheer relief. By the stars the night was yet young, and he grew hopeful--almost complacent. 

Glory planted both forefeet deep in the prairie sod and skidded on thebrink of a deep cut-bank. It was a close shave, such as comes often tothose who ride the range by night. Weary looked down into blacknessand then across into gloom. The place was too deep and sheer to rideinto, and too wide to jump; clearly, they must go around it. 

Going around a gulley is not always the simple thing it sounds, especially when one is not sure as to the direction it takes. To findthe head under such conditions requires time. 

Weary thought he knew the place and turned north secure in the beliefthat the gulley ran south into the coulee he had that eveningfruitlessly explored. As a matter of fact it opened into a couleenorth of them, and in that direction it grew always deeper and moreimpassable even by daylight. 

On a dark night, with only the stars to guide one and to accentuate thedarkness, such a discovery brings with it confusion of locality. Wearydrew up when he could go no farther without plunging headlong intoblackness, and mentally sketched a map of that particular portion ofthe globe and tried to find in it a place where the gulch mightconsistently lie. After a minute he gave over the attempt and admittedto himself that, according to his mental map, it could not consistentlylie anywhere at all. Even Glory seemed to have lost interest in thequest and stood listlessly with his head down. His attitude irritatedWeary very much. 

"Yuh damn', taffy colored cayuse!" he said fretfully. "This is as muchyour funeral as mine--seeing yuh started out all so brisk to find thatpinto. Do yah suppose yuh could find a horse if he was staked ten feetin front of your nose? Chances are, yuh couldn't. I reckon you'd havetrouble finding your way around the little pasture at the ranch--unlessthe sun shone real bright and yuh had somebody to lead yuh!"

This was manifestly unjust and it was not like Weary; but this night'smission was getting on his nerves. He leaned and shifted themedicine-case again, and felt ruefully of his bruised leg. That alsowas getting upon his nerves. 

"Oh, Mamma!" he muttered disgustedly. "This is sure a sarcasticlayout; dope enough here to cure all the sickness in Montana--if afellow knew enough to use it--battering a hole in my leg you couldthrow a yearling calf into, and me wandering wild over the hills like alocoed sheepherder! Glory, you get a move on yuh, you knock-kneed, buzzard-headed--" He subsided into incoherent grumbling and rode backwhence he came, up the gully's brim. 

When the night was far gone and the slant of the Great Dipper told himthat day-dawn was near, he heard a horse nicker wistfully, away to theright. Wheeling sharply, his spurs raking the roughened sides ofGlory, he rode recklessly toward the sound, not daring to hope that itmight be the pinto and yet holding his mind back from despair. 

When he was near the place--so near that he could see a dim, formlessshape outlined against the sky-line, --Glory stumbled over a sunken rockand fell heavily upon his knees. When he picked himself up he hobbledand Weary cursed him unpityingly. 

When, limping painfully, Glory came up with the object, the heart ofWeary rose up and stuck in his throat; for the object was a pinto horseand above it bulked the squat figure of an irate old man. 

"Hello, Dock, " greeted Weary. "How do yuh stack up?"

"_Mon Dieu_, Weary Davitson, I feex yous plandy. What for do you deest'ing? I not do de harrm wis you. I not got de mooney wort' all deestroubles what you makes. Dees horse, she lak for keel me also. Shebuck, en keeck, en roon--_mon Dieu_, I not like dees t'ing. "

"Sober, by thunder!" ejaculated Weary in an ecstatic half-whisper. "Dock, you've got a chance to make a record for yourself to-night--ifwe ain't too late, " he added bodefully. "Do yuh know where we'reheaded for?"

"I t'ink for de devil, " retorted Old Dock peevishly. 

"No sir, we aren't. We're going straight to camp, and you're going tosave old Patsy--you like Patsy, you know; many's the time you've tankedup together and then fell on each other's necks and wept because thegood old times won't come again. He got poisoned on canned corn; theLord send he ain't too dead for you to cure him. Come on--we betterhit the breeze. We've lost a heap uh time. "

"I not like dees rope; she not comforte. I have ride de bad horse whenyou wass in cradle. "

Weary got down and went over to him. "All right, I'll unwind yuh. When we started, yuh know, yuh couldn't uh rode a rocking chair. I wasplumb obliged to tie yuh on. Think we'll be in time to help Patsy? Hewas taken sick about four o'clock. "

Old Dock waited till he was untied and the remnant of bridle-rein wasplaced in his hand, before he answered ironically: "I not do de mageec, _mon cher_ Weary. I mos' have de medicine or I can do nottings, I notwave de fingaire an' say de vord. "

"That's all right--I've got the whole works. I broke into your shackand made a clean haul uh dope. And I want to tell yuh that for adoctor you've got blame poor ventilation to your house. But I foundthe medicine. "

"Mon Dieu!" was the astonished comment, and after that they rode insilence and such haste as Glory's lameness would permit. 

The first beams of the sun were touching redly the hilltops and thebirds were singing from swaying weeds when they rode down the lastslope into the valley where camped the Flying-U. 

The night-hawk had driven the horses into the rope-corral and men wereinside watching, with spread loop, for a chance to throw. Happy Jack, with the cook's apron tied tightly around his lank middle, stooddespondently in the doorway of the mess-tent and said no word as theyapproached. In his silence--in his very presence there--Weary readdisaster. 

"I guess we're too late, " he told Dock, in hushed tones; for the minutehe hated the white-bearded old man whose drunkenness had cost theFlying-U so dear. He slipped wearily from the saddle and let the reinsdrop to the ground. Happy Jack still eyed them silently. 

"Well?" asked Weary, when his nerves would bear no more. 

"When I git sick, " said Happy Jack, his voice heavy with reproach, "I'll send you for help--if I want to die. "

"Is he dead?" questioned Weary, in hopeless fashion. 

"Well, " said Happy Jack deliberately, "no, he ain't dead yet--but it'sno thanks to you. Was it poker, or billiards? and who won?"

Weary looked at him dully a moment before he comprehended. He had nothad any supper or any deep, and he had ridden many miles in the longhours he had been away. He walked, with a pronounced limp on the legwhich had been next the medicine-case, to where Dock stood leaningshakily against the pinto. 

"Maybe we're in time, after all, " he said slowly. "Here's some kind uhdried stuff I got off the ceiling; I thought maybe yuh might needit--you're great on Indian weeds. " He pulled a crumpled, faintlyaromatic bundle of herbs from his pocket. 

Dock took it and sniffed disgustedly, and dropped the herbscontemptuously to the ground. "Dat not wort' notting--she what youcall--de--cat_neep_. " He smiled sourly. 

Weary cast a furtive glance at Happy Jack, and hoped he had notoverheard. Catnip! Still, how could he be expected to know what theblamed stuff was? He untied the black medicine-case and brought it andput it at the feet of Old Dock. "Well, here's the joker, anyhow, " hesaid. "It like to wore a hole clear through my leg, but I was carefuland I don't believe any uh the bottles are busted. "

Dock looked at it and sat heavily down upon a box. He looked at thecase queerly, then lifted his shaggy head to gaze up at Weary. Andbehind the bleared gravity of his eyes was something very like atwinkle. "Dis, she not cure seek mans, neider. She--" He pressed atiny spring which Weary had not discovered and laid the case open uponthe ground. "You see?" he said plaintively. "She not good forPatsy--she tree-dossen can-openaire. "

Weary stared blankly. Happy Jack came up, looked and doubledconvulsively. Can-openers! Three dozen of them. Old Dock wasexplaining in his best English, and he was courteously refraining fromthe faintest smile. 

"Dey de new, bettaire kind. I send for dem, I t'ink maybe I sell. Iput her in de grip--so--I carry dem all togedder. My mediceen, she inde beeg ches'. "

Weary had sat down and his head was dropped dejectedly into his hands. He had bungled the whole thing, after all. "Well, " he saidapathetically. "The chest was locked; I never opened it. "

Old Dock nodded his head gravely. "She lock, " he assented, gently. "She mooch mediceen--she wort' mooch mooney. De key, she in minepocket--" "Oh, I don't give a damn where the key is--now, " flaredWeary. "I guess Patsy'll have to cash in; that's all. "

"Aw, gwan!" cried Happy Jack. "A sheepman come along just after youleft, and he had a quart uh whisky. We begged it off him and givePatsy a good bit jolt. That eased him up some, and we give himanother--and he got to hollerin' so loud for more uh the same, so wejust set the bottle in easy reach and let him alone. He's in therenow, drunk as a biled owl--the lazy old devil. I had to get supper andbreakfast too--and looks like I'd have to cook dinner. Poison--hell!I betche he never had nothing but a plain old belly-ache!"

Weary got up and went to the mess-tent, lifted the flap and looked inupon Patsy lying on the flat of his back, snoring comfortably. Heregarded him silently a moment, then looked over his shoulder to whereOld Dock huddled over the three dozen can-openers. 

"Oh, mamma!" he whispered, and poured himself a cup of coffee. 

THE LAMB

When came the famine in stock-cars on the Montana Central, and theFlying U herd had grazed for two days within five miles of Dry Lake, waiting for the promised train of empties, Chip Bennett, latelypromoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing anda-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and theirhands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good"grass" ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble allround the rim. 

The delinquents were not "top hands, " it is true. They--the HappyFamily, of which Jim Whitmore was inordinately proud--would soonerforswear their country than the Flying U. But even two transients ofvery ordinary ability are missed when they suddenly vanish in shippingtime, and Chip, feeling keenly his responsibilities, rode disgustedlyinto town to reclaim the recreants or pay them off and hire others intheir places. 

With his temper somewhat roughened by the agent's report that no carswere yet on the way, he clanked into Rusty Brown's place after hisdeserters. One was laid blissfully out in the little back room, breathing loudly, dead to the world and the exigencies of life; himChip passed up with a snort of disgust. The other was sitting in acorner, with his hat balanced precariously over his left ear, gazingsuperciliously upon his fellows and, incidentally, winning everythingin sight. He leered up at Chip and fingered ostentatiously his threestacks of blues. 

"What'n thunder do I want to go t' camp for?" he demanded, in answer toChip's suggestion. "Forty dollars a month following your trail don'tlook good t' me no more. I'm four hundred dollars t' the good sencelast night, and takin' all comers. Good money's just fallin' my way. I don't guess I hanker after any more night guardin', thank ye. "

"Suit yourself, " said Chip coldly, and turned away. 

Argument was useless and never to his liking. The problem now was tofind two men who could take their places, and that was not so easilysolved. A golden-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed young fellow indainty silk negligee, gray trousers, and russet leather belt, with apanama hat and absurdly small tan shoes, followed him outside. 

"If you're looking for men, " he announced musically, "I'm open forengagements. "

Chip looked down at him tolerantly. "Much obliged, but I'm not gettingup a garden-party, " he informed him politely, and took a step. He wasnot in the mood to find amusement in the situation. 

The immaculate one showed some dimples that would have been distractingin the face of a woman. "And I ain't looking for a job leading cows towater, " he retorted. "Yuh shouldn't judge a man by his clothes, old-timer. "

"I don't--a man!" said Chip pointedly. "Run away and play. I'll tellyou what, sonny, I'm not running a kindergarten. Every man I hire hasgot man's work to do. Wait till you're grown up; as it is, you'd lastquick on round-up, and that's a fact. "

"Oh! it is, eh? Say, did yuh ever hear uh old Eagle Creek Smith, ofthe Cross L, or Rowdy Vaughan, or a fellow up on Milk River they callPink?"

"I'd tell a man!" Chip turned toward him again. "At least I've heardof Eagle Creek Smith, and of Pink--bronco-fighter, they say, and alittle devil. Why?"

The immaculate one lifted his panama, ran his fingers through hiscurls, and smiled demurely. "Nothing in particular--only, I'm Pink!"

Chip stared frankly, and measured the slender figure from accuratelydented hat-crown to tiny shoe-tips. "Well, yuh sure don't look it, " hesaid bluntly, at length. "Why that elaborate disguise ofrespectability?"

Pink sat him down on an empty beer case in the shade of the saloon anddaintily rolled a cigarette. 

"Yuh see, it's like this, " he began, in his soft voice. "When theCross L moved their stock across the line Rowdy Vaughan had charge uhthe outfit; and, seeing we're pretty good friends, uh course I wentalong. I hadn't been over there a month till I had occasion t' thumpthe daylights out uh one uh them bone-headed grangers that vitiates theatmosphere up there; and I put him all to the bad. So a bunch uh themgaudy buck-policemen rose up and fogged me back across the line; a manhas sure got t' turn the other cheek up there, or languish in _ga_-ol. "

Pink brought the last word out as if it did not taste good. 

"I hit for the home range, which is Upper Milk River. But it wascussed lonesome with all the old bunch gone; so I sold my outfit andquit cow-punching for good. I wonder if the puncher lives that didn'tsell his saddle and bed, and reform at least once in his checkeredcareer!

"I had a fair-sized roll so I took the home trail back to Minnesota, and chewed on the fatted calf all last winter and this summer. Itwasn't bad, only the girls run in bunches and are dead anxious to tieup to some male human. I dubbed around and dodged the loop long as Icould stand it, and then I drifted. 

"I kinda got hungry for the feel of a good horse between m' legs oncemore. It made me mad to see houses on every decent bed-ground, andfences so thick yuh couldn't get out and fan the breeze if yuh tried. I tell yuh straight, old-timer, last month I was home I plumb wore outmother's clothes-line roping the gate-post. For the Lord's sake, stakeme to a string! and I don't give a damn how rough a one it is!"

Chip sat down on a neighboring case and regarded the dapper littlefigure curiously. Such words, coming from those girlishly rosy lips, with the dimples dodging in and out of his pink cheeks, had an oddeffect of unreality. But Pink plainly was in earnest. His eyes behindthe dancing light of harmless deviltry, were pleading and wistful as achild. 

"You're it!" said Chip relievedly. "You can go right to work. Seemsyou're the man I've been looking for, only I will say I didn'trecognize yuh on sight. We've got a heap of work ahead, and only fivedecent men in the outfit. It's the Flying U; and these five haveworked for the outfit for years. "

"I sure savvy that bunch, " Pink declared sweetly. "I've heard uh theHappy Family before. Ain't you one uh them?"

Chip grinned reminiscently. "I was, " he admitted, a shade of regret inhis voice. "Maybe I am yet; only I went up a notch last spring. Gotmarried, and settled down. I'm one of the firm now, so I had to reformand cut out the foolishness. Folks have got to calling the rest theFrivolous Five. They're a pretty nifty bunch, but you'll get on, allright, seeing you're not the pilgrim you look to be. If you were, I'dsay: 'The Lord help you!' Got an outfit?"

"Sure. Bought one, brand new, in the Falls. It's over at the hotelnow, with a haughty, buckskin-colored suitcase that fair squeals withstyle and newness. " Pink pulled his silver belt-buckle straight andpatted his pink-and-blue tie approvingly. 

"Well, if you're ready, I'll get the horses these two hoboes rode in, and we'll drift. By the way, how shall I write you on the book?"

Pink stooped and with his handkerchief carefully, wiped the last speckof Dry Lake dust from his shiny toes. "Yuh won't crawfish on me, if Itell yuh?" he inquired anxiously, standing up and adjusting his beltagain. 

"Of course not. " Chip looked his surprise at the question. 

"Well, it ain't _my_ fault, but my lawful, legal name is PercivalCadwallader Perkins. "

"Wha-at?"

"Percival Cad-_wall_-ader Perkins. Shall I get yuh something to takewith it?"

Chip, with his pencil poised in air, grinned sympathetically. "It'ssure a heavy load to carry, " he observed solemnly. "How do you spellthat second shift?"

