initial commit of ebook 12196HEADmain

6 files changed, 9980 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/12196-0.txt b/12196-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bef627
--- /dev/null
+++ b/12196-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4773 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12196 ***
+
+RED SAUNDERS
+
+His Adventures West & East
+
+
+By
+
+
+Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+
+1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+A CHANCE SHOT
+A RED-HAIRED CUPID
+THE GOLDEN FORD
+WHEN THE CHINOOK STRUCK FAIRFIELD
+
+
+
+
+A Chance Shot
+
+Reddy and I were alone at the Lake beds.  He sat outside the cabin,
+braiding a leather hat-band--eight strands, and the "repeat"
+figure--an art that I never could master.
+
+I sat inside, with a one-pound package of smoking tobacco beside
+me, and newspapers within reach, rolling the day's supply of
+cigarettes.
+
+Reddy stopped his story long enough to say: "Don't use the
+'Princess' Slipper,' Kid--that paper burns my tongue--take the
+'Granger'; there's plenty of it."
+
+
+Well, as I was saying, I'd met a lot of the boys up in town this
+day, and they threw as many as two drinks into me; I know that for
+certain, because when we took the parting dose, I had a glass of
+whisky in both my right hands, and had just twice as many friends
+as when I started.
+
+When I pulled out for home, I felt mighty good for myself--not
+exactly looking for trouble, but not a-going to dodge it any,
+either.  I was warbling "Idaho" for all I was worth--you know how
+pretty I can sing?  Cock-eyed Peterson used to say it made him
+forget all his troubles.  "Because," says he, "you don't notice
+trifles when a man bats you over the head with a two-by-four."
+
+Well, I was enjoying everything in sight, even a little drizzle of
+rain that was driving by in rags of wetness, when a flat-faced
+swatty at Fort Johnson halted me.
+
+Now it's a dreadful thing to be butted to death by a nanny-goat,
+but for a full-sized cowpuncher to be held up by a soldier is worse
+yet.
+
+To say that I was hot under the collar don't give you the right
+idea of the way I felt.
+
+"Why, you cross between the Last Rose of Summer and a bobtailed
+flush!" says I, "what d'yer mean?  What's got into you?  Get out of
+my daylight, you dog-robber, or I'll walk the little horse around
+your neck like a three-ringed circus.  Come, pull your freight!"
+
+It seems that this swatty had been chucked out of the third story
+of Frenchy's dance emporium by Bronc. Thompson, which threw a great
+respect for our profesh into him.  Consequently he wasn't fresh
+like most soldiers, but answers me as polite as a tin-horn gambler
+on pay-day.
+
+Says he: "I just wanted to tell you that old Frosthead and forty
+braves are some'ers between here and your outfit, with their war
+paint on and blood in their eyes, cayoodling and whoopin' fit to
+beat hell with the blower on, and if you get tangled up with them,
+I reckon they'll give you a hair-cut and shampoo, to say nothing of
+other trimmings.  They say they're after the Crows, but it's a
+ten-dollar bill against a last year's bird's-nest that they'll take
+on any kind of trouble that comes along.  Their hearts is mighty
+bad, they state, and when an Injun's heart gets spoiled, the
+disease is d--d catching.  You'd better stop awhile."
+
+"Now, cuss old Frosthead, and you too!" says I.  "If he comes
+crow-hopping on my reservation; I'll kick his pantalettes on top of
+his scalp-lock."
+
+"All right, pardner!" says he.  "It's your own funeral.  My orders
+was to halt every one going through; but I ain't a whole company,
+so you can have it your own way.  Only, if your friends have to
+take you home in a coal-scuttle, don't blame me.  Pass, friend!"
+
+So I went through the officers' quarters forty miles an hour,
+letting out a string of yells you might have heard to the coast,
+just to show my respect for the United States army.
+
+Now this has always been my luck: Whenever I made a band-wagon
+play, somebody's sure to strike me for my licence.  Or else the
+team goes into the ditch a mile further on, and I come out about as
+happy as a small yaller dog at a bob-cat's caucus.
+
+Some fellers can run in a rhinecaboo that 'd make the hair stand up
+on a buffeler robe, and get away with it just like a mice; but that
+ain't me.  If I sing a little mite too high in the cellar, down
+comes the roof a-top of me.  So it was this day.  Old Johnny
+Hardluck socked it to me, same as usual.
+
+Gosh a'mighty!  The liquor died in me after a while, and I went
+sound asleep in the saddle, and woke up with a jar--to find myself
+right in the middle of old Frosthead's gang; the drums
+"_boom_-blipping" and those forty-odd red tigers "hyah-hayahing" in
+a style that made my skin get up and walk all over me with cold
+feet.
+
+How in blazes I'd managed to slip through those Injuns I don't
+know.  'Twould have been a wonderful piece of scouting if I'd meant
+it.  You can 'most always do any darn thing you don't want to do.
+Well, there I was, and, oh Doctor! but wasn't I in a lovely mess!
+That war-song put a crimp into me that Jack Frost himself couldn't
+take out.
+
+It was as dark as dark by this time.  The moon just stuck one eye
+over the edge of the prairie, and the rest of the sky was covered
+with cloud.  A little light came from the Injuns' camp-fire, but
+not enough to ride by, and, besides, I didn't know which way I
+ought to go.
+
+Says I to myself, "Billy Sanders, you are the champion all-around,
+old-fashioned fool of the district.  You are a jackass from the
+country where ears less'n three foot long are curiosities.  You
+sassed that poor swatty that wanted to keep you out of this,
+tooting your bazoo like a man peddling soap; but now it's up to
+you.  What are you going to do about it?" and I didn't get any
+answer, neither.
+
+Well, it was no use asking myself conundrums out there in the dark
+when time was so scarce.  So I wraps my hankercher around.  Laddy's
+nose to keep him from talking horse to the Injun ponies, and
+prepared to sneak to where I'd rather be.
+
+Laddy was the quickest thing on legs in that part of the
+country--out of a mighty spry little Pinto mare by our thoroughbred
+Kentucky horse--and I knew if I could get to the open them Injuns
+wouldn't have much of a chance to take out my stopper and examine
+my works--not much.  A half-mile start, and I could show the whole
+Sioux nation how I wore my hair.
+
+I cut for the place where the Injuns seemed thinnest, lifting
+myself up till I didn't weigh fifteen pound, and breathing only
+when necessary.  We got along first-rate until we reached the edge
+of 'em, and then Laddy had to stick his foot in a gopher-hole, and
+walloped around there like a whale trying to climb a tree.
+
+Some dam cuss of an Injun threw a handful of hay on the fire, and,
+as it blazed up, the whole gang spotted me.
+
+I unlimbered my gun, sent the irons into Laddy, and we began to
+walk.
+
+I didn't like to make for the ranch, as I knew the boys were
+short-handed, so I pointed north, praying to the good Lord that I'd
+hit some kind of settlement before I struck the North Pole.
+
+Well, we left those Injuns so far behind that there wasn't any fun
+in it.  I slacked up, patting myself on the back; and, as the
+trouble seemed all over, I was just about to turn for the ranch,
+when I heard horses galloping, and as the moon came out a little I
+saw a whole raft of redskins a-boiling up a draw not half a mile
+away.  That knocked me slab-sided.  It looked like I got the wrong
+ticket every time the wheel turned.
+
+I whooped it up again, swearing I wouldn't stop this deal short of
+a dead sure thing.  We flew through space--Laddy pushing a hole in
+the air like a scart kiyote making for home and mother.
+
+A ways down the valley I spotted a little shack sitting all alone
+by itself out in the moonlight.  I headed for it, hollering murder.
+
+A man came to the door in his under-rigging.
+
+"Hi, there!  What's eating you?" he yells.