Pink told him, spelling the word slowly, syllable by syllable. "Ain'tit fierce?" he wanted to know. "My mother must have sure beenfrivolous and light-minded when I was born. I'm the only boy she everhad, and there was two grandfathers that wanted a kid named after 'em;they sure make a hot combination. Yuh know what Cadwallader means, inthe dictionary?"

"Lord, no!" said Chip, putting away his book. 

"Battle arranger, " Pink told him sadly. "Now, wouldn't that jostleyuh? It's true, too; it has sure arranged a lot uh battles for me. Itcaused me to lick about six kids a day, and to get licked by a dozen, when I went to school. So, seeing the name was mine, and I couldn'tchuck it, I went and throwed in with an ex-pugilist and learned thetrade thorough. Since then things come easier. Folks don't open upthe subject more'n a dozen times before they take the hint. And thissummer I fell in with a ju-jutsu sharp--a college-fed Jap that suresavvied things a white man never dreams except in nightmares. I set athis feet all summer learning wisdom. I ain't afraid now to wear myname on my hatband. "

"Still, I wouldn't, " said Chip dryly. "Hike over and get the haughtynew war-bag, and we'll hit the sod. I've got to be in camp bydinner-time. "

A mile out Pink looked down at his festal garments and smiled. "Iexpect I'll be pickings for your Happy Family when they see me in thesewar-togs, " he remarked. 

Chip turned and regarded him meditatively for a minute. "I was justwondering, " he said slowly, "if the Happy Family wouldn't be pickingsfor _you_. "

Pink dimpled wickedly and said nothing. 

The Happy Family were at dinner when Chip and Pink rode up anddismounted by the bed-tent. Chip and Pink went over to where theothers were sitting in various places and attitudes, and the HappyFamily received them, not with the nudges and winks one might justlyexpect, but with decorous silence. 

Chip got plate, knife, fork, and spoon and started for the stove. 

"Help yourself to the tools, and then come over here and fill up, " heinvited Pink, over his shoulder. "We don't stand on ceremony here. May look queer to you at first, but you'll get used to it. "

The Happy Family pricked up its ears and looked guardedly at oneanother. This wasn't a chance visitor, then; he was going to work!

Weary, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a wagon-wheel looked up atPink, fumbling shyly among the knives and forks, and with deceitfulinnocence he whistled absently:

 Oh, tell me, pretty maiden, Are there any more at home like you?

Pink glanced at him quickly, then at the solemn faces of the others, and retreated hastily inside the tent, where was Chip; and every man ofthem knew the stranger had caught Weary's meaning. They smileddiscreetly at their plates and said nothing. 

Pink came out with heaped plate and brimming cup, and retireddiffidently to the farthest bit of shade he could find, which broughthim close to Cal Emmett. He sat down gingerly so as not to spillanything. 

"Going to work for the outfit?" asked Cal politely. 

"Yes, sir; the overseer gave me a position, " answered Pink sweetly, inhis soft treble. "I just came to town this morning. Is it very hardwork?"

"Yeah, it sure is, " said Cal plaintively, between bites. "What withtaming wild broncos and trying to keep the cattle from stampeding, ourshining hours are sure improved a lot. It's a hard, hard life. " Hesighed deeply and emptied his cup of coffee. 

"I--I thought I'd like it, " ventured Pink wistfully. 

"It's dead safe to prognosticate yuh won't a little bit. None of uslike it. I never saw a man with soul so vile that he did. "

"Why don't you give it up, then, and get a position at something else?"Pink's eyes looked wide and wistful over the rim of his cup. 

"Can't. We're most of us escaped desperadoes with a price on ourheads. " Cal shook his own lugubriously. "We're safer here than wewould be anywhere else. If a posse showed up, or we got wind of onecoming, there's plenty uh horses and saddles to make a getaway. We'djust pick out a drifter and split the breeze. We can keep on the dodgea long time, working on round-up, and earn a little money at the sametime, so when we do have to fly we won't be dead broke. "

"Oh!" Pink looked properly impressed. "If it isn't toopersonal--er--is there a--that is, are you----"

"An outlaw?" Cal assisted. "I sure am--and then some. I'm wanted forperjury in South Dakota, manslaughter in Texas, and bigamy in Utah. I'm all bad. "

"Oh, I hope not!" Pink looked distressed. "I'm very sorry, " he addedsimply, "and I hope the posses won't chase you. "

Cal shook his head very, very gravely. "You can't most always tell, "he declared gloomily. "I expect I'll have an invite to anecktie-party some day. "

"I've been to necktie-parties myself. " Pink brightened visibly. "Idon't like them; you always get the wrong girl. "

"I don't like 'em, either, " agreed Cal. "I'm always afraid the wrongnecktie will be mine. Were you ever lynched?"

Pink moved uneasily. "I--I don't remember that I ever was, " heanswered guardedly. 

"I was. My gang come along and cut me down just as I was about all in. I was leading a gang----"

"Excuse me a minute, " Pink interrupted hurriedly. "I think theoverseer is motioning for me. "

He hastened over to where Chip was standing alone, and asked if heshould change his clothes and get ready to go to work. 

Chip told him it wouldn't be a bad idea, and Pink, carrying his haughtysuit-case and another bulky bundle, disappeared precipitately into thebed-tent. 

"By golly!" spoke up Slim, "it looks good enough to eat. "

"Where did yuh pluck that modest flower, Chip?" Jack Bates wanted toknow. 

Chip calmly sifted some tobacco in a paper. "I picked it in town, " hetold them. "I hired it to punch cows, and its name is--wait a minute. "He put away the tobacco sack, got out his book, and turned the leaves. "Its name is Percival Cadwallader Perkins. "

"Oh, mamma! Percival Cadwolloper--what?" Weary looked utterly at sea. 

"Perkins, " supplied Chip. 

"Percival--Cad-wolloper--Perkins, " Weary mused aloud. "Yuh want todouble the guard to-night, Chip; that name'll sure stampede the bunch. "

"He's sure a sweet young thing--mamma's precious lamb broke out uh thehome corral!" said Jack Bates. "I'll bet yuh a tall, yellow-hairedmamma with flowing widow's weeds'll be out here hunting him up inside aweek. We got to be gentle with him, and not rub none uh the bloom uhinnocence off his rosy cheek. Mamma had a little lamb, his cheeks werered and rosy. And everywhere that mamma went--er--everywhere--thatmamma--went----"

"The lamb was sure to mosey, " supplied Weary. 

"By golly! yuh got that backward, " Slim objected. "It ought uh be:Everywhere the lambie went; his mamma was sure to mosey. "

The reappearance of Pink cut short the discussion. Pink as he hadlooked before was pretty as a poster. Pink as he reappeared would havedriven a matinee crowd wild with enthusiasm. On the stage he would bein danger of being Hobsonized; in the Flying U camp the Happy Familylooked at him and drew a long breath. When his back was turned, theyshaded their eyes ostentatiously from the blaze of his splendor. 

He still wore his panama, and the dainty pink-and-white striped silkshirt, the gray trousers, and russet-leather belt with silver buckle. But around his neck, nestling under his rounded chin, was a gorgeousrose-pink silk handkerchief, of the hue that he always wore, and thathad given him the nickname of "Pink. "

His white hands were hidden in a pair of wonderful silk-embroideredbuckskin gauntlets. His gray trousers were tucked into number four tanriding-boots, high as to heel--so high that they looked two sizessmaller--and gorgeous as to silk-stitched tops. A shiny, new pair ofsilver-mounted spurs jingled from his heels. 

He smiled trustfully at Chip, and leaned, with the studiously gracefulpose of the stage, against a hind wheel of the mess-wagon. Then he gotpapers and tobacco from a pocket of the silk shirt and began to roll acigarette. Inwardly he hoped that the act would not give him away tothe Happy Family, whom he felt in honor bound to deceive, and bewailedthe smoke-hunger that drove him to take the risk. 

The Happy Family, however, was unsuspicious. His pink-and-whiteprettiness, his clothes, and the baby innocence of his dimples and hislong-lashed blue eyes branded him unequivocally in their eyes as thetenderest sort of tenderfoot. 

"Get onto the way he rolls 'em--backward!" murmured Weary into Cal'sear. 

"If there's anything I hate, " Cal remarked irrelevantly to the crowd, "it's to see a girl chewing a tutti-frutti cud--or smoking a cigarette!"

Pink looked up from under his thick lashes and opened his lips tospeak, then thought better of it. The jingling of the cavvy coming incut short the incipient banter, and Pink turned and watched intentlythe corralling process. To him the jangling bells were sweetest music, for which ears and heart had hungered long, and which had come to himoften in dreams. His blood tingled as might a lover's when hissweetheart approaches. 

"Weary, you and Cal better relieve the boys on herd, " Chip called. "I'll get you a horse, P--Perkins"--he had almost said "Pink"--"and youcan go along. Then to-night you'll go on guard with Cal. "

"Yes, sir, " said Pink, with a docility that would have amazed any whoknew him well, and followed Chip out to the corral, where Cal and Wearywere already inside with their ropes, among the circling mass. 

Chip led out a gentle little cow-pony that could almost day-herdwithout a rider of any sort, and Pink bridled him before the covertlywatching crew. He did not do it as quickly as he might have done, forhe "played to the gallery" and deliberately fumbled the buckle andpinned one ear of the pony down flat with the head-stall. 

A new saddle, stiff and unbroken, is ever a vexation unto its proudowner, and its proper adjustment requires time and much language. Pinkomitted the language, so that the process took longer than it wouldnaturally have done; but Cal and Weary, upon their mounts, madecigarettes and waited, with an air of endurance, and gave Pink muchadvice. Then he got somehow into the saddle and flapped elbows besidethem, looking like a gorgeous-hued canary with wings a-flutter. 

Happy Jack, who had been standing herd disconsolately with two aliens, stared open-mouthed at Pink's approach and rode hastily to camp, fairbursting with questions and comments. 

The herd, twelve hundred range-fattened steers, grazed quietly on aside hill half a mile or more from camp. Pink ran a quick, appraisingeye over the bunch estimating correctly the number, and noting theirsplendid condition. 

"Never saw so many cattle in one bunch before, did yuh?" queried Cal, misinterpreting the glance. 

Pink shook his head vaguely. "Does one man own all those cows?" hewanted to know, with just the proper amount of incredulous wonder. 

"Yeah--and then some. This ain't any herd at all; just a few thatwe're shipping to get 'em out uh the way uh the real herds. "

"About how many do you think there are here?" asked Pink. 

Cal turned his back upon his conscience and winked at Weary. "Oh, there's only nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one, " he liedboldly. "Last bunch we gathered was fifty-one thousand six hundred andtwenty-nine and a half. Er--the half, " he explained hastily in answerto Pink's look of unbelief, "was a calf that we let in by mistake. Icaught it, after we counted, and took it back to its mother. "

"I should think, " Pink ventured hesitatingly, "it would be hard to findits mother. I don't see how you could tell. "

"Well, " said Cal gravely, sliding sidewise in the saddle, "it's thisway. A calf is always just like its mother, hair for hair. This calfhad white hind feet, one white ear, and the deuce uh diamonds on itsleft side. All I had to do was ride the range till I found the cowthat matched. "

"Oh!" Pink looked thoughtful and convinced. 

Weary, smiling to himself, rode off to take his station at the otherside of the herd. Even the Happy Family must place duty a pace beforepleasure, and Cal, much as he would liked to have continued theconversation, resisted temptation and started down along the nearestedge of the bunch. Pink showed inclination to follow. 

"You stay where you're at, sonny, " Cal told him, over his shoulder. 

"What must I do?" Pink straightened his tie and set his panama morefirmly on his yellow curls, for a brisk wind was blowing. 

Cal's voice came back to him faintly: "Just dub around here and don'tdo a darn thing; and don't bother the cattle. "

"Good advice, that, " Pink commented amusedly. "Hits day-herding off toa T. " He prepared for a lazy afternoon, and enjoyed every minute. 

On his way back to camp at suppertime, Pink rode close to Cal andlooked as if he had something on his mind. Cal and Weary exchangedglances. 

"I'd like to ask, " Pink began timidly, "how you fed that calf--beforeyou found his mother. Didn't he get pretty hungry?"

"Why, I carried a bottle uh milk along, " Cal lied fluently. "When thebottle went empty I'd catch a cow and milk it. "

"Would it stand without being tied?"

"Sure. All range cows'll gentle right down, if yuh know the right wayto approach 'em, and the words to say. That's a secret that we don'ttell anybody that hasn't been a cowboy for a year, and rode fourteenbroncos straight up. Sorry I can't tell yuh. "

Pink went diplomatically back to the calf. "Did you carry it in yourarms, or--"

"The calf? Sure. How else would I carry it?" Cal's big, baby-blueeyes matched Pink's for innocence. "I carried that bossy in my armsfor three days, " he declared solemnly, "before I found a cow with whitehind feet, one white ear, and the deuce uh--er--clubs----"

"Diamonds" corrected Pink, drinking in each word greedily. 

"That's it: diamonds, on its right hind--er--shoulders----"

"The calf's was on its left side, " reminded Pink reproachfully. "Idon't believe you found the right mother, after all!"

"Yeah, I sure did, all right, " contended Cal earnestly. "I know, 'cause she was that grateful, when she seen me heave in sight over ahill a mile away, she come up on the gallop, a-bawling, and--er--lickedmy hand!"

That settled it, of course. Pink dismounted stiffly and walkedpainfully to the cook-tent. Ten months out of saddle--with a new, unbroken one to begin on again--told, even upon Pink, and made forextreme discomfort. 

When he had eaten, hungrily and in silence, responding to the mildlyironical sociability of his fellows with a brevity which only his softvoice saved from bruskness, he unrolled his new bed and lay down withnot a thought for the part he was playing. He heard with absoluteindifference Weary's remark outside, that "Cadwolloper's about all in;day-herding's too strenuous for him. " The last that came to him, someone was chanting relishfully:

 Mamma had a precious lamby his cheeks were red and rosy; And when he rode the festive bronk, he tumbled on his nosey. 

There was more; but Pink had gone to sleep, and so missed it. 

At sundown he awoke and went out to saddle the night horse Chip hadcaught for him, and then went to bed again. When shaken gently formiddle guard, he dressed sleepily, added a pair of white Angora chapsto his afternoon attire, and stumbled out into the murky moonlight. 

Guided and coached by Cal, he took his station and began thatmonotonous round which had been a part of the life he loved best. Though stiff and sore from unaccustomed riding, Pink felt quite contentto be where he was; to watch the quiet land and the peaceful, slumbering herd; with the drifting gray clouds above, and the moonswimming, head under, in their midst. Twice in a complete round he metCal, going in opposite direction. At the second round Cal stopped him. 

"How yuh coming?" he queried cheerfully. 

"All right, thank you, " said Pink. 

"Yuh want to watch out for a lop-horned critter over on the otherside, " Cal went on, in confidential tone. "He keeps trying to sneakout uh the bunch. Don't let him get away; if he goes, take after himand fog him back. "

"He won't get away from me, if I can help it, " Pink promised, and Calrode on, with Pink smiling maliciously after him. 

As he neared the opposite side, a dim shape angled slowly out beforehim, moving aimlessly away from the sleeping herd. Pink followed. Farther they went, and faster. Into a little hollow went the"critter", and circled. Pink took down his rope, let loose a good tenfeet of it, and spurred unexpectedly close to it. 

Whack! The rope landed with precision on the bowed shoulders of Cal. "Yuh will try to fool your betters, will yuh?" Whack! "I guess I canpoint out a critter that won't stray out uh the bunch again fer aspell!" Whack!

Cal straightened, gasping astonishment, in the saddle, pulled up with ajerk, and got off, in unlovely mood. 

"And I can point to a little mamma's lamb that won't take down his ropeto his betters again, either!" he cried angrily. "Climb down and getyour ears cuffed proper, yuh darned, pink little smart Aleck; or themshiny heels'll break your pretty neck. Thump me with a rope, will yuh?"

Pink got down. Immediately after, to use a slang term, they "mixed. "Presently Cal, stretched the long length of him in the grass, with Pinksitting comfortably upon his middle, looked up at the dizzying swim ofthe moon, saw new and uncharted stars, and nearer, dimly revealed inthe half-light, the self-satisfied, cherubic face of Pink. 

He essayed to rise and continue the discussion, and discovered a quitesurprising state of affairs. He could scarcely move: and the more hetried the more painful became Pink's diabolical hold of him. Heblinked and puzzled over the mystery. 

"Of all the bone-headed, feeble-minded sons-uh-guns it's ever been myduty and pleasure to reconstruct, " announced Pink melodiously, "yousure take the sour-dough biscuit. You're a song that's been tried onthe cattle and failed t' connect. You're the last wail of a coyotedying in the dim distance. For a man that's been lynched and cut downand waiting for another yank, you certainly--are--mild! You're thetamest thing that ever happened. A lady could handle yuh with safetyand ease. You're a children's playmate. For a deep-dyed desperadothat's wanted for manslaughter in Texas, perjury in South Dakota, andbigamy in Utah, you're the last feeble whisper of a summer breeze. _You_ cuff my ears proper? Oh, my! and oh, fudge! It is to laugh!"

Cat, battered as to features and bewildered as to mind, blinked againand grinned feebly. 

"Yuh try an old gag that I wore out on humans of your ilk in Wyoming, "went on Pink, warming to the subject. "Yuh load me with stuff thatwould bring the heehaw from a sheep-herder. Yuh can't even lieconsistent to a pilgrim. You're a story that's been told andforgotten, a canto that won't rhyme, blank verse with club feet. You're the last, horrible example of a declining race. You're extinct. "

"Say"--Pink's fists kneaded energetically Cal's sufferingdiaphragm. --"are yuh--all--ba-a-d?"

"Oh, Lord! No. I'm dead gentle. Lemme up. "

"D'yuh think that critter will quit the bunch ag'in to-night?"

"He ain't liable to, " Cal assured him meekly. "Say, who the devil areyuh anyhow?"

"I'm Percival Cadwallader Perkins. Do yuh like that name? Do yuhthink it drips sweetness and poetry, like a card uh honey?"

"_Ouch_! It--it's _swell_!"

"You're a dam' liar, " declared Pink, getting up. "Furthermore, yuh oldchuckle-head, yuh ought t' know better than try t' run any ranikabooson me. I've got your pedigree, right back to the Flood; and it's safebetting yuh got mine, and don't know it. Your best girl happens to bemy cousin. "

Cal scrambled slowly and painfully to his feet. "Then you're MilkRiver Pink. I might uh guessed it, " he sighed. 

"I cannot tell a lie, " Pink averred. "Only, plain Pink'll do for me. Where d'yuh suppose the bunch is by this time?"

They mounted and rode back together. Cal was deeply thoughtful. 

"Say, " he said suddenly, just as they parted to ride their rounds, "theboys'll be tickled plumb to death. We've been wishing you'd blow inhere ever since the Cross L quit the country. "

Pink drew rein and looked back, resting one hand on the cantle. "Mygentle friend, " he warned, "yuh needn't break your neck spreading theglad tidings. Yuh better let them frivolous youths wise-up in theirown playful way, same as you done. "

"Sure, " agreed Cal, passing his fingers gingerly over certain portionsof his face. "I ain't a hog. I'm willing they should have some sportwith yuh, too. "

Next morning, when Cal appeared at breakfast with a slight limp andseveral inches of cuticle missing from his features, the Happy Familylearned that his horse had fallen down with him as he was turning astray back into the herd. 

Chip looked up quizzically and then hid a smile behind his coffee-cup. 

It was Weary that afternoon on dayherd who indulged his mendacity forthe benefit of Pink; and his remarks were but paving-stones for ascheme hatched overnight by the Happy Family. 

Weary began by looking doleful and emptying his lungs in sighs deep andsorrowful. When Pink, rising obligingly to the bait, asked him if hefelt bad. Weary only sighed the more. Then, growing confidential, hetold how he had dreamed a dream the night before. With picturesquelanguage, he detailed the horror of it. He was guilty of murder, heconfessed, and the crime weighed heavily on his conscience. 

"Not only that, " he went on, "but I know that death is camping on mytrail. That dream haunts me. I feel that my days are numbered inwords uh one syllable. That dream'll come true; you see if it don't!"

"I--I wouldn't worry over just a bad dream, Mr. Weary, " comforted Pink. 

"But that ain't all. I woke up in a cold sweat, and went outside. Andthere in the clouds, perfect as life, I seen a posse uh men gallopingup from the South. Down South, " he explained sadly, "sleeps myvictim--a white-headed, innocent old man. That posse is sure headedfor me, Mr. Perkins. "

"Still, it was only clouds. "

"Wait till I tell yuh, " persisted Weary, stubbornly refusing comfort. "When I got up this morning I put my boots on the wrong feet; that's asure sign that your dream'll come true. At breakfast I upset the canuh salt; which is bad luck. Mr. Perkins, I'm a lost man. "

Pink's eyes widened; he looked like a child listening to a story ofgoblins. "If I can help you, Mr. Weary, I will, " he promisedgenerously. 

"Will yuh be my friend? Will yuh let me lean on yuh in my dark hours?"Weary's voice shook with emotion. 

Pink said that he would, and he seemed very sympathetic and anxious forWeary's safety. Several times during their shift Weary rode around towhere Pink was sitting uneasily his horse, and spoke feelingly of hiscrime and the black trouble that loomed so closer and told Pink howmuch comfort it was to be able to talk confidentially with a friend. 

When Pink went out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at hisside instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bumon account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn't sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in Cal's place. Pink scented mischief. 

This night the moon shone brightly at intervals, with patches ofsilvery clouds racing before the wind and chasing black splotches ofshadows over the sleeping land. For all that, the cattle lay quiet, and the monotony of circling the herd was often broken by Weary andPink with little talks, as they turned and rode together. 

"Mr. Perkins, fate's a-crowding me close, " said Weary gloomily, when anhour had gone by. "I feel as if--what's that?"

Voices raised in excited talk came faintly and fitfully on the wind. Weary turned his horse, with a glance toward the cattle, and, beckoningPink to follow, rode out to the right. 

"It's the posse!" he hissed. "They'll go to the herd so look for me. Mr. Perkins, the time has come to fly. If only I had a horse thatcould drift!"

Pink thought he caught the meaning. "Is--is mine any good, Mr. Weary?"he quavered. "If he is, you--you can have him. I--I'll stay and--andfool them as--long as I can. "

"Perkins, " said Weary solemnly, "you're sure all right! Let that possethink you're the man they want for half an hour, and I'm safe. I'llnever forget yuh!"

He had not thought of changing horses, but the temptation mastered him. He was riding a little sorrel, Glory by name, that could beat even theHappy Family itself for unexpected deviltry. Yielding to Pink'spersuasions, he changed mounts, clasped Pink's hand affectionately, andsped away just as the posse appeared over a rise, riding furiously. 

Pink, playing his part, started toward them, then wheeled and sped awayin the direction that would lead them off Weary's trail. That is, hesped for ten rods or so. After that he seemed to revolve on an axis, and there was an astonishing number of revolutions to the minute. 

The stirrups were down in the dark somewhere below the farthest reachof Pink's toes--he never once located them. But Pink was not known allover Northern Montana as a "bronco-peeler" for nothing. He surprisedGlory even more than that deceitful bit of horseflesh had surprisedPink. While his quirt swung methodically, he looked often over hisshoulder for the posse, and wondered that it did not appear. 

The posse, however, was at that moment having troubles of its own. Happy Jack, not having a night horse saddled, had borrowed one notremarkable for its sure-footedness. No sooner had they sighted theirquarry than Jack's horse stepped in a hole and went head-long--whichwas bad enough. When he got up he planted a foot hastily on Jack'sdiaphragm and then bolted straight for the peacefully slumberingherd--which was worse. 

With stirrup-straps snapping like pistol-shots, he tore down throughthe dreaming cattle, with none to stop him or say him nay. The herddid not wait for explanations; as the posse afterward said, it quit theearth, while they gathered around the fallen Jack and tried to discoverif it was a doctor or coroner that was needed. 

When Jack came up sputtering sand and profane words, there was no herd, no horse and no Pink anywhere in that portion of Chouteau County. Weary came back, laughing at the joke and fully expecting to see Pink aprisoner. When he saw how things stood, he said "Mamma mine!" andheaded for camp on a run. The others deployed to search the range fora beef-herd, strayed, and with no tag for its prompt delivery. 

Weary crept into the bed-tent and got Chip by the shoulder. Chip satup, instantly wide-awake. "What's the matter?" he demanded sharply. 

"Chip, we--we've lost Cadwolloper!" Weary's voice was tragic. 

"Hell!" snapped Chip, lying down again. "Don't let that worry yuh. "

"And we've lost the herd, too, " added Weary mildly. 

Chip got up and stayed up, and some of his remarks, Weary afterwardreported, were scandalous. 

There was another scene at sunrise that the Happy Family votedscandalous--and that was when they rode into a little coulee and cameupon the herd, quietly grazing, and Pink holding them, with each blueeye a volcano shooting wrath. 

"Yuh knock-kneed bunch uh locoed sheep-herders!" he greeted spitefully, "if yuh think yuh can saw off on your foolery and hold this herd, I'llgo and get something to eat. When I come to this outfit t' work, Inaturally s'posed yuh was cow-punchers. Yuh ain't. Yuh couldn't holda bunch uh sick lambs inside a high board corral with the gate shut andlocked on the outside. When it comes t' cow-science, you're the limit. Yuh couldn't earn your board on a ten-acre farm in Maine, driving onemilk-cow and a yearling calf t' pasture and back. You're a hot bunchuh rannies--I don't think! Up on Milk River they'd put bells on everydam' one uh yuh t' keep yuh from getting lost going from the mess-houset' the corral and back. And, Mr. Weary, next time yuh give a man ahorse t' fall off from, for the Lord's sake don't put him on a gentleold skate that would be pickings for a two-year-old kid. I thoughtthis here Glory'd give a man something to do, from all the yawping I'veheard done about him. I heard uh him when I was on the Cross L; and Iwill say right now that he's the biggest disappointment I've met upwith in many a long day. He's punk. Come and get him and let me havesomething alive. I'm weary uh trying to delude myself into thinkingthat this red image is a horse. "

The Happy Family, huddled ten paces before him, stared. Pink slid outof the saddle and came forward, smiling, and dimpling. He held out agloved hand to the first man he came to, which was Weary himself. "Areyuh happy to meet Milk River Pink?" he wanted to know. 

The Happy Family, grinning sheepishly, crowded close to shake him bythe hand. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE

Cal Emmett straightened up with his gloved hand pressed tight againstthe small of his back, sighed "Hully Gee!" at the ache of his musclesand went over to the water bucket and poured a quart or so of cool, spring water down his parched throat. The sun blazed like a furnacewith the blower on, though it was well over towards the west; the airwas full of smoke, dust and strong animal odors, and the throatybawling of many cattle close-held. For it was nearing the end ofspring round-up, and many calves were learning, with great physicaland mental distress, the feel of a hot iron properly applied. Calshouted to the horse-wrangler that the well had gone dry--meaning thebucket--and went back to work. 

"I betche we won't git through in time for no picnic, " predictedHappy Jack gloomily, getting the proper hold on the hind leg of athree-months-old calf. "They's three hundred to decorate yet, ifthey's one; and it'll rain--"

"You're batty, " Cal interrupted. "Uh course we'll get through--we've_got_ to; what d'yuh suppose we've been tearing the bone out for thelast three weeks for?"

Chip, with a foot braced against the calf's shoulder, ran a U on itsribs with artistic precision. Chip's Flying U's were the pride ofthe whole outfit; the Happy Family was willing at any time, to betall you dare that Chip's brands never varied a quarter-inch inheight, width or position. The Old Man and Shorty had been contentto use a stamp, as prescribed by law; but Chip Bennett scorned somechanical a device and went on imperturbably defying the law withhis running iron--and the Happy Family gloated over his independenceand declared that they would sure deal a bunch of misery to the manthat reported him. His Flying U's were better than a stamp, anyhow, they said, and it was a treat to watch the way he slid them on, justwhere they'd do the most good. 

"I'm going home, after supper, " he said, giving just the proper widthto the last curve of the two-hundredth U he had made that afternoon. "I promised Dell I'd try and get home to-night, and drive over to thepicnic early to-morrow. She's head push on the grub-pile, I believe, and wants to make sure there's enough to go around. There's abouttwo hundred and fifty calves left. If you can't finish up to-night, it'll be your funeral. "

"Well, I betche it'll rain before we git through--it always does, when you don't want it to, " gloomed Happy, seizing another calf. 

"If it does, " called Weary, who was branding--with a stamp--not faraway, "if it does, Happy, we'll pack the bossies into the cook-tentand make Patsy heat the irons in the stove. Don't yuh cry, littleboy--we'll sure manage _somehow_. "

"Aw yes--_you_ wouldn't see nothing to worry about, not if yuh wasbeing paid for it. They's a storm coming--any fool can see that; andshe's sure going to come down in large chunks. We ain't got thisamatoor hell for nothing! Yuh won't want to do no branding in thecook-tent, nor no place else. I betche--"

"Please, " spoke up Pink, coiling afresh the rope thrown off a calf hehad just dragged up to Cal and Happy Jack, "won't somebody lend me ahandkerchief? I want to gag Happy; he's working his hoodoo on usagain. "

Happy Jack leered up at him, consciously immune--for there was notime for strife of a physical nature, and Happy knew it. Everyonewas working his fastest. 

"Hoodoo nothing! I guess maybe yuh can't see that bank uhthunderheads. I guess your sight's poor, straining your eyes towardsthe Fourth uh July ever since Christmas. If yuh think yuh can comeChristian Science act on a storm, and bluff it down jest by sayin' itain't there, you're away off. I ain't that big a fool; I--" hetrailed into profane words, for the calf he was at that minuteholding showed a strong inclination to plant a foot in Happy'sstomach. 

Cal Emmett glanced over his shoulder, grunted a comprehensiverefutation of Happy Jack's fears and turned his whole attention towork. The branding proceeded steadily, with the hurry of skill thatmakes each motion count something done; for though not a man of themexcept Happy Jack would have admitted it, the Happy Family wasanxious. With two hundred and fifty calves to be branded in the openbefore night, on the third day of July; with a blistering sun sappingthe strength of them and a storm creeping blackly out of thesouthwest; with a picnic tugging their desires and twenty-five longprairie miles between them and the place appointed, one can scarcewonder that even Pink and Weary--born optimists, both of them--eyedthe west anxiously when they thought no one observed them. Undersuch circumstances, Happy Jack's pessimism came near beingunbearable; what the Happy Family needed most was encouragement. 

The smoke hung thicker in the parched air and stung more sharplytheir bloodshot, aching eyeballs. The dust settled smotheringly uponthem, filled nostrils and lungs and roughened their patience intopeevishness. A calf bolted from the herd, and a "hold-up" manpursued it vindictively, swearing by several things that he wouldbreak its blamed neck--only his wording was more vehement. A cindergot in Slim's eye and one would think, from his language, that such athing was absolutely beyond the limit of man's endurance, and a blotupon civilization. Even Weary, the sweet-tempered, grew irritableand heaped maledictions on the head of the horse-wrangler because hewas slow about bringing a fresh supply of water. Taken altogether, the Happy Family was not in its sunniest mood. 

When Patsy shouted that supper was ready, they left their workreluctantly and tarried just long enough to swallow what food wasnearest. For the branding was not yet finished, and the stormthreatened more malignantly. 