+
+"Injuns coming, pardner!  The country's just oozing Injuns!  Better
+get a wiggle on you!"
+
+"All right--slide along, I'll ketch up to you," says he.
+
+I looked back and saw him hustling out with his saddle on his arm.
+"He's a particular kind of cuss," I thought; "bareback would suit
+most people."
+
+Taking it a little easier for the next couple of miles, I gave him
+a chance to pull up.
+
+We pounded along without saying anything for a spell, when I
+happened to notice that his teeth were chattering.
+
+"Keep your nerve up, pardner!" says I.  "Don't you get
+scared--we've got a good start on 'em."
+
+He looked at me kind of reproachful.
+
+"Scared be derned!" says he.  "I reckon if you was riding around
+this nice cool night in your drawers, _your_ teeth 'ud rattle some,
+too."
+
+I took a look at him, and saw, sure enough, while he had hat, coat,
+and boots on, the pants was missing.  Well, if it had been the last
+act, I'd have had to laugh.
+
+"Couldn't find 'em nohow," says he; "hunted high and low, jick,
+Jack, and the game--Just comes to my mind now that I had 'em rolled
+up and was sleeping on 'em.  I don't like to go around this way'--I
+feel as if I was two men, and one of 'em hardly respectable."
+
+"Did you bring a gun with you?"
+
+He gave me another stare.  "Why, pardner, you must think I have got
+a light and frivolous disposition," says he, and with that he
+heaves up the great-grand-uncle of all the six-shooters I ever did
+see.  It made my forty-five-long look like something for a kid to
+cut its teeth on.  "That's the best gun in this country," he went
+on.
+
+"Looks as if it might be," says I.  "Has the foundry that cast it
+gone out of business?  I'd like to have one like it, if it's as
+dangerous as it looks."
+
+"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go
+pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving
+him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something
+that'll touch his conscience."
+
+He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an
+elephant over a township.
+
+We loped along quiet and easy until sun-up.  The Grindstone Buttes
+lay about a mile ahead of us.  Looking back, we saw the Injuns
+coming over a rise of ground 'way in the distance.
+
+"Now," says my friend, "I know a short cut through those hills
+that'll bring us out at Johnson's.  They've got enough punchers
+there to do the United States army up--starched and blued.  Shall
+we take it?"
+
+"Sure!" says I.  "I'm only wandering around this part of the
+country because this part of the country is here--if it was
+anywheres else I'd be just as glad."
+
+So in we went.  It was the steepest and narrowest kind of a canon,
+looking as if it had been cut out of the rock with one crack of the
+axe.  I was just thinking: "Gee whiz! but this would be a poor
+place to get snagged in," when bang! says a rifle right in front of
+us, and m-e-arr! goes the bullet over our heads.
+
+We were off them horses and behind a, couple of chunks of rock
+sooner than we hoped for, and that's saying a good deal.
+
+"Cussed poor shot, whoever he is," says my friend.  "Some Injun
+holding us here till the rest come up, I presume."
+
+"That's about the size of it--and I'd like to make you a bet that
+he does it, too, if I thought I'd have a chance to collect."
+
+"Oh, you can't always tell--you might lose your money," says he,
+kind of thoughtful.
+
+"I wouldn't mind that half as much as winning," says I.  "But on
+the square, do you think we can get out?  I'll jump him with you if
+you say so, although I ain't got what you might call a passion for
+suicide."
+
+"Now you hold on a bit," says he.  "I don't know but what we'd have
+done better to stick to the horses, and run for it, but it's too
+late to think of that.  Jumping him is all foolishness; he'd sit
+behind his little rock and pump lead into us till we wouldn't float
+in brine--and we can't back out now."
+
+He talked so calm it made me kind of mad.  "Well," says I, "in that
+case, let's play 'Simon says thumbs up' till the rest of the crowd
+comes."
+
+"There you go!" says he.  "Just like all young fellers--gettin'
+hosstyle right away if you don't fall in with their plans.  Now,
+Sonny, you keep your temper, and watch me play cushion carroms with
+our friend there."
+
+"Meaning how?"
+
+"You see that block of stone just this side of him with the square
+face towards us?  Well, he's only covered in front, and I'm a-going
+to shoot against that face and ketch him on the glance."
+
+"Great, if you could work it!" says I.  "But Lord!"
+
+"Well, watch!" says he.  Then he squinched down behind his cover,
+so as not to give the Injun an opening, trained his cannon and
+pulled the trigger.  The old gun opened her mouth and roared like
+an earthquake, but I didn't see any dead Injun.  Then twice more
+she spit fire, and still there weren't any desirable corpses to be
+had.
+
+"Say, pardner," says I, "you wouldn't make many cigars at this
+game!"
+
+"Now, don't you get oneasy," says he.  "Just watch!"
+
+"_Biff_!" says the old gun, and this time, sure enough, the Injun
+was knocked clear of the rock.  I felt all along that he wouldn't
+be much of a comfort to his friends afterwards, if that gun did
+land on him.
+
+Still, he wasn't so awful dead, for as we jumped for the horses he
+kind of hitched himself to the rock, and laying the rifle across
+it, and working the lever with his left hand, he sent a hole plumb
+through my hat.
+
+"Bully boy!" says I.  I snapped at him, and smashed the lock of his
+rifle to flinders.  Then, of course, he was our meat.
+
+As we rode up to him, my pard held dead on him.  The Injun stood up
+straight and tall, and looked us square in the eye--say, he was a
+man, I tell you, red-skin or no red-skin.  The courage just stuck
+out on him as he stood there, waiting to pass in his checks.
+
+My pardner threw the muzzle of his gun up.  "D--n it!" says he, "I
+can't do it--he's game from the heart out!  But the Lord have mercy
+on his sinful soul if he and I run foul of each other on the
+prairie again!"
+
+Then we shacked along down to Johnson's and had breakfast.
+
+"What became of Frosthead and his gang?"  Oh, they sent out a
+regiment or two, and gathered him in--'bout twenty-five soldiers to
+an Injun.  No, no harm was done.  Me and my pard were the only ones
+that bucked up against them.  Chuck out a cigarette, Kid; my lungs
+ache for want of a smoke.
+
+
+
+
+A Red-Haired Cupid
+
+"How did I come to get myself disliked down at the Chanta Seechee?
+Well, I'll tell you," said Reddy, the cow-puncher.  "The play came
+up like this.  First, they made the Chanta Seechee into a stock
+company, then the stock company put all their brains in one think,
+and says they, 'We'll make this man Jones superintendent, and the
+ranch is all right at once.'  So out comes Jones from Boston,
+Massachusetts, and what he didn't know about running a ranch was
+common talk in the country, but what he thought he knew about
+running a ranch was too much for one man to carry around.  He
+wasn't a bad-hearted feller in some ways, yet on the whole he felt
+it was an honour to a looking-glass to have the pleasure of
+reflecting him.  Looking-glass?  I should say he had!  And a
+bureau, and a boot-blacking jigger, and a feather bed, and
+curtains, and truck in his room.  Strange fellers used to open
+their eyes when they saw that room.  'Helloo-o!' they'd say, 'whose
+little birdie have we here?'  And other remarks that hurt our
+feelings considerable.  Jonesy, he said the fellers were a rank lot
+of barbarians.  He said it to old Neighbour Case's face, and he and
+the old man came together like a pair of hens, for Jonesy had sand
+in spite of his faults, That was a fight worth travelling to see.
+They covered at least an acre of ground; they tore the air with
+upper swats and cross swipes; they hollered, they jumped and they
+pitched, and when the difficulty was adjusted we found that
+Jonesy's coat was painfully ripped up the back and Neighbour Case
+had lost his false teeth.  One crowd of fellers patted Jones on the
+back and said, 'Never mind your coat, old horse; you've licked a
+man twice your age,' and the other comforted Neighbour, saying,
+'Never mind, Case; you can ease your mind by thinking how you
+headed up that rooster, and he fifty pounds lighter than you.'
+
+"Jonesy put on airs after that.  He felt he was a hard citizen.
+And then he had the misfortune to speak harshly to Arizona Jenkins
+when Old Dry Belt was in liquor.  Then he got roped and dragged
+through the slough.  He cried like a baby whilst I helped him
+scrape the mud off, but not because he was scared!  No, sir!  That
+little runt was full of blood and murder.
+
+"'You mark me, now, Red,' says he, the tears making bad-land water
+courses through the mud on his cheeks, 'I shall fire upon that man
+the first time I see him--will you lend me your revolver?'
+
+"'Lord, Jones, see here,' says I, 'don't you go making any such
+billy-goat play as that--keep his wages until he apologizes; put
+something harmful in his grub; but, as you have respect for the
+Almighty's handiwork as represented by your person, don't pull a
+gun on Arizona Jenkins--that's the one thing he won't take from
+nobody.'
+
+"'D-d-darn him!' snivels Jonesy, 'I ain't afraid o-o-of him;' and
+the strange fact is that he wasn't.  Well, I saw he was in such a
+taking that he might do something foolish and get hurt, so I goes
+to Arizona and says I, 'You ought to apologize to Jones.'  What
+Zony replied ain't worth repeating--'and you along with him,' he
+winds up.
+
+"'Now ain't that childish?' I says.  'A six-footer like you that
+can shoot straight with either hand, and yet ain't got generosity
+enough to ease the feelings of a poor little devil that's fair
+busting with shame.'
+
+"'Well, what did he want to tell me to shut up my mouth for?' cried
+Old Dry Belt.  'Men have died of less than that.'
+
+"'Aw, shucks, Zony,' I says, 'a great, big man like you oughtn't to
+come down on a little cuss who's all thumb-hand-side and left feet.'
+
+"'That be blowed,' says he--only he says it different.  'I'd like
+to know what business such a sawed-off has to come and tell a
+full-grown man like me to shut up his mouth?  He'd ought to stay in
+a little man's place and talk sassy to people his own size.  When
+he comes shooting off his bazoo to a man that could swaller him
+whole without loosening his collar, it's impidence; that's what it
+is.'
+
+"'Well, as a favour to me?' I says.
+
+"'Well, if you put it in that way--I don't want to be small about
+it.'
+
+"So Arizona goes up to Jones and sticks out his hand.  'There's my
+hand, Jones,' he says.  'I'm mighty sorry you told me to shut up my
+mouth,' says he.
+
+"'So am I,' says Jones heartily, not taking in the sense of the
+words, but feeling that it was all in good intention.  So that was
+all right and I stood in with the management in great shape for
+fixing up the fuss so pleasant.  But it didn't last.  They say
+nothing lasts in this world.  There's some pretty solid rocks in
+the Coeur d'Alene, however, and I should like to wait around and
+see if they don't hold out, but I'll never make it.  I've been in
+too much excitement.
+
+"Well, the next thing after Jonesy got established was that his
+niece must come out during vacation and pay him a visit.
+'Jee-rusalem!' thinks I, 'Jonesy's niece!'  I had visions of a
+thin, yaller, sour little piece, with mouse-coloured hair plastered
+down on her head, and an unkind word for everybody.  Jonesy told me
+about her being in college, and then I stuck a pair of them
+nose-grabber specks on the picture.  I can stand 'most any kind of
+a man, but if there's anything that makes the tears come to my eyes
+it's a botch of a woman.  I know they may have good qualities and
+all that, but I don't like 'em, and that's the whole of it.  We
+gave three loud groans when we got the news in the bull-pen.  And I
+cussed for ten minutes straight, without repeating myself once,
+when it so fell out that the members of the board rolled out our
+way the day the girl had to be sent for, and Jonesy couldn't break
+loose, and your Uncle was elected to take the buckboard and drive
+twenty miles to the railroad.  I didn't mind the going out, but
+that twenty miles back with Jonesy's niece!  Say, I foamed like a
+soda-water bottle when I got into the bull-pen and told the boys my
+luck.
+
+"'Well,' says Kyle Lambert, 'that's what you might expect; your
+sins have found you out.'
+
+"'No, they ain't; they've caught me at home as usual,' says I.
+'Well, I'll give that Eastern blossom an idea of the quality of
+this country anyhow.'  So I togs myself up in the awfullest rig I
+could find; strapped two ca'tridge belts to me, every hole filled,
+and a gun in every holster; put candle-grease on my mustache and
+twisted the ends up to my eye-winkers; stuck a knife in my hatband
+and another in my boot; threw a shotgun and a rifle in the
+buckboard, and pulled out quick through the colt-pens before Jonesy
+could get his peeps onto me.
+
+"Well, sir, I was jarred witless when I laid my eyes on that young
+woman.  I'd had my mind made up so thorough as to what she must be
+that the facts knocked me cold.  She was the sweetest, handsomest,
+healthiest female I ever see.  It would make you believe in fairy
+stories again just to look at her.  She was all the things a man
+ever wanted in this world rolled up in a prize package.  Tall,
+round and soople, limber and springy in her action as a
+thoroughbred, and with something modest yet kind of daring in her
+face that would remind you of a good, honest boy.  Red, white, and
+black were the colours she flew.  Hair and eyes black, cheeks and
+lips red, and the rest of her white.  Now, there's a pile of
+difference in them colours; when you say 'red,' for instance, you
+ain't cleaned up the subject by a sight.  My top-knot's red, but
+that wasn't the colour of Loy's cheeks.  No; that was a colour I
+never saw before nor since.  A rose would look like a tomater
+alongside of 'em.  Then, too, I've seen black eyes so hard and
+shiny you could cut glass with 'em.  And again that wasn't her
+style.  The only way you could get a notion of what them eyes were
+like would be to look at 'em; you'd remember 'em all right if you
+did.  Seems like the good Lord was kind of careless when he built
+Jonesy, but when he turned that girl out he played square with the
+fambly.
+
+"I ain't what you might call a man that's easily disturbed in his
+mind, but I know I says to myself that first day, 'If I was ten
+year younger, young lady, they'd never lug you back East again.'
+Gee, man!  There was a time when I'd have pulled the country up by
+the roots but I'd have had that girl!  I notice I don't fall in
+love so violent as the years roll on.  I can squint my eye over the
+cards now and say, 'Yes, that's a beautiful hand, but I reckon I'd
+better stay out,' and lay 'em down without a sigh; whereas, when I
+was a young feller, it I had three aces in sight I'd raise the rest
+of the gathering right out of their foot-leather--or get caught at
+it.  Usually I got caught at it, for a man couldn't run the mint
+long with the kind of luck I have.
+
+"Well, I was plumb disgusted with the fool way I'd rigged myself
+up, but, fortunately for me, Darragh, the station-man, came out
+with the girl.  'There's Reddy, from your ranch now, ma'am,' says
+he, and when he caught sight of me, 'What's the matter, Red; are
+the Injuns up?'
+
+"Darragh was a serious Irishman, and that's the mournfullest thing
+on top of the globe; and besides, he believed anything you'd tell
+him.  There ain't any George Washington strain in my stock, so I
+proceeded to get out of trouble.
+
+"'They ain't up exactly,' says I, 'but it looked as if they were a
+leetle on the rise, and being as I had a lady to look out for, I
+thought I'd play safe.'
+
+"The colour kind of went out of the girl's cheeks.  Eastern folks
+are scandalous afraid of Injuns.
+
+"'Perhaps I'd better not start?' says she.