Chip saddled Silver, his own particular "drifter, " eyed the cloudsappraisingly and swung into the saddle for a fifteen-mile ride to thehome ranch and his wife, the Little Doctor. "You can make it, allright, if yuh half try, " he encouraged. "It isn't going to cut loosebefore dark, if I know the signs. Better put your jaw in a sling, Happy--you're liable to step on it. Cheer up! to-morrow's the Day weCelebrate in letters a foot high. Come early and stay late, andbring your appetites along. Fare-you-well, my brothers. " He rodeaway in the long lope that eats up the miles with an ease astonishingto alien eyes, and the Happy Family rolled a cigarette apiece andwent back to work rather more cheerful than they had been. 

Pleasure, the pleasure of wearing good clothes, dancinglight-footedly to good music and saying nice things that bring smilesto the faces of girls in frilly dresses and with brown, wind-tannedfaces and eyes ashine, comes not often to the veterans of the"Sagebrush Cavalry. " They were wont to count the weeks and the days, and at last the hours until such pleasure should come to them. Theydid not grudge the long circles, short sleeps and sweltering hours atthe branding, which made such pleasures possible--only so they werenot, at the last, cheated of their reward. 

Every man of them--save Pink--had secret thoughts of some particulargirl. And more than one girl, no doubt, would be watching, at thepicnic, for a certain lot of white hats and sun-browned faces tododge into sight over a hill, and looking for one face among thegroup; would be listening for a certain well-known, well-belovedchorus of shouts borne faintly from a distance--the clear-toned, care-naught whooping that heralded the coming of Jim Whitmore's HappyFamily. 

To-morrow they would be simply a crowd of clean-hearted, clean-limbedcowboys, with eyes sunny and untroubled as a child's, and laughs thatwere good to hear and whispered words that were sweet to dream overuntil the next meeting. (If you ask the girls of the range-land, andbelieve their verdict, cowboys make the very best and most piquant oflovers. ) Tomorrow there would be no hint of the long hours in thesaddle, or the aching muscles and the tired, smarting eyes. Theymight, if pressed, own that they burnt the earth getting there, butthe details of that particular conflagration would be far, far behindthem--forgotten; no one could guess, to-morrow, that they were everhot or thirsty or tired, or worried over a threatening storm, or thatthey ever swore at one another ill-naturedly from the sheer strain ofanxiety and muscle-ache. 

By sundown, so great was their industry, the last calf had scampered, blatting resentment, to seek his mother in the herd. Slim kicked theembers of the branding fire apart and emptied the water-bucket overthem with a satisfied grunt. 

"By golly, I ain't mourning because brandin's about over, " he said. "I'm plumb tired uh the sight uh them blasted calves. "

"And we got through ahead of the storm, " Weary sweetly reminded HappyJack. 

Happy looked moodily up at the muttering black mass nearly over theirheads and said nothing; Happy never did have anything to say when hisgloomy predictions were brought to naught. 

"I'm going to get on the bed-ground without any red tape or argument, if yuh ask _me_, " volunteered Cal Emmett, rubbing his aching arms. "We want to get an early start in the morning. "

"Meaning sun-up, I suppose, " fleered Pink, who had no especial, feminine reason for looking forward with longing. With Pink, it waspleasure in the aggregate that lured him; there would be horse racingafter dinner, and a dance in the school-house at night, and a seasonof general hilarity over a collection of rockets and Roman candles. These things appealed more directly to the heart of Pink than did thefeminine element; for he had yet to see the girl who could disturbthe normal serenity of his mind or fill his dreams with visionsbeautiful. Also, there was one thing about these girls that did notplease him; they were prone to regard him as a sweet, amusing littleboy whose dimples they might kiss with perfect composure (though ofcourse they never did). They seemed to be forever taking the "Isn'the cunning!" attitude, and refused to regard him seriously, or treathim with the respect they accorded to the rest of the Happy Family. Weary's schoolma'am had offended him deeply, at a dance the winterbefore, by patting him indulgently on the shoulder and telling him to"Run along and find you a partner. " Such things rankled, and he knewthat the girls knew it, and that it amused them very much. Worse, the Happy Family knew it, and it amused them even more than it amusedthe girls. For this reason Pink would much prefer to sleepluxuriously late and ride over to the picnic barely in time fordinner and the races afterward. He did not want too long a time withthe girls. 

"Sure, we'll start at sun-up, " Cal answered gravely. "We've got tobe there by ten o'clock, so as to help the girls cut the cake andround up all the ham sandwiches; haven't we, Weary?"

"I should smile to remark, " Weary assented emphatically. "Sun-upsure sees us on the road, Cadwolloper--and yuh want to be sure andwear that new pink silk handkerchief, that matches the roses in yourcheeks so nice. My schoolma'am's got a friend visiting her, andshe's been hearing a lot about yuh. She's plumb wild to meet yuh. Chip drawed your picture and I sent it over in my last letter, andthe little friend has gone plumb batty over your dimples (Chip drawedyuh with a sweet smile drifting, like a rose-leaf with the dew on it, across your countenance, and your hat pushed back so the curls wouldshow) and it sure done the business for Little Friend. Schoolma'amsays she's a good-looker, herself, and that Joe Meeker has took toparting his hair on the dead center and wearing a four-inch, celluloid collar week days. But he's all to the bad--she just looksat your picture and smiles sad and longing. "

"I hate to see a man impose on friendship, " murmured Pink. "I don'twant to spoil your face till after the Fourth, though that ain'tsaying yuh don't deserve it. But I will say this: You're a liar--youain't had a letter for more than six weeks. "

"Got anything yuh want to bet on that?" Weary reached challenginglytoward an inner pocket of his vest. 

"Nit. I don't give a darn, anyway yuh look at it. I'm going tobed. " Pink unrolled his "sooguns" in their accustomed corner next toWeary's bed and went straightway to sleep. 

Weary thumped his own battered pillow into some semblance ofplumpness and gazed with suspicion at the thick fringe of curledlashes lying softly upon Pink's cheeks. 

"If I was a girl, " he said pensively to the others, "I'd sure be inlove with Cadwolloper myself. He don't amount to nothing, but hisface 'd cause me to lose my appetite and pine away like a wiltedvi'let. It's straight, about that girl being stuck on his picture;I'd gamble she's counting the hours on her fingers, right now, tillhe'll stand before her. Schoolma'am says it'll be a plumb sin if hedon't act pretty about it and let her love him. " He eyed Pinksharply from the tail of his eye, but not a lash quivered; the breathcame evenly and softly between Pink's half-closed lips--and if heheard there was nothing to betray the fact. 

Weary sighed and tried again. "And that ain't the worst of it, either. Mame Beckman has got an attack; she told Schoolma'am shecould die for Pink and never bat an eye. She said she never knowedwhat true love was till she seen him. She says he looks just likethe cherubs--all but the wings--that she's been working in red threadon some pillow shams. She was making 'em for her sister a present, but she can't give 'em up, now; she calls all the cherubs 'Pink, ' andkisses 'em night and morning, regular. " He paused and watchedanxiously Pink's untroubled face. "I tell yuh, boys, it's awful tohave the fatal gift uh beauty, like Cadwolloper's got. He means allright, but he sure trifles a lot with girls' affections--which ain'tright. Mamma! don't he look sweet, laying there so innocent? I'msure sorry for Mame, though. " He eyed him sidelong. But Pink sleptpeacefully on, except that, after a half minute, he stirred slightlyand muttered something about "drive that darned cow back. " ThenWeary gave up in despair and went to sleep. When the tent becamesilent, save for the heavy breathing of tired men. Pink's longlashes lifted a bit, and he grinned maliciously up at the cloth roof. 

For obvious reasons he was the only one of the lot who heard with nomisgivings the vicious swoop of the storm; so long as the tent-pegsheld he didn't care how hard it rained. But the others who woke tothe roar of wind and the crash of thunder and to the swish and beatof much falling water, turned uneasily in their beds and hoped thatit would not last long. To be late in starting for that particularscene of merry-making which had held their desires for so long wouldbe a calamity they could not reflect upon calmly. 

At three o'clock Pink, from long habit, opened his eyes to the dullgray of early morning. The air in the tent was clammy and chill andfilled with the audible breathing of a dozen sleeping men; overheadthe canvas was dull yellow and sodden with the steady drip, drip, drop of rain. There would be no starting out at sunrise--and perhapsthere would be no starting at all, he thought with lazydisappointment, and turned on his side for another nap. His glancefell upon Weary's up-turned, slumber-blank face, and his memoryreverted revengefully to the baiting of the night before. He wouldfix Weary for that, he told himself spitefully; mentally measured aperpendicular line from Weary's face to the roof, reached up and drewhis finger firmly down along the canvas for a good ten inches--and ifyou don't know why, try it yourself some time in a tent with the rainpouring down upon the land. As if that were not enough he repeatedthe operation again and again, each time in a fresh place, until therain came through beautifully all over the bed of Weary. Then he laydown, cuddled the blankets up to his ears, closed his eyes andcomposed himself to sleep, at peace with his conscience and theworld--and it did not disturb his self-satisfaction when Wearypresently awoke, moved sleepily away from one drip and directly underanother, shifted again, swore a little in an undertone and at lastwas forced to take refuge under his tarpaulin. After that Pink wentblissfully off to dreamland. 

At four o'clock it still rained dismally--and the Happy Family, waking unhappily one after another, remembered that this was theFourth that they had worked and waited for so long, "swore a prayeror two and slept again. " At six the sun was shining, and Jack Bates, first realizing the blessed fact, called the others jubilantly. 

Weary sat up and observed darkly that he wished he knew whatson-of-a-gun got the tent to leaking over him, and eyed Pinksuspiciously; but Pink only knuckled his eyes like a sleepy baby andasked if it rained in the night, and said he had been dead to theworld. Happy Jack came blundering under the ban by asking Weary toremember that he _told_ him it would rain. As he slept beside Weary, his guilt was certain and his punishment, Weary promised himself, would be sure. 

Then they went out and faced the clean-washed prairie land, filledtheir lungs to the bottom with sweet, wine-like air, and asked oneanother why in the dickens the night-hawk wasn't on hand with thecavvy, so they could get ready to start. 

At nine o'clock, had you wandered that way, you would have seen theHappy Family--a clean-shaven, holiday-garbed, resplendent HappyFamily--roosting disconsolately wherever was a place clean enough tosit, looking wistfully away to the skyline. 

They should, by now, have been at the picnic, and every man of themrealized the fact keenly. They were ready, but they were afoot; thenighthawk had not put in an appearance with the saddle bunch, andthere was not a horse in camp that they might go in search of him. With no herd to hold, they had not deemed it necessary to keep up anyhorses, and they were bewailing the fact that they had not forseensuch an emergency--though Happy Jack did assert that he had all alongexpected it. 

"By golly, I'll strike out afoot and hunt him up, if he don't heavein sight mighty suddent, " threatened Slim passionately, after a long, dismal silence. "By golly, he'll wisht I hadn't, too. "

Cal looked up from studying pensively his patent leathers. "Go on, Slim, and round him up. This is sure getting hilarious--a fine wayto spend the Fourth!"

"Maybe that festive bunch that held up the Lewistown Bank, day beforeyesterday, came along and laid the hawk away on the hillside so theycould help themselves to fresh horses, " hazarded Jack Bates, in thehope that Happy Jack would seize the opening to prophesy a newdisaster. 

"I betche that's what's happened, all right, " said Happy, rising tothe bait. "I betche yuh won't see no horses t'day--ner nonight-hawk, neither. "

The Happy Family looked at one another and grinned. 

"Who'll stir the lemonade and help pass the sandwiches?" asked Pink, sadly. "Who'll push, when the school-ma'am wants to swing? Or LenAdams? or--"

"Oh, saw off!" Weary implored. "We can think up troubles enough, Cadwolloper, without any help from you. "

"Well, I guess your troubles are about over, cully--I can hear 'emcoming. " Pink picked up his rope and started for the horse corral asthe belated cavvy came jingling around the nose of the nearest hill. The Happy Family brightened perceptibly; after all, they could be atthe picnic by noon--if they hurried. Their thoughts flew to thecrowd--and to the girls in frilly dresses--under the pine trees in acertain canyon just where the Bear Paws reach lazily out to shakehands with the prairie land. 

Up on the high level, with the sun hot against their right cheeks anda lazy breeze flipping neckerchief ends against their smiling lips, the world seemed very good, and a jolly place to live in, and therewas no such thing as trouble anywhere. Even Happy Jack was betrayedinto expecting much pleasure and no misfortune, and whistled while herode. 

Five miles slipped behind them easily--so easily that their horsesperked ears and tugged hard against the bits. The next five wererougher, for they had left the trail and struck out across a roughbit of barrenness on a short cut to the ford in Sheep Coulee. Allthe little gullies and washouts were swept clean and smooth with thestorm, and the grass roots showed white where the soil had washedaway. They hoped the rain had not reached to the mountains andspoiled the picnic grounds, and wondered what time the girls wouldhave dinner ready. 

So they rode down the steep trail into Sheep Coulee, galloped aquarter mile and stopped, amazed, at the ford. The creek was runningbank full; more, it was churning along like a mill-race, yellow withthe clay it carried and necked with great patches of dirty foam. 

"I guess here's where we don't cross, " said Weary, whistling milddismay. 

"Now, wouldn't that jostle yuh?" asked Pink, of no one in particular. 

"By golly, the lemonade 'll be cold, and so'll the san'wiches, beforewe git there, " put in Slim, with one of his sporadic efforts to befunny. "We got t' go back. "

"Back nothing, " chorused five outraged voices. "We'll hunt someother crossing. "

"Down the creek a piece--yuh mind where that old sandbar runs halfacross? We'll try that. " Weary's tone was hopeful, and they turnedand followed him. 

Half a mile along the raging little creek they galloped, with noplace where they dared to cross. Then, loping around awillow-fringed bend, Weary and Pink, who were ahead, drew theirhorses back upon their haunches. They had all but run over a huddleof humanity lying in the fringe of weeds and tall grasses that grewnext the willows. 

"What in thunder--" began Cal, pulling up. They slid off theirhorses and bent curiously over the figure. Weary turned itinvestigatively by a shoulder. The figure stirred, and groaned. "It's somebody hurt; take a hand here, and help carry him out wherethe sun shines. He's wet to the skin, " commanded Weary sharply. 

When they lifted him he opened his eyes and looked at them; whilethey carried him tenderly out from the wet tangle and into the warmthof the sun, he set his teeth against the groans that would come. They stood around him uneasily and looked down at him. He was young, like themselves, and he was a stranger; also, he was dressed like acowboy, in chaps, high-heeled boots and silver-mounted spurs. Thechaps were sodden and heavy with water, as was the rest of hisclothing. 

"He must uh laid out in all that storm, last night, " observed Cal, ina subdued voice. "He--"

"Somebody better ride back and have the bed wagon brought up, so wecan haul him to a doctor, " suggested Pink. "He's hurt. "

The stranger's eyes swept the faces of the Happy Family anxiously. "Not on your life, " he protested weakly. "I don't want anydoctor--in mine, thank yuh. I--it's no use, anyhow. "

"The hell it ain't!" Pink was drawing off his coat to make a pillow. "You're hurt, somehow, ain't yuh?"

"I'm--dying, " the other said, laconically. "So yuh needn't go to anytrouble, on my account. From the looks--yuh was headed forsome--blowout. Go on, and let me be. "

The Happy Family looked at one another incredulously; they were solikely to ride on!

"I guess you don't savvy this bunch, old-timer, " said Weary calmly, speaking for the six. "We're going to do what we can. If yuh don'tmind telling us where yuh got hurt--"

The lips of the other curled bitterly. "I was shot, " he saiddistinctly, "by the sheriff and his bunch. But I got away. Lastnight I tried to cross the creek, and my horse went on down. It wasstorming--fierce. I got out, somehow, and crawled into the weeds. Laying out in the rain--didn't help me none. It's--all off. "

"There ought to be _something_--" began Jack Bates helplessly. 

"There is. If yuh'll just put me away--afterwards--and saynothing, --I'll be--mighty grateful. " He was looking at them sharply, as if a great deal depended upon their answer. 

The Happy Family was dazed. The very suddenness of this unlooked-forglimpse into the somber eyes of Tragedy was unnerving. The world hadseemed such a jolly place; ten minutes ago--five minutes, even, theirgreatest fear had been getting to the picnic too late for dinner. And here was a man at their feet, calmly telling them that he wasabout to die, and asking only a hurried burial and a silence after. Happy Jack swallowed painfully and shifted his feet in the grass. 

"Of course, if yuh'd feel better handing me over--"

"That'll be about enough on that subject, " Pink interrupted withdecision. "Just because yuh happen to be down and out--for the timebeing--is no reason why yuh should insult folks. You can take it forgranted we'll do what we can for yuh; the question is, _what_? Yuhneedn' go talking about cashing in--they's no sense in it. You'll beall right. --"

"Huh. You wait and see. " The fellow's mouth set grimly upon anothergroan. "If you was shot through, and stuck to the saddle--androde--and then got pummeled--by a creek at flood, and if yuh laid outin the rain--all night-- Hell, boys! Yuh know I'm about all in. I'm hard to kill, or I'd have been--dead-- What I want to know--willyuh do what I--said? Will yuh bury me--right here--and keepit--quiet?"

The Happy Family moved uncomfortably. They hated to see him lyingthat way, and talking in short, jerky sentences, and looking soghastly, and yet so cool--as if dying were quite an everyday affair. 

"I don't see why yuh ask us to do it, " spoke Cal Emmet bluntly. "What we want to do is get yuh to help. The chances is you couldbe--cured. We--"

"Look here. " The fellow raised himself painfully to an elbow, andfell back again. "I've got folks--and they don't know--about thisscrape. They're square--and stand at the top--And they don't--itwould just about-- For God sake, boys! Can't yuh see--how I feel?Nobody knows--about this. The sheriff didn't know--they came up onme in the dusk--and I fought. I wouldn't be taken--And it's my firstbad break--because I got in with a bad--lot. They'll knowsomething--happened, when they find--my horse. But they'llthink--it's just drowning, if they don't find--me with a bullet ortwo-- Can't yuh _see_?"

The Happy Family looked away across the coulee, and there were eyesthat saw little of the yellow sunlight lying soft on the greenhillside beyond. The world was not a good place; it was a grim, pitiless place, and--a man was dying, at their very feet. 

"But what about the rest oh the bunch?" croaked Happy Jack, true tohis misanthropic nature, but exceeding husky as to voice. "They'lllikely tell--"

The dying man shook his head eagerly. "They won't; they'reboth--dead. One was killed--last night. The other when we firsttried--to make a getaway. It--it's up to you, boys. "

Pink swallowed twice, and knelt beside him; the others remainedstanding, grouped like mourners around an open grave. 

"Yuh needn't worry about us, " Pink said softly, "You can count on us, old boy. If you're dead sure a doctor--"

"Drop it!" the other broke in harshly. "I don't want to live. Andif I did, I couldn't. I ain't guessing--I know. "

They said little, after that. The wounded man seemed apatheticallywaiting for the end, and not inclined to further speech. Since theyhad tacitly promised to do as he wished, he lay with eyes halfclosed, watching idly the clouds drifting across to the skyline, hardly moving. 

The Happy Family sat listlessly around on convenient rocks, andwatched the clouds also, and the yellow patches of foam racing downthe muddy creek. Very quiet they were--so quiet that little, brownbirds hopped close, and sang from swaying weeds almost within reachof them. The Happy Family listened dully to the songs, and waited. They did not even think to make a cigarette. 

The sun climbed higher and shone hotly down upon them. The dying manblinked at the glare, and Happy Jack took off his hat and tilted itover the face of the other, and asked him if he wouldn't like to bemoved into the shade. 

"No matter--I'll be in the shade--soon enough, " he returned quietly, and something gripped their throats to aching. His voice, theyobserved, was weaker than it had been. 

Weary took a long breath, and moved closer. "I wish you'd let us gethelp, " he said, wistfully. It all seemed so horribly brutal, theirsitting around him like that, waiting passively for him to die. 

"I know--yuh hate it. But it's--all yuh can do. It's all I want. "He took his eyes from the drifting, white clouds, and looked fromface to face. "You're the whitest bunch--I'd like to know--who yuhare. Maybe I can put in--a good word for yuh--on the newrange--where I'm going. I'd sure like to do--something--"

"Then for the Lord's sake, don't say such things!" cried Pink, shakily. "You'll have us--so damn broke up--"

"All right--I won't. So long, --boys. See yuh later--"

"Mamma!" whispered Weary, and got up hastily and walked away. Slimfollowed him a few paces, then turned resolutely and went back. Itseemed cowardly to leave the rest to bear it--and somebody had to. They were breathing quickly, and they were staring across the couleewith eyes that saw nothing; their lips were shut very tightlytogether. Weary came back and stood with his back turned. Pinkmoved a bit, glanced furtively at the long, quiet figure beside him, and dropped his face into his gloved hands. 

Glory threw up his head, glanced across the coulee at a band of rangehorses trooping down a gully to drink at the river, and whinniedshrilly. The Happy Family started and awoke to the stern necessitiesof life. They stood up, and walked a little way from the spot, avoiding one another's eyes. 

"Somebody'll have to go back to camp, " said Cal Emmett, in the hushedtone that death ever compels from the living. "We've got to have aspade--"

"It better be the handiest liar, then, " Jack Bates put in hastily. "If that old loose-tongued Patsy ever gets next--"

"Weary better go--and Pink. They're the best liars in the bunch, "said Cal, trying unsuccessfully to get back his everyday manner. 

Pink and Weary went over and took the dragging bridle-reins of theirmounts, caught a stirrup and swung up into the saddles silently. 

"And say!" Happy Jack called softly, as they were going down theslope. "Yuh better bring--a blanket. "

Weary nodded, and they rode away, their horses stepping softly in thethick grasses. When they were passed quite out of the presence ofthe dead, they spurred their horses into a gallop. 

The sun marked mid-afternoon when they returned, and the four who hadwaited drew long breaths of relief at sight of them. 

"We told Patsy we'd run onto a--den--"

"Oh, shut up, can't yuh?" Jack Bates interrupted shortly. "Yuh'llhave plenty uh time to tell us afterwards. "

"We've got a place picked out, " said Cal, and led them a littledistance up the slope, to a level spot in the shadow of a huge, graybowlder. "That's his headstone, " he said, soberly. "The poor devilwon't be cheated out uh that, if we _can't_ mark it with his name. It'll last as long as he'll need it. "

Only in the West, perhaps, may one find a funeral like that. Nominister stood at the head of the grave and read, "Dust to dust" andall the heartbreaking rest of it. There was no singing but from ameadowlark that perched on a nearby rock and rippled his brief songwhen, with their ropes, they lowered the blanket wrapped form. Theystood, with bare heads bowed, while the meadow lark sang. When hehad flown, Pink, looking a choir-boy in disguise, repeated softly andincorrectly the Lord's prayer. 

The Happy Family did not feel that there was any incongruity in whatthey did. When Pink, gulping a little over the unfamiliar words, said:

"Thine be power and glory--Amen;" five clear, youthful voices addedthe Amen quite simply. Then they filled the grave and stood silent aminute before they went down to where their horse stood waitingpatiently, with now and then a curious glance up the hill to wheretheir masters grouped. 

The Happy Family mounted and without a backward glance rode soberlyaway; and the trail they took led, not to the picnic, but to camp. 

THE REVELER

Happy Jack, coming from Dry Lake where he had been sent for the mail, rode up to the Flying U camp just at dinner time and dismountedgloomily and in silence. His horse looked fagged--which was unusual inHappy's mounts unless there was urgent need of haste or he was out withthe rest of the Family and constrained to adopt their pace, which wasrapid. Happy, when riding alone, loved best to hump forward over thehorn and jog along slowly, half asleep. 

"Something's hurting Happy, " was Cal Emmett's verdict when he saw thecondition of the horse. 

"He's got a burden on his mind as big as a haystack, " grinned JackBates. "Watch the way his jaw hangs down, will yuh? Bet yuhsomebody's dead. "

"Most likely it's something he thinks is _going_ to happen, " said Pink. "Happy always makes me think of a play I seen when I was back home; itstarts out with a melancholy cuss coming out and giving a sigh thatnear lifts him off his feet, and he says: 'In _soo-ooth_ I know not_why_ I am so sa-ad. ' That's Happy all over. "

The Happy Family giggled and went on with their dinner, for Happy Jackwas too close for further comments not intended for his ears. Theywaited demurely, but in secret mirth, for him to unburden his mind. They knew that they would not have long to wait; Happy, bird of illomen that he was, enjoyed much the telling of bad news. 

"Weary's in town, " he announced heavily, coming over and gettinghimself a plate and cup. 

The Happy Family were secretly a bit disappointed; this promised, afterall, to be tame. 

"Did he bring the horses?" asked Chip, glancing up over the brim of hiscup. 

"I dunno, " Happy responded from the stove, where he was trying how muchof everything he could possibly pile upon his plate without spillinganything. "I didn't see no horses--but the one he was ridin'. "

Weary had been sent, two weeks ago, to the upper Marias country afterthree saddle horses that had strayed from the home range, and which hadbeen seen near Shelby. It was quite time for him to return, if heexpected to catch the Flying U wagon before it pulled out on the beefroundup. That he should be in town and not ride out with Happy Jackwas a bit strange. 

"Why don't yuh throw it out uh yuh, yuh big, long-jawed croaker?"demanded Pink in a voice queerly soft and girlish. It had been a realgrievance to him that he had not been permitted to go with Weary, whowas his particular chum. "What's the matter? Is Weary sick?"

"No, " said Happy Jack deliberately, "I guess he ain't what yuh couldcall _sick_. "

"Why didn't he come out with you, then?" asked Chip, sharply. Happydid get on one's nerves so. 

"Well, I ast him t' come--and he took a shot at me for it. "

There was an instant's dead silence. Then Jack Bates laughed uneasily. 

"Happy, how many horses did yuh ride out to camp?"

Happy Jack had, upon one occasion, looked too long upon the wine--orwhisky, to be more explicit. Afterward, he had insisted that he wasriding two horses home, instead of one. He was not permitted to forgetthat defection. The Happy Family had an unpleasant habit of recallingthe incident whenever Happy Jack made a statement which they feltdisinclined to credit--as this last statement was. 

Happy Jack whirled on the speaker. "Aw, shut up! I never kidnaped nogirl off'n no train, and--"

Jack Bates colored and got belligerently to his feet. That hit him inan exceedingly tender place. 

"Happy, look here, " Chip cut in authoritatively. "What's wrong withWeary? If he took a shot at you, it's a cinch he had some reason forit. "

Weary was even dearer to the heart of Chip than to Pink. 

"Ah--he never! He's takin' shots permisc'us, lemme tell yuh. And heain't troublin' about no _reason_ fer what he's doin'. He's plumboary-eyed--that's what. He's on a limb that beats any I ever seen. He's drunk--drunk as a boiled owl, and he don't give a damn. He's losthis hat, and he's swapped cayuses with somebody--a measly oldbench--and he's shootin' up the town t' beat hell!"

The Happy Family looked at one another dazedly. Weary drunk? _Weary_?It was unbelieveable. Such a thing had never been heard of before inthe history of the Happy Family. Even Chip, who had known Weary beforeeither had known the Flying U, could not remember anything of the sort. The Happy Family were often hilarious; they had even, on certainoccasions, shot up the town; but they had done it as a family and theyhad done it sober. It was an unwritten law among the Flying U boys, that all riotous conduct should occur when they were together and whenthe Family could, as a unit, assume the consequences--if consequencesthere were to be. 

"I guess Happy must a rode the whole blame saddle-bunch home, thistime, " Cal remarked, with stinging sarcasm. 

"Ah, yuh can go and see fer yourselves; yuh don't need t' take _my_word fer nothing" cried Happy Jack, much grieved that they should doubthim. "I hain't had but one drink t'day--and that wasn't nothin' butbeer. It's straight goods: Weary's as full as he can git and top ahorse. He's sure enjoyin' himself, too. Dry Lake is all hisn--and theway he's misusin' the rights uh ownership is plumb scand'l'us. Hemakes me think of a cow on the fight in a forty-foot corral; nobodydast show their noses outside; Dry Lake's holed up in their sullers, till he quits camp. 

"I seen him cut down on the hotel China-cook jest for tryin' t' make asneak out t' the ice-house after some meat fer dinner. He like t' gothim, too. Chink dodged behind the board-pile in the back yard, an'laid down. He was still there when I left town, and the chances issomebody else 'll have t' cook dinner t'day. Weary was so busyclose-herdin' the Chinaman that I got a chanst t' sneak out the backdoor uh Rusty's place, climb on m' horse and take a shoot up around bythe stockyards and pull fer camp. I couldn't git t' the store, so Ididn't bring out no mail. "

The Happy Family drew a long breath. This was getting beyond a joke. 

"Looks t 'me like you fellows 'd come alive and do something about it, "hinted Happy, with his mouth full. "Weary'll shoot somebody, er gitshot, if he ain't took care of mighty quick. "

"Happy, " said Chip bluntly, "I don't grab that yarn. Weary may be intown, and he _may_ be having a little fun with Dry Lake, but he isn'tdrunk. When you try to run a whizzer like that, you can put me down asbeing from Missouri. "

"Same here, " put in Pink, ominously soft as to voice. "Anybody thattries to make me believe Weary's performing that way has sure got hiswork cut out for him. If it was Happy, now--"

"Gee!" cried Jack Bates, laughing as a possible solution came to him. "I'm willing to bet money he was just stringing Happy. I'll bet hedone it deliberate and with malice aforethought, just to _make_ Happysneak out uh town and burn the earth getting here so he could tell itscarey to the rest of us. "

"Yeah, that's about the size of it, " assented Cal. 

The Family felt that they had a new one on Happy Jack, and showed it inthe smiles they sent toward him. 

"By golly, yes!" broke out Slim. "Weary's been layin' for Happy for along while to pay off making the tent leak on him, that night; he'ssure played a good one, this time!"

Happy carefully balanced his plate on the wagon-tongue near thedoubletrees, and stood glaring down upon his tormentors. 

"Aw, look here!" he began, with his voice very near to tears. Then hegulped and took a more warlike tone. "I don't set m'self up t' be aknow-it-all--but I guess I can tell when a man's full uh booze. And Iain't claimin' t' be no Jiujitsu sharp" (with a meaning glance at Pink)"and I know the chances I'm takin' when I stand up agin the bunch--butI'm ready, here and now, t' fight any damn man that says I'm a liar, erthat Weary was jest throwin' a load into me. Two or three uh yuh havelicked me mor'n once--but that's all right. I'm willing t' back upanything I've said, and yuh can wade right in a soon as you're a mindto. 

"I don't back down a darn inch. Weary's in Dry Lake. He _is_ drunk. And he _is_ shootin' up the town. If yuh don't want t' believe it, Iguess they's no law t' make yuh--but if yuh got any sense, and are anyfriends uh Weary's, yuh'll mosey in and fetch him out here if yuh havet' bring him the way he brung ole Dock that time Patsy took cramps. Goon in and see fer yourselves, darn yuh! But don't go shootin' off yourfaces to me till yuh got a license to. "

This, if unassuring, was convincing. The Happy Family stopped smiling, and looked at one another uncertainly. 

"I guess two or three of you better ride in and see what there is toit, " announced Chip, dryly. "If Happy is romancing--" His look waseloquent. 