+
+"'Don't you be scart, miss,' says Darragh.  'You're all right as
+long as you're with Red--he's the toughest proposition we've got in
+this part of the country.'
+
+"'I'm obliged to you, Darragh,' says I.  He meant well, but hell's
+full of them people.  I'd have given a month's wages for one lick
+at him.  Nice reputation to give me before that girl!  She eyed me
+mighty doubtful.
+
+"I stepped up to her, with my hat in my hand.  'Miss Andree,' says
+I (she was Jonesy's sisters child), 'if you come along with me I'll
+guarantee you a safe journey.  If any harm reaches you it will be
+after one of the liveliest times in the history of the Territory.'
+
+"At this she laughed.  'Very well,' says she, 'I'll chance it, Mr.
+Red.'
+
+"'His name ain't Red,' puts in Darragh, solemn.  'His name's
+Saunders.  We call him Red becus uf his hair.'
+
+"'I'm sure I beg your pardon,' says Miss Loys, all of a fluster.
+
+"'That's all right, ma'am; no damage done at all,' says I.  'It's
+useless for me to try to conceal the fact that my hair is a little
+on the auburn.  You mustn't mind what Darragh says.  We've had a
+good deal of hot weather lately and his brains have gone wrong.
+Now hop in and we'll touch the breeze,'  So I piled her trunk in
+and away we flew.
+
+"Bud and Dandy were a corking little team.  They'd run the whole
+distance from the railway to the ranch if you'd let 'em--and I
+never interfered.  A straight line and the keen jump hits me all
+right when I'm going some place, although I can loaf with the next
+man on occasion.  So we missed most of the gulleys.
+
+"The ponies were snorting and pulling grass, the buckboard bouncing
+behind 'em like a rubber ball, and we were crowding into the teeth
+of the northwest wind, which made it seem as if we were travelling
+100 per cent. better than a Dutch clock would show.
+
+"'Goodness gracious!' says the girl, 'do you always go like this in
+this country?  And aren't there any roads?'
+
+"'Why, no,' says I.  'Hike!' and I snapped the blacksnake over the
+ponies' ears, and they strung themselves out like a brace of
+coyotes, nearly pulling the buckboard out from under us.
+'Sometimes we travel like _this_,' I says.  'And as for roads, I
+despise 'em.  You're not afraid, are you?'
+
+"'Indeed I'm not.  I think it's glorious.  Might I drive?'
+
+"'If I can smoke,' says I, 'then _you_ can drive.'  I'd heard about
+young women who'd been brought up so tender that tobacker smoke
+would ruin their morals or something, and I kind of wondered if she
+was that sort.
+
+"'That's a bargain,' says she prompt.  'But how you're going to
+light a cigar in this wind I don't see.'
+
+"'Cigarette,' says I.  'And if you would kindly hold my hat until I
+get one rolled I'll take it kind of you.'
+
+"'But what about the horses?' says she.
+
+"'Put your foot on the lines and they'll make.  That's the main and
+only art of driving on the prairie--not to let the lines get under
+the horses' feet--all the rest is just sit still and look at the
+scenery.'
+
+"She held my hat for a wind-break, and I got my paper pipe
+together.  And then--not a match.  I searched every pocket.  Not a
+lucifer.  That is more of what I got for being funny and changing
+my clothes.  And then she happened to think of a box she had for
+travelling, and fished it out of her grip.
+
+"'Young lady,' I says, 'until it comes to be your bad luck--which I
+hope won't ever happen--to be very much in love with a man who
+won't play back, you'll never properly know the pangs of a man
+that's got all the materials to smoke with except the fire.  Now,
+if I have a chance to do as much for you sometime, I'm there.'
+
+"She laughed and crinkled up her eyes at me.  'All right, Mr.
+Saunders.  When that obdurate man disdains me, I'll call for your
+help.'
+
+"'The place for the man that would disdain you is an asylum,' says
+I.  'And the only help I'd give you would be to put him there.'
+She blushed real nice.  I like to see a woman blush.  It's a trick
+they can't learn.
+
+"But I see she was put out by my easy talk, so I gave her a pat on
+the back and says, 'Don't mind me, little girl.  We fellers see an
+eighteen-carat woman so seldom that it goes to our heads.  There
+wasn't no offence meant, and you'll be foolish if you put it there.
+Let's shake hands.'
+
+"So she laughed again and shook.  I mean _shook_.  It wasn't like
+handing you so much cold fish--the way some women shake hands.  And
+Loys and me, we were full pards from date.
+
+"I made one more bad break on the home trip.
+
+"'Jonesy will be powerful glad to see you,' says I.
+
+"'Jonesy!' says she, surprised.  'Jonesy!  Oh, is that what you
+call Uncle Albert?'
+
+"'Well, it does sometimes happen that way," says I.  And then my
+anti-George Washington blood rose again.  'You see, he was kind of
+lonesome out there at first, and we took to calling him Jonesy to
+cheer him up and make him feel at home,' I says.
+
+"'Oh!' says she.  And I reckon she didn't feel so horribly awful
+about it, for after looking straight towards the Gulf of Mexico for
+a minute, suddenly she bust right out and hollered.  It seems that
+Jones cut a great deal of grass to a swipe when he was back home in
+his own street.  It's astonishing how little of a man it takes to
+do that in the East.  We had an argument once on the subject.
+'It's intellect does it,' says Silver Tompkins.  'Oh, that's it,
+eh?' says Wind-River Smith.  'Well, I'm glad I'm not troubled that
+way.  I'd rather have a forty-four chest than a number eight head
+any day you can find in the almanac.'  And I'm with Smithy.  This
+knowing so much it makes you sick ain't any better than being so
+healthy you don't know nothing, besides being square miles less
+fun.  Another thing about the Eastern folks is they're so sot in
+their views, and it don't matter to them whether the facts bear out
+their idees or not.
+
+"'Here, take a cigar,' says one of the Board of Directors to me--a
+little fat old man, who had to draw in his breath before he could
+cross his legs--'them cigarettes'll ruin your health,' says he.
+Mind you, he was always kicking and roaring about his liver or
+stummick, or some of his works.  I'm a little over six-foot-three
+in my boots when I stand up straight, and I stood up straight as
+the Lord would let me and gazed down at that little man.
+'Pardner,' says I, 'I was raised on cigarettes.  When I was two
+years old I used to have a pull at the bottle, and then my
+cigarette to aid digestion.  It may be conceit on my part,' I says,
+'but I'd rather be a wreck like me than a prize-fighter like you.'
+They're queer; you'd think that that little fat man would have
+noticed the difference without my pointing it out to him.
+
+"Well, I don't have to mention that Loys stirred things up
+considerable around the Chanta Seechee and vicinity.  Gee!  What a
+diving into wannegans and a fetching out of good clothes there was.
+And trading of useful coats and things for useless but decorating
+silk handkerchers and things!  And what a hair cutting and whisker
+trimming!
+
+"But Kyle was the man from the go in.  And it was right it should
+be so.  If ever two young people were born to make trouble for each
+other it was Kyle and Loys.
+
+"A nice, decent fellow was Kyle.  Nothing remarkable, you could
+say, and that was one of his best points.  Howsomever, he had a
+head that could do plain thinking, a pair of shoulders that
+discouraged frivoling, and he was as square a piece of furniture as
+ever came out of a factory.  More'n that; he had quite a little
+education, saved his money, never got more than good-natured
+loaded, and he could ride anything that had four legs, from a
+sawhorse to old tiger Buck, who would kick your both feet out of
+the sturrups and reach around and bite you in the small of the back
+so quick that the boys would be pulling his front hoofs out of your
+frame before you'd realize that the canter had begun.  Nice horse,
+Buck.  He like to eat Jonesy up one morning before Sliver and me
+could get to the corral.  Lord!  The sounds made my blood run cold!