But Happy Jack, though he stood a good deal in awe of Chip and hissarcasm, never flinched. He looked him straight in the eye andmaintained the calm of conscious innocence. 

"I'll go, " said Pink, getting up and throwing his plate and cup intothe dishpan. "Mind yuh, I don't believe a word of it; Happy, if thisis just a sell, so help me Josephine, you'll learn some brand newJiujitsu right away quick. "

"I'll go along too, " Happy boldly retorted, "so if yuh want anything uh_me_, after you've saw Weary, yuh won't need t' wait till yuh strikecamp t' git it. Weary loadin' me, was he? Yuh'll find out, all uhyuh, that it's _him_ that's loaded. "

They caught fresh horses and started--Cal, Pink, Jack Bates and HappyJack. And Happy stood their jeers throughout the ten-mile ride with anequanimity that was new to them. For the most part he rode in silence, and grinned knowingly when they laughed too loudly at the joke Wearywas playing. 

"All right--maybe he is, " he flung back, once. "But he sure looks thepart well enough t' keep all Dry Lake indoors--and I never knowed Wearyt' terrorize a hull town before. And where'd he git that horse? andwhere's Glory at? and why ain't he comin' on t' camp t' help you chumpsgiggle? Ain't he had plenty uh time t' foller me out and enjoy hislittle joke? And another thing, he was hard at it when I struck town. Now, where'd yuh get off at?"

To this argument they offered several explanations--at all of whichHappy grunted in great disdain. 

They clattered nonchalantly into Dry Lake, still unconvinced and stilljeering at Happy Jack. The town was very quiet, even for Dry Lake. Asthey rounded the blacksmith shop, from where they could see the wholelength of the one street which the place boasted, a yell, shrill, exultant, familiar, greeted them. A long-legged figure they knew welldashed down the street to them, a waving six-shooter in one hand, thereins held aloft in the other. His horse gave evidence of hard usage, and it was a horse none of them had ever seen before. 

"It's him, all right, " Jack Bates admitted reluctantly. 

"_Yip! Cowboys in town_!" rang the slogan of the range land. "Comeon and--_wake 'em up_! _OO-oop-ee_!" He pulled up so suddenly thathis horse almost sat down in the dust, and reined in beside Pink. 

They eyed him in amaze, and avoided meeting one another's eyes. Truly, he was a strange-looking Weary. His head was bare and disheveled, hiseyes bloodshot and glaring, his cheeks flushed hotly. Hisneck-kerchief covered his chest like a bib and he wore no coat; oneshirtsleeve was rent from shoulder to cuff, telling eloquently thatviolent hands had sought to lay hold on him. His long legs, clad inAngora chaps, swung limp to the stirrup. By all these signs andtokens, they knew that he was drunk---joyously, unequivocally, vociferously drunk!

Joe Meeker peered cautiously out of the window of Rusty Brown's placewhen they rode up, and Cal Emmett swore aloud at sight of him. JoeMeeker was the most indefatigable male gossip for fifty miles around, and the story of Weary's spree would spread far and fast. Worse, itwould reach first of all the ears of Weary's School-ma'am, who lived atMeeker's. 

Cal started to get down; he wanted to go in and reason with Joe Meeker. At all events, Ruby Satterlee must not hear of Weary's defection. Itwas all right, maybe, for some men to make fools of themselves in thisfashion; some women would look upon it with lenience. But this wasdifferent; Weary was different, and so was Ruby Satterlee. Calmeditated upon just what would the most effectually close the mouth ofJoe Meeker. 

But Weary spied him as his foot touched the ground. "Oh, yuh can'tsneak off like that, old-timer. Yuh stay right outside and help wake'em up!" he shouted hoarsely. 

Cal turned and looked at him keenly; looked also at the erraticmovements of the gun, and reconsidered his decision. Joe Meeker couldwait. 

"Better come on out to camp, Weary, " he said persuasively. "We're allof us going, right away. Yuh can ride out with us. "

Weary had not yet extracted all the joy there was in the situation. Hedid not want to ride out to camp; more, he had no intention of doingso. He stood up in the stirrups and declaimed loudly his views uponthe subject, and his opinion of any man who proposed such a move, andpunctuated his remarks freely with profanity and bullets. 

Under cover of Weary's elocution Pink did a bit of jockeying and gothis horse sidling up against Cal. He leaned carelessly upon thesaddle-horn and fixed his big, innocent eyes upon Weary's flushed face. 

"He's pretty cute, if he is full, " he murmured discreetly to Cal. "Hewon't let his gun get empty--see? Loads after every third shot, regular. We've got to get him so excited he forgets that littleceremony. Once his gun's empty, he's all to the bad--we can take himinto camp. We'll try and rush him out uh town anyway, and shoot as wego. It's our only show--unless we can get him inside and lay him out. "

"Yeah, that's what we'll have to do, " Cal assented guardedly. "He'ssure tearing it off in large chunks, ain't he? I never knew--"

"Here! What you two gazabos making medicine about?" cried Wearysuspiciously. "Break away, there. I won't stand for no side-talks--"

"We're just wondering if we hadn't all better adjourn and havesomething to drink, " said Pink musically, straightening up in thesaddle. "Come on--I'm almighty dry. "

"Same here, " said Jack Bates promptly taking the cue, and threw one legover the cantle. He got no further than that. 

"You stay right up on your old bench!" Weary commanded threateningly. "We're the kings uh the prairie, and we'll drink on our thrones. Thatso-many-kinds-of-bar-slave can pack out the dope to us. It's what he'sthere for. "

That settled Pink's little plan to get him inside where, lined up tothe bar, they might--if they were quick enough--get his gun away fromhim; or, failing that, the warm room and another drink or two would"lay him out" and render him harmless. 

Weary, shoving three cartridges dexterously into the chambers in placeof those just emptied, shouted to Rusty to bring out the "sheepdip. "The four drew together and attempted further consultation, separatedhastily when his eye fell upon them, and waited meekly his furtherpleasure. They knew better than to rouse his anger against them. 

Weary, displeased because Rusty did not immediately respond to hiscall, sent a shot or two through the window by way of hurrying him. 

Whereupon Rusty cautiously opened the door, shoved a tray with bottleand glasses ostentatiously out into the sunlight for a peace offering, and finding that hostilities ceased, came forth in much fear and servedthem. 

They drank solemnly. 

"Take another one, darn yuh, " commanded Weary. 

They drank again, more solemnly. 

The sun beat harshly down upon the deserted street, and upon the bare, tousled, brown head of Weary. The four stared at him uneasily; theyhad never seen him like this before, and it gave him an odd, unfamiliarair that worried them more than they would have cared to own. 

Only Pink refused to lose heart. "Well, come on--let's wake up thesedead ones, " he shouted, drawing his gun and firing into the air. "Getbusy, you sleepers! _Yip_! _Cowboys in town_!" He wheeled and dartedoff down the street, shooting and yelling, and the others, with Wearyin their midst, followed. At the blacksmith shop, Pink, tacitly theleader of the rescuers, would have gone straight on out of town. ButWeary whirled and galloped back, firing merrily into the air. A bitchagrined, Pink wheeled and galloped at his heels, fuming inwardly atthe methodical reloading after every third shot. Cal, on the otherside, glanced across at Pink, shook his head ruefully and shoved moreshells into his smoking gun. 

Back and forth from the store at one end of the street to theblacksmith shop at the other they rode, yelling till their throatsached and shooting till their gun-barrels were hot; and Weary kept pacewith them and out-yelled and out-shot the most energetic, and neveronce forgot the little ceremony of shoving in fresh shells after thethird shot. Drunk, Weary appeared much more cautious than when sober. Pink grew hot and hoarse, and counted the shots, one, two, three, overand over till his brain grew sick. 

On the seventh trip down the street, a sleek, black head appeared foran instant over the top of the board-pile in the hotel yard. A pair offrightened, slant eyes peered out at them. Weary, just about toreload, caught sight of him and gave a whoop of pure joy. 

"Lord, how I do hate a Chink!" he cried, and dropped to the ground thethree shells in his hand that he might fire the two in his gun. 

Pink yelled also. "Nab him, Cal!" and caught his gun arm the instantWeary's last bullet left the barrel. 

Cal leaned and caught Weary round the neck in a close hug. Jack Batesand Happy Jack crowded close, eager to help but finding no place totake hold. 

"Now, you blame fool, come along home and quit disgracing the wholecommunity!" cried Cal, half angrily. "Ain't yuh got any sense at all?"

Weary protested; he swore; he threatened. He was not in the least likehis old, sweet-tempered self. He mourned openly because he had nolonger a gun that he might slay and spare not. He insisted that hewould take much pleasure in killing them all off--especially Pink. Hefelt that Pink was the greatest traitor in the lot, and said that itwould be a special joy to him to see Pink expire slowly and in greatpain. He remarked that they would be sorry, before they were throughwith him, and repeated, many times, the hint that he never forgot afriend or forgave an enemy--and looked darkly at Pink. 

"You're batty, " Pink told him sorrowfully, the while they led him outthrough the lane. "We're the best friends yuh got--only yuh don'tappreciate us. "

Weary glared at him through a tangle of brown hair, and remarkedfurther, in tones that one could hear a mile, upon the subject ofPink's treachery and the particular kind of death he deserved to die. 

Pink shrugged his shoulder and grew sulky; then, old friendship growingstrong within him, he sought to soothe him. 

But Weary absolutely declined to be soothed. Cal, serene in hisfancied favoritism, attempted the impossible, and was greeted withlanguage which no man living had ever before heard from the lips ofWeary the sunny. Jack Bates and Happy Jack, profiting by hisexperience, wisely kept silence. 

For this, the homeward ride was not the companionable gallop it usuallywas. They tried to learn from Weary what he had done with Glory, andwhence came the mud-colored cayuse with the dim, blotched brand, thathe bestrode. They asked also where were the horses he had been sent tobring. 

In return, Weary began viciously to dissect their pedigree and generalmoral characters. 

After that, they gave over trying to question or to reason, and thelast two miles they rode in utter silence. Weary, tiring of venom thatbrought no results, subsided gradually into mutterings, and then intosullen silence, so that, save for his personal appearance, they reachedcamp quite decorously. 

Chip met them at the bed wagon, where they slipped dispiritedly offtheir horses and began to unsaddle--all save Weary; he stared aroundhim, got cautiously to the ground and walked, with that painfullycircumspect stride sometimes affected by the intoxicated, over to thecook-tent. 

"Well, " snapped Chip to the others, "For once in his life, Happy wasright. "

Weary, still planting his feet primly upon the trampled grass, wentsmiling up to the stupefied Patsy. 

"Lord, how I do love a big, fat, shiny Dutch cook!" he murmured, andflung his long arms around him in a hug that caused Patsy to grunt. "How yuh was, already, Dutchy? Got any pie in this man's cow-camp?"

Patsy scowled and drew haughtily away from his embrace; there was onething he would not endure, even from Weary: it was having hisnationality too lightly mentioned. To call him Dutchy was a directinsult, and the Happy Family never did it to his face--unless theprovocation was very great. To call him Dutchy and in the same breathto ask for pie--that, indeed, went far beyond the limits of decency. 

"Py cosh, you not ged any pie, Weary Davidson. Py cosh, I learns younot to call names py sober peoples. You not get no grub whiles you isstoo drunk to be decend mit folks. "

"Hey? Yuh won't feed a man when he's hungry? Yuh darn Dutch--" Wearywent into details in a way that was surprising. 

The Happy Family rushed up and pulled him off Patsy before he had doneany real harm, and held him till the cook had got into the shelter ofhis tent and armed himself with a frying pan. Weary was certainlyoutdoing himself today. The Happy Family resolved into a peacecommittee. 

"Aw, dig up some pie for him, Patsy, " pleaded Cal. "Yuh don't want tomind anything he says while he's like this; yuh know Weary's a goodfriend to yuh when he's sober. Get some strong coffee--that'llstraighten him out. "

"Py cosh, I not feed no drunk fools. I not care if it iss Weary. Hehit mine jaw--"

"Aw, gwan! I guess yuh never get that way yourself, " put in HappyJack, ponderously sarcastic. "I guess yuh never tanked up in roundup, one time, and left me cook chuck fer the hull outfit--and I guess Wearynever rode all night, and had the dickens of a time, tryin' t' get yuha doctor--yuh old heathen. Yuh sure are an ungrateful cuss. "

"Give him some good, hot coffee, Patsy, and anything he wants to eat, "commanded Chip, more sharply than was his habit. "And don't be all dayabout it, either. "

That settled it, of course; Chip, being foreman, was to beobeyed--unless Patsy would rather roll his blankets and hunt a new job. He took to muttering weird German sentences the while he brought outtwo pies and poured black coffee into a cup. The reveler drank thecoffee--three cups of it--ate a whole blueberry pie, and was consoled. He even wanted to embrace Patsy again, but was restrained by theothers. After that he went over and laid down in the shade of thebed-wagon, and straightway began to snore with much energy andenthusiasm. 

Chip watched him a minute and then went and sat down on the shady sideof the bed-tent and began gloomily to roll a cigarette. The rest ofthe Happy Family silently followed his example; for a long while no onesaid a word. 

It certainly was a shock to see Weary like that. Not because it isunusual for a man of the range to get in that condition--for on thecontrary, it is rather commonplace. And the Happy Family had lived thelife too long to judge a man harshly because of an occasionalindiscreet departure from the path virtuous; they knew that the manmight be a good fellow, after all. In the West grows Charity sturdily, with branches quite broad enough to cover certain defections on thepart of such men as Weary Davidson. 

For that, the real shock came in the utter unexpectedness of thething--and from the fact that a man, even though prone to indulge insuch riotous conduct, is supposed to forswear such indulgence when hehas other and more important things to do. Weary had been sent afar ona matter of business; he had ridden Glory, a horse belonging to theFlying U. His arrival without the strays he had been sent after;without even the horse he had ridden away--that was the real disaster. He had broken a trust; he had, apparently, appropriated a horse thatdid not belong to him, which was worse. But the Happy Family wereloyal, to a man. They did not condemn him; they were only waiting forhim to sleep himself into a condition to explain the mystery. 

"Somebody's doped him, " said Pink with decision, after three hours ofshying around the subject. "You'll see; somebody's doped him andlikely took Glory away when they'd got him batty enough not to know thedifference. Yuh mind the queer look in his eyes? And he acts queer. So help me Josephine! I'd sure like to get next to the man that tradedhorses with him. "

The Happy Family breathed deeply; they were all, apparently, thinkingthe same thing. 

"By golly, that's what, " spoke Slim, with decision. "He does act likea man that had been doped. "

"Whisky straight wouldn't make that much difference in a man, " averredJack Bates. "Yuh can't _get_ Weary on the fight, hardly, when he'ssober; and look at the way he was in town--hot to slaughter thatChinaman that wasn't doing a thing to him, and saying how he hatedChinks. Weary don't; he always says, when Patsy don't make enough pieto go round, that if he was running the outfit he'd have a Chink tocook. "

"Aw, look at the way he acted t' Rusty--and he thinks a lot uh Rusty, too, " put in Happy Jack, who felt the importance of discovery and wasin an unusually complacent mood. "And he was going t' hang Pink up bythe heels and--"

Pink turned round and looked at him fixedly, and Happy Jack becamesuddenly interested in his cigarette. 

"Say, he'll sure be sore when he comes to himself, though, " observedCal. "I don't know how he's going to square himself with hisschool-ma'am. Joe Meeker was into Rusty's place while the big settingcomes off; I would uh given him a gentle hint about keeping his faceclosed, only Weary wouldn't let me off my horse. Joe'll sure give ahigh-colored picture uh the performance. "

"Well, if he does, he'll regret it a lot, " prophesied Pink. "Andanyway, something sure got wrong with Weary; do yuh suppose he'd giveup Glory deliberately? Not on your life! Glory comes next to theSchoolma'am in his affections. "

"Wonder where he got that dirt-colored cayuse, anyhow, " mused Cal. 