+Old Buck squealing like a boar-pig in a wolf trap, and Jonesy
+yelling, 'Help!  Murder!  Police!' Even that did not cure Jones
+from sticking his nose where it wasn't wanted.  Why, once--but
+thunder!  It would take me a long while to tell you all that
+happened to Jones.
+
+"One thing that didn't hurt Kyle any in the campaign was that he
+was 'most as good-looking for a man as she was for a woman.  They
+made a pair to draw to, I tell you, loping over the prairie, full
+of health and youngness!  You wouldn't want to see a prettier sight
+than they made, and you could see it at any time, for they were
+together whenever it was possible.  Loys was so happy it made you
+feel like a boy again to see her.  She told me in private that it
+was wonderful how the air out here agreed with her, and I said it
+was considered mighty bracing, and never let on that they
+proclaimed their state of mind every time they looked at each
+other.  I reckon old smart-Aleck Jonesy was the only party in the
+township who didn't understand.  Kyle used to put vinegar in his
+coffee and things like that, and if you'd ask him, 'What's that
+fellow's name that runs the clothing store in town?' he'd come out
+of his trance and say 'Yes,' and smile very amiable, to show that
+he thoroughly admitted you were right.
+
+"Well, things went as smooth and easy as bob-sledding until it came
+time for Loys to be moseying back to college again.
+
+"Then Kyle took me into his confidence.  I never was less
+astonished in my whole life, and I didn't tell him so.  'Well, what
+are you going to do about it?' says I.
+
+"He kind of groaned and shook his head.  'I dunno,' says he.  'Do
+you think she likes me, Red?'  I felt like saying, 'Well, if you
+ain't got all the traits but the long ears, I miss my guess,' but I
+made allowances, and says I, 'Well, about that, I don't think I
+ought to say anything; still, if I had only one eye left I could
+see plain that her education's finished.  She don't want any more
+college, that girl don't.'
+
+"'Think not?' says he, bracing up.  And then, by-and-by, they went
+out to ride, for Jonesy was good to the girl, I'll say that for
+him.  He was willing to do anything for her in reason, according to
+his views.  But Kyle wasn't in them views; he was out of the
+picture as far as husbands went.
+
+"They came back at sunset, when the whole world was glowing red the
+same as they were.  I reached for the field glasses and took a
+squint at them.  There was no harm in that, for they were
+well-behaved young folks.  One look at their faces was enough.
+There were three of us in the bull-pen--Bob, and Wind-River Smith,
+and myself.  We'd brought up a herd of calves from Nanley's ranch,
+and we were taking it easy.  'Boys,' says I, under my breath,
+'they've made the riffle.'
+
+"'No!' says they, and then everybody had to take a pull at the
+glasses.
+
+"'Well, I'm glad,' says Smithy.  And darn my buttons if that old
+hardshell's voice didn't shake.  'They're two of as nice kids as
+you'd find in many a weary day,' says he.  'And I wish 'em all the
+luck in the world.'
+
+"'So do I,' says I, 'and I really think the best we could do for
+'em would be to shoot Jones.'
+
+"'Man!  Won't he sizz!' says Bob.  And you can't blame us old
+codgers if we had a laugh at that, although it was such a powerful
+serious matter to the youngsters.
+
+"'Let's go out and meet 'em,' says I.  And away we went.  They
+weren't a particle surprised.  I suppose they thought the whole
+universe had stopped to look on.  We pump-handled away and laughed,
+and Loys she laughed kind of teary, and Kyle he looked red in the
+face and proud and happy and ashamed of himself, and we all felt
+loosened up considerable, but I told him on the quiet, 'Take that
+fool grin off your face, unless you want Uncle Jones to drop the
+moment he sees you.'
+
+"Now they only had three days left to get an action on them, as
+that was the time set for Loys to go back to college.
+
+"Next day they held a council behind the big barn, and they called
+in Uncle Red--otherwise known as Big Red Saunders, or Chanta
+Seechee Red, which means 'Bad-heart Red' in Sioux language, and
+doesn't explain me by a durn sight--to get the benefit of his
+valuable advice.
+
+"'Skip,' says I.  'Fly for town and get married, and come back and
+tell Jonesy about it.  It's a pesky sight stronger argument to tell
+him what you have done than what you're going to do.'
+
+"They couldn't quite agree with that.  They thought it was sneaky.
+
+"'So it is,' says I.  'The first art of war is understanding how to
+make a grand sneak.  If you don't want to take my advice you can
+wait.'  That didn't hit 'em just right either.
+
+"'What will we wait for?' says Kyle.
+
+"'Exercise--and the kind you won't take when you get as old and as
+sensible as me.  You're taking long chances, both of you; but it's
+just like playing cards, you might as well put all your money on
+the first turn, win or lose, as to try and play system.  Systems
+don't work in faro, nor love affairs, nor any other game of chance.
+Be gone.  Put your marker on the grand raffle.  In other words take
+the first horse to town and get married.  Ten chances to one Jonesy
+will have the laugh on you before the year is out.'
+
+"'I don't think you are a bit nice to-day, Red,' says Loys.
+
+"'He's jealous,' says Kyle.
+
+"'That's what I am, young man,' says I.  'If I had ten years off my
+shoulders, and a little of the glow off my hair, I'd give you a run
+for your alley that would leave you breathless at the wind-up.'
+
+"'I think your hair is a beautiful color, Red,' says Loys.  'Many a
+woman would like to have it.'
+
+"'Of course they would,' I answered.  'But they don't get it.  I'm
+foxy, I am.'  Still I was touched in a tender spot.  That young
+woman knew Just the right thing to say, by nature.  'Well, what are
+you young folks going to do?' I asked them.
+
+"They decided that they'd think it over until next day, but that
+turned out to be too late, for what must Kyle do but get chucked
+from his horse and have his leg broke near the hip.  You don't want
+to take any love affairs onto the back of a bad horse, now you mark
+me!  There was no such thing as downing that boy when he was in his
+right mind.
+
+"Now here was a hurrah!  Loys, she dasn't cry, for fear of uncle,
+and Kyle, he used the sinfullest language known to the tongue of
+man.  'Twas the first time I'd ever heard him say anything much,
+but he made it clear that it wasn't because he couldn't.
+
+"'What will we do, Red?  What will we do?' says he.
+
+"'Now,' says I, 'don't bile over like that, because it's bad for
+your leg.'
+
+"He cussed the leg.
+
+"'Go on and tell me what we can do,' says he.
+
+"'When you ask me that, you've pulled the right bell,' says I.
+'I'll tell you exactly what we'll do.  I go for the doctor.  Savvy?
+Well, I bring back the minister at the same time.  Angevine, he
+loses the Jersey cow over in the cane-break, and uncle and Angevine
+go hunting her, for not even Loys is ace high in uncle's mind
+alongside that cow.  The rest is easy.'
+
+"'Red, you're a brick--you're the best fellow alive,' says Kyle,
+nearly squeezing the hand off me.
+
+"'I've tried to conceal it all my life, but I knew it would be
+discovered some day,' says I.  'Well, I suppose I'd better break
+the news to Loys--'twouldn't be any more than polite.'
+
+"'Oh, Lord!  I wonder if she'll be willing?' says he.
+
+"'No reason I shouldn't turn an honest dollar on the
+transaction--I'll bet you a month's wages she is,' says I.  He
+wanted to do it, thinking I was in earnest, but I laughed at him.
+
+"She was willing all right--even anxious.  There's some women, and
+men, too, for that matter, who go through life like a cat through a
+back alley, not caring a cuss for either end or the middle.  They
+would have been content to wait.  Not so Loys.  She wanted her
+Kyle, her poor Kyle, and she wanted him quick.  That's the kind of
+people for me!  Your cautious folk are all the time falling down
+wells because their eyes are up in the air, keeping tabs so that
+they can dodge shooting stars.
+
+"Now, I had a minister friend up in town, Father Slade by name.
+No, he was not a Catholic, I think.  They called him 'Father'
+because it fitted him.  His church had a steeple on it, anyhow, so
+it was no maverick.  Just what particular kind of religion the old
+man had I don't know, but I should say he was a homeopath on a
+guess.  He looked it.  'Twas a comfort to see him coming down the
+street, his old face shining in his white hair like a shrivelled
+pink apple in a snowdrift, God-blessing everything in sight--good,
+bad, or indifferent.  He had something pleasant to say to all.  We
+was quite friends, and every once in a while we'd have a chin about
+things.
+
+"'Are you keeping straight, Red?' he'd ask when we parted.
+
+"'Um,' I'd say, 'I'm afraid you'd notice a bend here and there, if
+you Slid your eyes along the edge.'
+
+"'Well, keep as straight as you can; don't give up trying, my boy,'
+he'd tell me, mighty earnest, and I'd feel ashamed of myself clear
+around the corner.
+
+"I knew the old man would do me a favour if it could be done, so I
+pulled out easy in my mind.
+
+"First place, I stopped at the doctor's, because I felt they might
+fix up the marrying business some other time, but if a leg that's
+broke in the upper joint ain't set right, you can see a large
+dark-complected hunk of trouble over the party's left shoulder for
+the rest of his days.  The doctor was out, so I left word for him
+what was wanted, and to be ready when I got back, and pulled for
+Father Slade's.  The old gentleman had the rheumatism, and he
+groaned when I come in.  Rheumatism's no disease for people who
+can't swear.
+
+"'How are you, my boy?' says he; 'I'm glad to see you.  Here am I,
+an old man, nipped by the leg, and much wanting to talk to
+somebody.'
+
+"I passed the time of day to him, but felt kind of blue.  This
+didn't look like keeping my word with the kids.  I really hated to
+say anything to the old man, knowing his disposition; still I felt
+I had to, and I out with my story.
+
+"'Dear! dear!' says he.  'The hurry and skurry of young folks!  How
+idle it seems when you get fifty years away from it, and see how
+little anything counts!  For all that, I thank God,' says he, 'that
+there's a little red left in my blood yet, which makes me
+sympathise with them.  But the girl's people object you say?'
+
+"I made that all clear to him.  The girl's _always_ all right,
+Father,' says I, 'and as for the man in this case, my word for him.'
+
+"Now it ain't just the right thing for me to say, but seeing as
+I've never had anything in particular to be modest about, and I'm
+proud of what the old gentleman told me, I'm going to repeat it.
+
+"'Your word is good for me, Red,' says he.  'You're a mischievous
+boy at times, but your heart and your head are both reliable; give
+me your arm to the waggon.'
+
+"Then I felt mighty sorry to think of lugging that poor old man all
+that ways.
+
+"'Here!' says I.  'Now you sit down again; don't you do anything of
+the sort--you ain't fit.'
+
+"He put his hand on my shoulder and hobbled his weight off the game
+leg.
+
+"'Reddy, I was sitting there thinking when you came in--thinking of
+how comfortable it was to be in an easy-chair with my foot on a
+stool, and then I thought, "If the Lord should send me some work to
+do, would I be willing?"  Now, thanks be to Him!  I am willing, and
+glad to find myself so, and I do not believe there's any work more
+acceptable to Him than the union of young folk who love each other.
+Ouch!' says he, as that foot touched the ground.  'Perhaps you'd
+better pick me up and carry me bodily.'
+
+"So I did it, the old housekeeper following us with an armful of
+things and jawing the both of us--him for a fool and me for a
+villain.  She was a strong-minded old lady, and I wish I could
+remember some of her talk--it was great.
+
+"We went around and got the doctor.
+
+"'Hoo!' says he.  'Is it as bad as that?' I winked at Father Slade.
+
+"'It's a plenty worse than that,' says I; 'you won't know the half
+of it till you get down there.'
+
+"But of course we had to tell him, and he was tickled.  Funny what
+an interest everybody takes in these happenings.  He wanted all the
+details.
+
+"'By Jove!' says he, 'the man whose feelings ain't the least dimmed
+by a broken leg--horse rolled on him, you said?  Splintered it,
+probably--that man is one of the right sort.  He'll do to tie to.'
+
+"When we reached the ranch the boys were lined up to meet us.
+'Hurry along!' they called.  'Angey can't keep uncle amused all
+day!'
+
+"So we hustled.  Kyle was for being married first, and then having
+his leg set, but I put my foot down flat.  It had gone long enough
+now, and I wasn't going to have him cripping it all his life.  But
+the doctor worked like a man who gets paid by the piece, and in
+less than no time we were able to call Loys in.
+
+"Wind-River Smith spoke to get to give the bride away, and we let
+him have it.
+
+"We'd just got settled to business when in comes Angevine, puffing
+like a buffalo.  'For Heaven's sakes! Ain't you finished yet?' says
+he; 'well, you want to be at it, for the old man ain't over two
+minutes behind me, coming fast.  I took the distance in ten-foot
+steps.  Just my luck!  Foot slipped when I was talking to him, and
+I dropped a remark that made him suspicious--I wouldn't have done
+it for a ton of money--but it's too late now.  I'll down him and
+hold him out there if you say so.'
+
+"Well, sir, at this old Father Slade stood right up, forgetting
+that foot entirely.
+
+"'Children, be ready,' says he, and he went over the line for a
+record.
+
+"'Hurry there!' hollers old Bob from the outside, where he was on
+watch; 'here comes uncle up the long coulee!'
+
+"'What are your names?' says Father Slade.  They told him, both
+red'ning.
+
+"'Do you, Kyle, take this woman, Loys, to have and keep track of,
+come hell or high water, her heirs and assigns for ever?'--or such
+a matter--says he, all in one breath, They both said they did.
+
+"Things flew till we came to the ring.  There was a hitch.  We had
+plumb forgotten that important article.  For a minute I felt
+stingy; then I cussed myself for a mean old long-horn, and dived
+into my box.
+
+"'Here, take this!' I says.  'It was my mother's!'
+
+"'Oh, Red! You mustn't part with that!' cried Loys, her eyes
+filling up.
+
+"'Don't waste time talking; I put through what I tackle.  Hurry,
+please, Father.'
+
+"'Has anybody any objections to these proceedings?' says he.
+
+"'I have,' says I, 'but I won't mention 'em.  Give them the
+verdict.'
+
+"'I pronounce you man and wife.  Let us pray,' says he.
+
+"'What's that?' screeches Uncle Jonesy from the doorway.  And then
+he gave us the queerest prayer you ever heard in your life.  He
+stood on one toe and clawed chunks out of the air while he
+delivered it.
+
+"He seemed to have it in for me in particular.  'You villain!  You
+rascal!  You red-headed rascal!  You did this!  I know you did!'
+
+"'Oh, uncle!' says I, 'forgive me!'  With that I hugged him right
+up to me, and he filled my bosom full of smothered language.
+
+"'Cheese it, you little cuss!' I whispered in his ear, 'or I'll
+break every rib in your poor old chest!'  I came in on him a
+trifle, Just to show him what I could do if I tried.
+
+"'Nuff!' he wheezes.  'Quit.  'Nuff.'
+
+"'Go up and congratulate 'em,' I whispered again.
+
+"'I won't,' says he.  'Ouch!  Yes, I will!  I will!'  So up he
+goes, grinding his teeth.
+
+"'I wish you every happiness,' he grunts.
+
+"'Won't you forgive me, uncle?' begs Loys.