"I was studying out the brand, a while ago, " Pink answered. "It'sblotched pretty bad, but I made it out. It's the Rocking R--they rangedown along Milk River, next to the reservation. I've never hadanything to do with the outfit, but I'd gamble on the brand, all right. "

"Well, how the deuce would he come by a Rocking R horse? He never gotit around here, anywheres. He must uh got it up on the Marias. "

"Then that must be a good long jag he's had--which I don't believe, "interjected Cal. 

"Somebody, " said Pink meaningly, "ought to have gone along with him;this thing wouldn't uh happened, then. "

"Ye-e-s?" Chip felt that the remark applied to him as a foreman, rather than as one of the Family, and he resented it. "If I'd sentsomebody else with him, the outfit would probably be out two horses, instead of one--and there'd be two men under the bed-wagon with theirhats and coats missing. "

Pink's eyes, under their heavy fringe of curled lashes, turnedominously purple. "With all due respect to you, Mr. Bennett, I'd liketo have you explain--"

A horseman rode quietly up to them from behind a thicket ofchoke-cherry bushes. Pink, catching sight of him first, stopped shortoff and stared. 

"Hello, boys, " greeted the new-comer gaily. "How's everything? Mamma!it's good to get amongst white folks again. "

The Happy Family rose up as one man and stared fixedly; not one of themspoke, or moved. Pink was the first to recover. 

"Well--I'll be--damned!"

"Yuh sure will, Cadwolloper, if yuh don't let down them pretty lashesand quit gawping. What the dickens ails you fellows, anyhow? Is--ismy hat on crooked, or--or anything?"

"Weary, by all that's good!" murmured Chip, dazedly. 

Weary swung a long leg over the back of Glory and came to earth. "Say, " he began in the sunny, drawly voice that was good to hear, "what's the joke?"

The Happy Family sat down again and looked queerly at one another. 

Happy Jack glanced furtively at a long figure in the grass near by, andthen, unhappily, at Weary. 

"It's him, all right, " he blurted solemnly. "They're both him!"

The Happy Family snickered hysterically. 

Weary took a long step and confronted Happy Jack. "I'm both him, amI?" he repeated mockingly. "Mamma, but you're a lucid cuss!" Heturned and regarded the stunned Family judicially. 

"If there's any of it left, " he hinted sweetly, "I wouldn't mind takinga jolt myself; but from the looks, and the actions, yuh must have gotaway with at least two gallons!"

"Oh, we can give you a jolt, I guess, " Chip retorted dryly. "Just stepthis way. "

Weary, wondering a bit at the tone of him, followed; at his heels camethe perturbed Happy Family. Chip stooped and turned the sleeping oneover on his back; the sleeper opened his eyes and blinked questioninglyup at the huddle of bent faces. 

The astonished, blue eyes of Weary met the quizzical blue eyes of hisother self. He leaned against the wagon wheel. 

"Oh, mamma!" he said, weakly. 

His other self sat up and looked around, felt for his hat, saw that itwas gone, and reached mechanically for his cigarette material. 

"By the Lord! Are punchers so damn scarce in this neck uh the woods, that yuh've got to shanghai a man in order to make a full crew?" hedemanded of the Happy Family, in the voice of Weary--minus the drawl. "I've got a string uh cayuses in that darn stockyards, back intown--and a damn poor town it is!--and I've also got a date with theCircle roundup for tomorrow night. What yuh going to do about it?Speak up, for I'm in a hurry to know. "

The Happy Family looked at one another and said nothing. 

"Say, " began Weary, mildly. "Did yuh say your name was Ira Mallory, and do yuh mind how they used to mix us up in school, when we were bothkids? 'Cause I've got a hunch you're the same irrepressible that hasthe honor to be my cousin. "

"I didn't say it, " retorted his other self, pugnaciously. "But I don'tknow as it's worth while denying it. If you're Will Davidson, shake. What the devil d'yuh want to look so much like me, for? Ain't yuh gotany manners? Yuh always was imitating your betters. " He grinned andgot slowly to his feet. "Boys, I don't know yuh, but I've a hazyrecollection that we had one hell of a time shooting up that littletownerine, back there. I don't go on a limb very often, but when I do, folks are apt to find it out right away. "

The Happy Family laughed. 

"By golly, " said Slim slowly, "that cousin story 's all right--but Ibet yuh you two fellows are twins, at the very least!"

"Guess again, Slim, " cried Weary, already in the clutch of old times. "Run away and play, you kids. Irish and me have got steen things totalk about, and mustn't be bothered. "

THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS

There was a dead man's estate to be settled, over beyond the Bear Paws, and several hundred head of cattle and horses had been sold to thehighest bidder, who was Chip Bennett, of the Flying U. Later, therewere the cattle and horses to be gathered and brought to the homerange; and Weary, always Chip's choice when came need of a trusted man, was sent to bring them. He was to hire what men he needed down there, work the range with the Rocking R, and bring home the stock--when hismen could take the train and go back whence they had come. 

The Happy Family was disappointed. Pink and Irish, especially, hadhoped to be sent along; for both knew well the range north of the BearPaws, and both would like to have made the trip with Weary. But menwere scarce and the Happy Family worked well together--so well thatChip grudged every man of them that ever had to be sent afar. So Wearywent alone, and Pink and Irish watched him wistfully when he rode awayand were extremely unpleasant companions for the rest of that day, atleast. 

Over beyond the Bear Paws men seemed scarcer even than around theFlying U range. Weary scouted fruitlessly for help, wasted two days inthe search, and then rode to Bullhook and sent this wire--collect--toChip, and grinned as he wondered how much it would cost. He, too, hadrather resented being sent off down there alone. 

 "C. BENNETT, Dry Lake: Can't get a man here for love or money. Have tried both, and held one up with a gun. No use. Couldn't top a saw horse. For the Lord's sake, send somebody I know. I want Irish and Pink and Happy--and I want them bad. Get a move on. W. DAVIDSON. "

Chip grinned when he read it, paid the bill, and told the three to getready to hit the trail. And the three grinned answer and immediatelybecame very busy; hitting the trail, in this case, meant catching thenext train out of Dry Lake, for there were horses bought with thecattle, and much time would be saved by making up an outfit down there. 

Weary rode dispiritedly into Sleepy Trail (which Irish usually spoke ofas Camas, because it had but lately been rechristened to avoidconflictions with another Camas farther up on Milk River). Wearythought, as he dismounted from Glory, which he had brought with himfrom home, that Sleepy Trail fitted the place exactly, and thatwhenever he heard Irish refer to it as Camas, he would call him downand make him use this other and more appropriate title. 

Sleepy it was, in that hazy sunshine of mid fore-noon, and apparentlydeserted. He tied Glory to the long hitching pole where a mild-eyedgray stood dozing on three legs, and went striding, rowels a-clank, into the saloon. He had not had any answer to his telegram, and theworld did not look so very good to him. He did not know that Pink andIrish and Happy Jack were even then speeding over the prairies on theeastbound train from Dry Lake, to meet him. He had come to SleepyTrail to wait for the next stage, on a mere hope of some message fromthe Flying U. 

The bartender looked up, gave a little, welcoming whoop and leaned halfover the bar, hand extended. "Hello, Irish! Lord! When did _you_ getback?"

Weary smiled and shook the hand with much emphasis. Irish had oncecreated a sensation in Dry Lake by being taken for Weary; Wearywondered if, in the guise of Irish, there might not be some diversionfor him here in Sleepy Trail. He remembered the maxim "Turn about isfair play, " and immediately acted thereon. 

"I just came down from the Flying U the other day, " he said. 

The bartender half turned, reached a tall, ribbed bottle and twoglasses, and set them on the bar before Weary. "Go to it, " he invitedcordially. "I'll gamble yuh brought your thirst right along withyuh--and that's your pet brand. Back to stay?"

Weary poured himself a modest "two fingers, " and wondered if he hadbetter claim to have reformed; Irish could--and did--drink long anddeep, where Weary indulged but moderately. 

"No, " he said, setting the glass down without refilling. "They sent meback on business. How's everything?"

The bartender spoke his wonder at the empty glass, listened while Wearyexplained how he had cut down his liquid refreshments "just to see howit would go, and which was boss, " and then told much unmeaning gossipabout men and women Weary had never heard of before. 

Weary listened with exaggerated interest, and wondered what the fellowwould do if he told him he was not Irish Mallory at all. He reflected, with some amusement, that he did not even know what to call thebartender, and tried to remember if Irish had ever mentioned him. Hewas about to state quietly that he had never met him before, and watchthe surprise of the other, when the bartender grew more interesting. 

"And say! yuh'd best keep your gun strapped on yuh, whilst you're downhere, " he told Weary, with some earnestness. "Spikes Weber is in thiscountry--come just after yuh left; fact is, he's got it into his blockthat you left _because_ he come. Brought his wife along--say! I feelsorry for that little woman--and when he ain't bowling up and singinghis war-song about you, and all he'll do when he meets up with yuh, he's dealing her misery and keeping cases that nobody runs off withher. Why, at dances, he won't let her dance with nobody but him! Goesplumb wild, sometimes, when it's 'change partners' in a square dance, and he sees her swingin' with somebody he thinks looks good to her. I've saw him raising hell with her, off in some corner between dances, and her trying not to let on she's cryin'. He's dead sure you're stillcrazy over her, and ready to steal her away from him first chance, onlyyou're afraid uh him. He never gits full but he reads out yourpedigree to the crowd. So I just thought I'd tell you, and let yuh beon your guard. "

"Thanks, " said Weary, getting out papers and tobacco. "And whereaboutswill I find this lovely specimen uh manhood?"

"They're stopping over to Bill Mason's; but yuh better not go huntingtrouble, Irish. That's the worst about putting yuh next to the lay. You sure do love a fight. But I thought I'd let yuh know, as a friend, so he wouldn't take you unawares. Don't be a fool and go out lookingfor him, though; he ain't worth the trouble. "

"I won't, " Weary promised generously. "I haven't lost nobody thatlooks like Spikes-er-" he searched his memory frantically for the othername, failed to get it, and busied himself with his cigarette, lookingmean and bloodthirsty to make up. "Still, " he added darkly, "if Ishould happen to meet up with him, yuh couldn't blame me--"

"Oh, sure not!" the bartender hastened to cut in. "It'd be a case uhself-defence--the way he's been makin' threats. But--"

"Maybe, " hazarded Weary mildly, "you'd kinda like to see--_her_--awidow?"

"From all accounts, " the other retorted, flushing a bit nevertheless, "If yuh make her a widow, yuh won't leave her that way long. I'veheard it said you was pretty far gone, there. "

Weary considered, the while he struck another match and relighted hiscigarette. He had not expected to lay bare any romance in the somewhattumultuous past of Irish. Irish had not seemed the sort of fellow whohad an unhappy love affair to dream of nights; he had seemed aparticularly whole-hearted young man. 

"Well, yuh see, " he said vaguely, "Maybe I've got over it. "

The bartender regarded him fixedly and unbelievingly. "You'll havequite a contract making Spikes swallow that, " he remarked drily. 

"Oh, damn Spikes, " murmured Weary, with the fine recklessness of Irishin his tone. 

At that moment a cowboy jangled in, caught sight of Weary's back andfell upon him joyously, hailing him as Irish. Weary was very glad tosee him, and listened assiduously for something that would give him aclue to the fellow's identity. In the meantime he called him "Say, Old-timer, " and "Cully. " It had come to be a self-instituted point ofhonor to play the game through without blundering. He waved his handhospitably toward the ribbed bottle, and told the stranger to "Throwinto yuh, Old-timer--it's on me. " And when Old-timer straightway begandoing so, Weary leaned against the bar and wiped his forehead, andwondered who the dickens the fellow could be. In Dry Lake, Irish hadbeen--well, hilarious--and not accountable for any littlepeculiarities. In Sleepy Trail Weary was, perhaps he consideredunfortunately, sober and therefore obliged to feel his way carefully. 

"Say! yuh want to keep your eyes peeled for Spikes Weber, Irish, "remarked the unknown, after two drinks. "He's pawing up the earthwhenever he hears your name called. He's sure anxious to see the sodpacked down nice on top uh yuh. "

"So I heard; his nibs here, " indicating the bartender, "has been wisingme up, a lot. When's the stage due, tomorrow, Oldtimer?" Weary wasgetting a bit ashamed of addressing them both impartially in thatmanner, but it was the best he could do, not knowing the names mencalled them. In this instance he spoke to the bartender. 

"Why, yuh going to pull out while your hide's whole?" bantered thecowboy, with the freedom which long acquaintance breeds. 

"I've got business out uh town, and I want to be back time the stagepulls in. "

"Well, Limpy's still holding the ribbons over them buckskins uh his, and he ain't varied five minutes in five years, " responded thebartender. "So I guess yuh can look for him same old time. "

Weary's eyes opened a bit wider, then drooped humorously. "Oh, allright, " he murmured, as though thoroughly enlightened rather than beingrather more in the dark than before. In the name of Irish he found itexpedient to take another modest drink, and then excused himself with a"See yuh later, boys, " and went out and mounted Glory. 

Ten miles nearer the railroad--which at that was not what even aMontanan would call close--he had that day established headquarters andwas holding a bunch of saddle horses pending the arrival of help. Herode out on the trail thoughtfully, a bit surprised that he had notfound the situation more amusing. To be taken for Irish was a joke, and to learn thereby of Irish's little romance should be funny. But itwasn't. 

Weary wondered how Irish got mixed up in a deal like that, whichsomehow did not seem to be in line with his character. And he wished, a bit vindictively, that this Spikes Weber _could_ meet Irish. Herather thought that Spikes needed the chastening effects of such ameeting. Weary, while not in the least quarrelsome on his own account, was ever the staunch defender of a friend. 

Just where another brown trail branched off and wandered away over ahill to the east, a woman rode out and met him face to face. Shepulled up and gave a little cry that brought Weary involuntarily to ahalt. 

"You!" she exclaimed, in a tone that Weary felt he had no right to hearfrom any but his little schoolma'am. "But I knew you'd come back whenyou heard I--Have--have you seen Spikes, Ira?"

Weary flushed embarrassment; this was no joke. "No, " he stammered, insome doubt just how to proceed. "The fact is, you've made a littlemistake. I'm not--"

"Oh, you needn't go on, " she interrupted, and her voice, had Wearyknown it better, heralded the pouring out of a woman's heart. "I knowI've made a mistake, all right; you don't need to tell me that. And Isuppose you want to tell me that you've got over--things; that youdon't care, any more. Maybe you don't, but it'll take a lot to make mebelieve it. Because you _did_ care, Ira. You _cared_, all rightenough!" She laughed in the way that makes one very uncomfortable. 

"And maybe you'll tell me that I didn't. But I did, and I do yet. Iain't ashamed to say it, if I did marry Spikes Weber just to spite you. That's all it was, and you'd have found it out if you hadn't gone offthe way you did. I _hate_ Spikes Weber; and he knows it, Ira. Heknows I--care--for you, and he's making my life a hell. Oh, maybe Ideserve it--but you won't-- Now you've come back, you can have it outwith him; and I--I almost hope you'll kill him! I do, and I don't careif it is wicked. I--I don't care for anything much, but--you. " Shehad big, soft brown eyes, and a sweet, weak mouth, and she stopped andlooked at Weary in a way that he could easily imagine would beirresistible--to a man who cared. 

Weary felt that he was quite helpless. She had hurried out sentencesthat sealed his lips. He could not tell her now that she had made amistake; that he was not Ira Mallory, but a perfect stranger. The onlything to do now was to carry the thing through as tactfully aspossible, and get away as soon as he could. Playing he was Irish, hefound, was not without its disadvantages. 

"What particular brand of hell has he been making for you?" he askedher sympathetically. 

"I wouldn't think, knowing Spikes as you do, you'd need to ask, " shesaid impatiently. "The same old brand, I guess. He gets drunk, andthen--I told him, right out, just after we were married, that I likedyou the best, and he don't forget it; and he don't let me. He swearshe'll shoot you on sight--as if that would do any good! He hates you, Ira. " She laughed again unpleasantly. 

Weary, sitting uneasily in the saddle looking at her, wondered if Irishreally cared; or if, in Weary's place, he would have sat there socalmly and just looked at her. She was rather pretty, in a pink andwhite, weak way. He could easily imagine her marrying Spikes Weber formere spite; what he could not imagine, was Irish in love with her. 

It seemed almost as if she caught a glimmer of his thoughts, for shereined closer, and her teeth were digging into her lower lip. "Well, aren't you going to _do_ anything?" she demanded desperately. "You'rehere, and I've told you I--care. Are you going to leave me to bearSpikes' abuse always?"

"You married him, " Weary remarked mildly and a bit defensively. Itseemed to him that loyalty to Irish impelled him. 

She tossed her head contemptuously. "It's nice to throw that at me. Imight get back at you and say you loved me. You did, you know. "

"And you married Spikes; what can _I_ do about it?"

"What--can--you--do--about it? Did you come back to ask me that?"There was a well defined, white line around her mouth, and her eyeswere growing ominously bright. 

Weary did not like the look of her, nor her tone. He felt, somehow, glad that it was not Irish, but himself; Irish might have felt thethrall of old times--whatever they were--and have been tempted. Hiseyes, also, grew ominous, but his voice was very smooth. (Irish, too, had that trait of being quietest when he was most roused. )

"I came back on business; I will confess I didn't come to see you, " hesaid. "I'm only a bone-headed cowpuncher, but even cowpunchers canplay square. They don't, as a rule step in between a man and his wife. You married Spikes, and according to your own tell, you did it to spiteme. So I say again, what can _I_ do about it?"

She looked at him dazedly. 

"Uh course, " he went on gently, "I won't stand to see any man abuse hiswife, or bandy her name or mine around the country. If I should happento meet up with Spikes, there'll likely be some dust raised. And if Iwas you, and Spikes abused me, I'd quit him cold. "

"Oh, I see, " she said sharply, with an exaggeration of scorn. "Youhave got over it, then. There's someone else. I might have known aman can't be trusted to care for the same woman long. You ran after meand acted the fool, and kept on till you made me believe you reallymeant all you said--"

"And you married Spikes, " Weary reiterated--ungenerously, perhaps; butit was the only card he felt sure of. There was no gainsaying thatfact, it seemed. She had married Spikes in a fit of pique at Irish. Still, it was not well to remind her of it too often. In the next fiveminutes of tumultuous recrimination, Weary had cause to remember whatShakespeare has to say about a woman scorned, and he wondered, morethan ever, if Irish had really cared. The girl--even now he did notknow what name to call her--was showing a strain of coarse temper; thetemper that must descend to personalities and the calling ofunflattering names. Weary, not being that type of male human who canretort in kind, sat helpless and speechless the while she berated him. When at last he found opportunity for closing the interview and ridingon, her anger-sharpened voice followed him shrewishly afar. Wearybreathed deep relief when the distance swallowed it, and lifted hisgray hat to wipe his beaded forehead. 

"Mamma mine!" he said fervently to Glory. "Irish was sure playing bigluck when she _did_ marry Spikes; and I don't wonder at the poor deviltaking to drink. I would, too, if my little schoolma'am--"

At the ranch, he hastened to make it quite plain that he was not IraMallory, but merely his cousin, Will Davidson. He was quite determinedto put a stop to all this annoying mixing up of identities. And as forSpikes Weber, since meeting the woman Spikes claimed from him somethingvery like sympathy; only Weary had no mind to stand calmly and hearIrish maligned by anybody. 

The next day he rode again to Sleepy Trail to meet the stage, hopingfervently that he would get some word--and that favorable--from Chip. He was thinking, just then, a great deal about his own affairs and notat all about the affairs of Irish. So that he was inside the saloonbefore he remembered that the bartender knew him for Irish. 

The bartender nodded to him in friendly fashion, and jerked his headwarningly toward a far corner where two men sat playing seven-uphalf-heartedly. Weary looked, saw that both were strangers, andpuzzled a minute over the mysterious gesture of the bartender. It didnot occur to him, just then, that one of the men might be Spikes Weber. 

The man who was facing him nipped the corners of the cards idlytogether and glanced up; saw Weary standing there with an elbow on thebar looking at him, and pushed back his chair with an oath unmistakablywarlike. Weary resettled his hat and looked mildly surprised. Thebartender moved out of range and watched breathlessly. 

"You ---- ---- --------!" swore Spikes Weber, coming truculentlyforward, hand to hip. He was of medium height and stockily built, withthe bull neck and little, deep-set eyes that go often with a naturequarrelsome. 

Weary still leaned his elbow on the bar and smiled at him tolerantly. "Feel bad anywhere?" he wanted to know, when the other was very close. 

Spikes Weber, from very surprise, stopped and regarded Weary for aspace before he began swearing again. His hand was still at his hip, but the gun it touched remained in his pocket. Plainly, he had notexpected just this attitude. 

Weary waited, smothering a yawn, until the other finished aparticularly pungent paragraph. "A good jolt uh brandy 'll sometimescure a bad case uh colic, " he remarked. "Better have our friend herefix yuh up--but it'll be on you. I ain't paying for drinks just now. "

Spikes snorted and began upon the pedigree and general character ofIrish. Weary took his elbow off the bar, and his eyes lost theirsunniness and became a hard blue, darker than was usual. It took agood deal to rouse Weary to the fighting point, and it is saying muchfor the tongue of Spikes that Weary was roused thoroughly. 

"That'll be about enough, " he said sharply, cutting short a sentencefrom the other. "I kinda hated to start in and take yuh all topieces--but yuh better saw off right there, or I can't be responsible--"

A gun barrel caught the light menacingly, and Weary sprang like thepounce of a cat, wrested the gun from the hand of Spikes and rapped himsmartly over the head with the barrel. "Yuh would, eh?" he snarled, and tossed the gun upon the bar, where the bartender caught it as itslid along the smooth surface and put it out of reach. 

After that, chairs went spinning out of the way, and glasses jingled tothe impact of a body striking the floor with much force. Came theslapping sound of hammering fists and the scuffling of booted feet, together with the hard breathing of fighting men. 

Spikes, on his back, looked up into the blazing eyes he thought werethe eyes of Irish and silently acknowledged defeat. But Weary wouldnot let it go at that. 

"Are yuh whipped to a finish, so that yuh don't want any more troublewith anybody?" he wanted to know. 

Spikes hesitated but the fraction of a second before he growled areluctant yes. 

"Are yuh a low-down, lying sneak of a woman-fighter, that ain't gotnerve enough to stand up square to a ten-year-old boy?"

Spikes acknowledged that he was. Before the impromptu catechism wasended, Spikes had acknowledged other and more humiliating things--tothe delectation of the bartender, the stage driver and two or three menof leisure who were listening. 

When Spikes had owned to being every mean, unknowable thing that Wearycould call to mind--and his imagination was never of the barrensort--Weary generously permitted him to get upon his feet and skulk outto where his horse was tied. After that, Weary gave his unruffledattention to the stage driver and discovered the unwelcome fact thatthere was no letter and no telegram for one William Davidson, wholooked a bit glum when he heard it. 

So he, too, went out and mounted Glory and rode away to the ranch wherewaited the horses; and as he went he thought, for perhaps the firsttime in his life, some hard and unflattering things of Chip Bennett. He had never dreamed Chip would calmly overlook his needs and leave himin the lurch like this. 

At the ranch, when he had unsaddled Glory and gone to the bunk-house, he discovered Irish, Pink and Happy Jack wrangling amicably over whom acertain cross-eyed girl on the train had been looking at most of thetime. Since each one claimed all the glances for himself, and sincethere seemed no possible way of settling the dispute, they gave overthe attempt gladly when Weary appeared, and wanted to know, firstthing, who or what had been gouging the hide off his face. 

Weary, not aware until the moment that he was wounded, answered that hehad done it shaving; at which the three hooted derision and wanted toknow since when he had taken to shaving his nose. Weary smiledinscrutably and began talking of something else until he had weanedthem from the subject, and learned that they had bribed the stagedriver to let them off at this particular ranch; for the stage driverknew Irish, and knew also that a man he had taken to be Irish wasmaking this place his headquarters. The stage driver was one of thosemale gossips who know everything. 

When he could conveniently do so, Weary took Irish out of hearing ofthe others and told him about Spikes Weber. Irish merely swore. Afterthat, Weary told him about Spikes Weber's wife, in secret fear and withmuch tact, but in grim detail. Irish listened with never a word to say. 

"I done what looked to me the best thing, under the circumstances, "Weary apologized at the last, "and I hope I haven't mixed yuh up abunch uh trouble. Mamma mine! she's sure on the fight, though, andshe's got a large, black opinion of yuh as a constant lover. If yuhwant to square yourself with her, Irish, you've got a big contract. "

"I don't want to square myself, " Irish retorted, grinning a bit. "Idid have it bad, I admit; but when she went and got tied up to Spikes, that cured me right off. She's kinda pretty, and girls were scarce, and--oh, hell! you know how it goes with a man. I'd a married her andfound out afterwards that her mind was like a little paper windmillstuck up on the gatepost with a shingle nail--only she saved me thetrouble. Uh course, I was some sore over the deal for awhile; but Imade up my mind long ago that Spikes was the only one in the bunch thathad any sympathy coming. If he's been acting up like you say, I changethe verdict: there ain't anything coming to him but a big bunch uhtrouble. I'm much obliged to yuh, Weary; you done me a good turn andearnt a lot uh gratitude, which is yours for keeps. Wonder if supperain't about due; I've the appetite of a Billy goat, if anybody shouldask yuh. "

At supper Irish was uncommonly silent, and did some things withoutthinking; such as pouring a generous stream of condensed cream into hiscoffee. Weary, knowing well that Irish drank his coffee without cream, watched him a bit closer than he would otherwise have done; Irish wasthe sort of man who does not always act by rule. 

After supper Weary missed him quite suddenly, and went to the door ofthe bunk-house to see where he had gone. He did not see Irish, but ona hilltop, in the trail that led to Sleepy Trail, he saw a flurry ofdust. Two minutes of watching saw it drift out of sight over the hill, which proved that the maker was traveling rapidly away from the ranch. Weary settled his hat down to his eyebrows and went out to find theforeman. 

The foreman, down at the stable, said that Irish had borrowed a horsefrom him, unsacked his saddle as if he were in a hurry about something, and had pulled out on a high lope. No, he had not told the foremanwhere he was headed for, and the foreman knew Irish too well to ask. Yes, now Weary spoke of it, Irish did have his gun buckled on him, andhe headed for Sleepy Trail. 

Weary waited for no further information. He threw his saddle on ahorse that he knew could get out and drift, if need came: presently he, too, was chasing a brown dust cloud over the hill toward Sleepy Trail. 

That Irish had gone to find Spikes Weber, Weary was positive; thatSpikes was not a man who could be trusted to fight fair, he was evenmore positive. Weary, however, was not afraid for Irish--he was merelya bit uneasy and a bit anxious to be on hand when came the meeting. Hespurred along the trail darkening with the afterglow of a sun departedand night creeping down upon the land, and wondered whether he would beable to come up with Irish before he reached town. 

At the place where the trail forked--the place where he had met thewife of Spikes, he saw from a distance another rider gallop out of thedusk and follow in the way that Irish had gone. Without other evidencethan mere instinct, he knew the horseman for Spikes. When, furtheralong, the horseman left the trail and angled away down a narrowcoulee, Weary rode a bit faster. He did not know the country verywell, and was not sure of where that coulee led; but he knew the natureof a man like Spikes Weber, and his uneasiness was not lulled at thesight. He meant to overtake Irish, if he could; after that he had noplan whatever. 

When, however, he came to the place where Spikes had turned off. Wearyturned off also and followed down the coulee; and he did not explainwhy, even to himself. He only hurried to overtake the other, or atleast to keep him in sight. 

The darkness lightened to bright starlight, with a moon not yet in itsprime to throw shadows black and mysterious against the coulee sides. The coulee itself, Weary observed, was erratic in the matter of height, width and general direction. Places there were where the widthdwindled until there was scant room for the cow trail his horseconscientiously followed; places there were where the walls were easyslopes to climb, and others where the rocks hung, a sheer hundred feet, above him. 

One of the easy slopes came near throwing him off the trail of Spikes. He climbed the slope, and Weary would have ridden by, only that hecaught a brief glimpse of something on the hilltop; something thatmoved, and that looked like a horseman. Puzzled but persistent, Wearyturned back where the slope was easiest, and climbed also. He did notknow the country well enough to tell, in that come-and-go light madeuncertain by drifting clouds, just where he was or where he would bringup; he only knew instinctively that where Spikes rode, trouble rodealso. 

Quite suddenly at the last came further knowledge. It was when, stillfollowing, he rode along a steeply sloping ridge that narrowedperceptibly, that he looked down, down, and saw, winding brownly in thestarlight, a trail that must be the trail he had left at the couleehead. 

"Mamma!" he ejaculated softly, and strained eyes under his hatbrim toglimpse the figure he knew rode before. Then, looking down again, hesaw a horseman galloping rapidly towards the ridge, and pulled up shortwhen he should have done the opposite--for it was then that secondscounted. 

When the second glance showed the horseman to be Irish, Weary drove inhis spurs and galloped forward. Ten leaps perhaps he made, when arifle shot came sharply ahead. He glanced down and saw horse and riderlying, a blotch of indefinable shape, in the trail. Weary drew his owngun and went on, his teeth set tight together. Now, when it was toolate, he understood thoroughly the situation. 

He came clattering out of the gloom to the very, point of the bluff, just where it was highest and where it crowded closest the trail a longhundred feet below. A man stood there on the very edge, with a riflein his hands. He may have been crouching, just before, but now he wasstanding erect, looking fixedly down at the dark heap in the trailbelow, and his figure, alert yet unwatchful, was silhouetted sharplyagainst the sky. 

When Weary, gun at aim, charged furiously down upon him, he whirled, ready to give battle for his life; saw the man he supposed was lyingdown there dead in the trail, and started backward with a yell of pureterror. "Irish!" He toppled, threw the rifle from him in a singleconvulsive movement and went backward, down and down. --

Weary got off his horse and, gun still gripped firmly, walked to theedge and looked down. In his face, dimly revealed in the fitfulmoonlight, there was no pity but a look of baffled vengeance. Down atthe foot of the bluff the shadows lay deep and hid all they held, butout in the trail something moved, rose up and stood still a moment, hisface turned upward to where stood Weary. 

"Are yuh hurt, Irish?" Weary called anxiously down to him. 

"Never touched me, " came the answer from below. "He got my horse, damnhim! and I just laid still and kept cases on what he'd do next. Comeon down!"

Weary was already climbing recklessly down to where the shadows reachedlong arms up to him. It was not safe, in that uncertain light, butWeary was used to taking chances. Irish, standing still beside thedead horse, watched and listened to the rattle of small stonesslithering down, and the clink of spur chains upon the rocks. 

Together the two went into the shadows and stood over a heap ofsomething that had been a man. 

"I never did kill a man, " Weary remarked, touching the heap lightlywith his foot. "But I sure would have, that time, if he hadn't droppedjust before I cut loose on him. "

Irish turned and looked at him. Standing so, one would have puzzledlong to know them apart. "You've done a lot for me, Weary, this trip, "he said gravely. "I'm sure obliged. "