+
+"'Some other time; some other time!'  he hollers, and he pranced
+out of the house like a hosstyle spider, the maddest little man in
+the Territory.
+
+"Loys had a hard time of it until Kyle got so he could travel, and
+they went up to the Yellowstone with a team for a wedding trip.
+
+"The rest of Loys's folks was in an unpleasant frame of mind, too.
+They sent out her brother, and while I'd have took most anything
+from Loys's brother, there comes a place where human nature is
+human nature, and the upshot of it was I planked that young man
+gently but firmly across my knees.  Suffering Ike!  But he was one
+sassy young man!  Howsomever, the whole outfit came round in
+time--all except uncle and me.  He used to grit his teeth together
+till the sparks flew when he saw me.  I was afraid he'd bust a
+blood-vessel in one of them fits, so I quit.  I hated to let go of
+the old ranch, but I'm pretty well fixed--I'm superintendent here.
+It's Kyle's ranch, you know.  That's his brand--the queer-looking
+thing on the left hip of that critter, over the vented hash-knife.
+Loys's invention, that is.  She says it's a cherublim, but we call
+it the 'flying flap-jack.'  There's a right smart lot of beef
+critters toting that signal around this part of the country.
+Kyle's one of the fellers that rises like a setting of bread--quiet
+and gentle, but steady and sure.  He's going to the State
+Legislature next year.  'Twon't do no harm to have one honest man
+in the outfit.
+
+"Now, perhaps if I'd married some nice woman I might have had 1,000
+steers of my own, and a chance to make rules and regulations for my
+feller-citizens--and then again I might have took to gambling and
+drinking and raising blazes, and broke my poor wife's broom-handle
+with my hard head.  So I reckon we'll let it slide as it is.  Now
+you straddle that cayuse of yours and come along with me and I'll
+show you some rattling colts."
+
+
+
+
+The Golden Ford
+
+Reddy was on the station platform, walking up and down, looking
+about him anxiously.  We caught sight of each other at the same
+time.
+
+"Hi, there!" said he and jumped for me.  "Gad-dog your little
+hide!" he cried as he put my right hand in line for a pension.  "I
+thought I was booked to go without saying good-bye to you--you got
+the note I pinned on your shack?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, there's time for a chin before the choo-choo starts--thought
+I'd be early, not savvying this kind of travelling a great deal.
+Darned if you ain't growed since I saw you--getting fat, too!
+Well, how's everything?  I didn't say nothing to the other boys
+about pulling my freight, as I wanted to go sober for once.  You
+explain to 'em that old Red's head ain't swelled, will you?  Seems
+kind of dirty to go off that way, but I'm bound for God's country
+and the old-time folks, and somehow I feel that I must cut the
+budge out of it.  'Nother thing is I'm superstitious, as you may or
+may not have noticed, and I believe if you try the same game twicet
+you'll get just as different results as can be the second time--you
+heard how I hit it in the mines, didn't you?  No?  Well, that's so;
+you dint seen many people out on the flat, have you?  Hum.  I don't
+know principally where to begin.  You remember Wind-River Smith's
+pardner that the boys called Shadder, because he was so thin?  Nice
+feller, always willing to do you a favour, or say something comical
+when you least expected it--had kind of a style with him, too.
+Yes, sir, that's the man.  Well him and me was out in the Bend one
+day, holding a mess of Oregon half-breeds that was to be shipped by
+train shortly, when old Smithy comes with the mail.  'Letter for
+you, Shadder,' says Smith, and passes over a big envelope with wads
+of sealing wax all over it.  Shadder reads his letter, and folds it
+up.  Then he takes a look over the county--the kind of a look a man
+gives when he's thinking hard.  Then says he, 'Red, take off your
+hat.' I done it.  'Smithy, take off your hat.'  'All right,' says
+Smith; 'but you tell me why, or I'll snake the shirt off you to
+square things.'
+
+"'Boys,' says Shadder, 'I'm Lord Walford.'
+
+"'Lord Hellford;' hollers Smithy.  'You'd better call somebody in
+to look at your plumbing--what you been drinkin', Shadder?'
+
+"'Read for yourself,' says Shadder, and he handed him the letter.
+
+"Wish't you could have seen old Smithy's face as he read it!  He
+thought his pardner had been cut out of his herd for ever.
+
+"'It's the God's truth, Red,' says he slowly, and he had a sideways
+smile on his face as he turned to Shadder.  'Well, sir,' says he,
+'I suppose congratulations are in order?'
+
+"Shadder's hand stopped short on its way to the cigarette, and he
+looked at Smithy as if he couldn't believe what he saw.
+
+"'To hell with 'em!' says he, as savage as a wildcat, and he jabbed
+the irons in and whirled his cayuse about on one toe, heading for
+the ranch.
+
+"'Now you go after him, you jealous old sore-head,' says I.  'Go
+on!' I says, as he started to argue the point, 'or I'll spread your
+nose all the way down your spinal column!'  The only time to say
+'no' to me is when I'm not meaning what I say, so away goes
+Wind-River, and they made it up all right in no time.  Well,
+Shadder had to pull for England to take a squint at the ancestral
+estates, and all of us was right here at this station to see him
+off--Lord! it seems as if that happened last world!--well, it took
+a little bit the edge off any and all drunks a ranch as an
+institution had ever seen before.  There was old Smithy crying
+around, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and explaining to a lot of
+Eastern folks that it wasn't Shadder's fault--gad-hook it all!  He
+was the best, hootin', tootin' son-of-a-sea-cook that ever hit a
+prairie breeze, in spite of this dum foolishness.
+
+"'They can't make no "lord" of Shadder!' hollers Smithy.  'That is,
+not for long--he's a _man_, Shadder is--ain't cher, yer damned old
+gangle-legged hide-rack?'
+
+"And Shadder never lost his patience at all, though it must have
+been kind of trying to be made into such a holy show before the
+kind of people he used to be used to.  All he'd say was 'Bet your
+life, old boy!'  Well, it was right enough too, as Smithy had
+nursed him through small-pox one winter up in the Shoshonee
+country, and mighty near starved himself to death feeding Shadder
+out of the slim grub stock, when the boy was on the mend; still
+some people would have forgot that.
+
+"But did your uncle Red get under the influence of strong drink?
+DID he?  Oh _my_!  Oh MY!  I wish I could make it clear to you.
+The vigilantes put after a horse thief once in Montana, and they
+landed on him in a butt-end canon, and there was all the stock with
+the brands on 'em as big as a patent medicine sign, as the lad
+hadn't had time to stop for alterations.
+
+"'Well,' says they, 'what have you got to say for yourself?'  He
+looked at them brands staring him in the face, and he bit off a
+small hunk of chewing 'Ptt-chay!'  Says he, 'Gentlemen, I'm at a
+loss for words!'  And they let him go, as a good joke is worth its
+price in any man's country.  I'm in that lad's fix; I ain't got the
+words to tell you how seriously drunk I was on that occasion.  I
+remember putting for what I thought was the hotel, and settling
+down, thinking there must be a lulu of a scrap in the barroom from
+the noise; then somebody gave me a punch in the ribs and says,
+'Where's your ticket?' and I don't know what I said nor what he
+said after that, but it must have been all right.  Then it got
+light and I met a lot of good friends I never saw before nor since;
+then more noise and trouble and at last I woke up.--in a hotel
+bedroom, all right, but not the one I was used to.  I went to the
+window, heaved her open and looked out.  It was a bully morning and
+I felt A1.  There was a nice range of mountains out in front of me
+that must have come up during' the night.  'I'd like to know where
+I am,' I thinks.  'But somebody will tell me before long, so there
+is no use worrying about that--the main point is, have I been
+touched?'  I dug down into my jeans and there wasn't a thing of any
+kind to remember me by.  'No,' I says to myself, 'I ain't been
+touched--I've been grabbed--they might have left me the price of a
+breakfast!  Well, it's a nice looking country, anyhow!'  So down I
+walks to the office.  A cheerful-seeming plump kind of a man was
+sitting behind the desk.  'Hello!' says he, glancing up and smiling
+as I came in.  'How do you open up this morning?'
+
+"'Somebody saved me the trouble,' says I.  'I'm afraid I'll have to
+give you the strong arm for breakfast.'
+
+"He grinned wide.  'Oh, it ain't as bad as that, I hardly reckon,'
+says he.  He dove into a safe and brought out a cigar-box.
+
+"'When a gentleman's in the condition you was in last night,' he
+says, 'I always make it a point to go through his clothes and take
+out anything a stranger might find useful, trusting that there
+won't be no offence the next morning.  Here's your watch and the
+rest of your valuables, including the cash--count your money and
+see if it's right.'
+
+"Well, sir! I was one happy man, and I thanked that feller as I
+thumbed over the bills, but when I got up to a hundred and seventy
+I begun to feel queer.  Looked like I'd made good money on the trip.
+
+"'What's the matter?' says he, seeing my face.  'Nothing wrong, I
+hope!'
+
+"'Why, the watch and the gun, and the other things is all right,'
+says I.  'But I'm now fifty dollars to the good, even figuring that
+I didn't spend a cent, which ain't in the least likely, and here's
+ten-dollar bills enough to make a bed-spread left over.'
+
+"'Pshaw!' says he.  'Blame it!  I've mixed your plunder up with the
+mining gentleman that came in at the same time.  You and him was
+bound to fight at first, and then you both turned to to lick me,
+and what with keeping you apart and holding you off, and taking
+your valuables away from you all at the same time, and me all alone
+here as it was the night-man's day-off, I've made a blunder of it.
+Just take your change out of the wad, and call for a drink on me
+when you feel like it, will you?'
+
+"I said I would do that, and moreover that he was an officer and a
+gentleman, and that I'd stay at his hotel two weeks at least to
+show my appreciation, no matter where it was, but to satisfy a
+natural curiosity, I'd like to know what part of the country I was
+at present inhabiting.
+
+"'You're at Boise, Idaho,' says he, 'one of the best little towns
+in the best little Territory in the United States of America,
+including Alaska.'
+
+"'Well . . .' says I.  'Well . . .' for again I was at a loss for
+words.  I had no idea I'd gone so far from home.  'I believe what
+you say,' says I.  'What do you do around these parts?'
+
+"'Mining,' says he.  'You're just in time--big strike in the
+Bob-cat district.  Poor man's mining.   Placer, and durned good
+placer, right on the top of the ground.  The mining gentleman I
+spoke about is having his breakfast now.  Suppose you go in and
+have a talk with him?  Nice man, drunk or sober, although excitable
+when he's had a little too much, or not quite enough.  He might put
+you onto a good thing.  I'm not a mining person myself.'
+
+"'Thanks,' says I, and in I went to the dining room.
+
+There was a great, big, fine-looking man eating his ham and eggs
+the way I like to see a man eat the next morning.  He had a black
+beard that was so strong it fairly jumped out from his face.
+
+"'Mornin',' says I.
+
+"'Good morning', sir!' says he.  'A day of commingled lucent
+clarity and vernal softness, ain't it?'
+
+"'Well, I wouldn't care to bet on that without going a little
+deeper into the subject,' says I; 'but it smells good at least--so
+does that ham and eggs.  Mary, I'll take the same, with coffee
+extra strong.'
+
+"'You have doubtless been attracted to our small but growing city
+from the reports--which are happily true--of the inexhaustible
+mineral wealth of the surrounding region?' says he.
+
+"'No-o--not exactly,' says I; 'but I do want to hear something
+about mines.  Mr. Hotel-man out there (who's a gentleman of the old
+school if ever there lived one) told me that you might put me on to
+a good thing.'
+
+"'Precisely,' says he.  'Now, sir, my name is Jones--Agamemnon G.
+Jones--and my pardner, Mr. H. Smith, is on a business trip, selling
+shares of our mine, which we have called "The Treasury" from
+reasons which we can make obvious to any investor.  The shares, Mr.
+------'
+
+"'Saunders--Red Saunders--Chantay Seeche Red.'
+
+"'Mr. Saunders, are fifty cents apiece, which price is really only
+put upon them to avoid the offensive attitude of dealing them out
+as charity.  As a matter of fact, this mine of ours contains a
+store of gold which would upset the commercial world, were the bare
+facts of its extent known.  There is neither sense nor amusement in
+confining such enormous treasure in the hands of two people.
+Consequently, my pardner and I are presenting an interest to the
+public, putting the nominal figure of fifty cents a share upon it,
+to save the feelings of our beneficiaries.'
+
+"'What the devil do I care?' says I.  'I'm looking for a chance to
+dig--could you tell a man where to go?'
+
+"'Oh!' says he, 'when you come to that, that's different.  Strictly
+speaking, my pardner Hy hasn't gone off on a business trip.  As a
+matter of fact, he left town night before last with two-thirds of
+the money we'd pulled out of a pocket up on Silver Creek, in the
+company of two half-breed Injuns, a Chinaman, and four more
+sons-of-guns not classified, all in such a state of beastly
+intoxication that their purpose, route, and destination are matters
+of the wildest conjecture.  I've been laying around town here
+hating myself to death, thinking perhaps I could sell some shares
+in a mine that we'll find yet, if we have good luck.  If you want
+to go wild-catting over the hills and far away, I'm your
+huckleberry.'
+
+"'That hits me all right,' says I.  'For, what I don't know about
+mining, nobody don't know.  When do we start?'
+
+"'This, or any other minute,' says he, getting up from the table.
+
+"'Wait till I finish up these eggs,' says I.  'And there's a matter
+of one drink coming to me outside--I may as well put that where it
+won't harm any one else before we start.'
+
+"'All right!' says he, waving his hand.  'You'll find me
+outside--at your pleasure, sir.'
+
+"I swallered the rest of my breakfast whole and hustled out to the
+bar, where my friend and the Hotel-man was waiting.  'Now I'll take
+that drink that's coming, and rather than be small about it, I'll
+buy one for you too, and then we're off,' says I.
+
+"'You won't do no such thing,' says the Hotel-man.  'It's a horse
+on me, and I'll supply the liquor.  Mr. Jones is in the play as
+much as anybody.'
+
+"So the Hotel-man set 'em up, and that made one drink.  Then Jones
+said he'd never let a drink suffer from lonesomeness yet when he
+had the price, and that made two drinks.  I had to uphold the
+honour of the ranch, and that made three drinks.  Hotel-man said it
+was up-sticks now, and he meant to pay his just debts like an
+honest man, and that made four drinks, then Jones said--well, by
+this time I see I needn't have hurried breakfast so much.  More
+people came in.  I woke up the next morning in the same old
+bedroom.  Every breakfast Aggy and me got ready to pull for the
+mines, and every morning I woke up in the bedroom.  I should like
+to draw a veil over the next two weeks, but it would have to be a
+pretty strong veil to hold it.  I tried to keep level with Aggy,
+but he'd spend three dollars to my one, and the consequence of that
+was that we went broke within fifteen minutes of each other.
+
+"Well, sir, we were a mournful pair to draw to that day.  We sat
+there and cussed and said, 'Now, why didn't we do this, that, and
+t'other thing instead of blowing our hard earned dough?'--till
+bimeby we just dripped melancholy, you might say.   Howsomever, we
+weren't booked for a dull time just yet.  That afternoon there was
+a great popping of whips like an Injun skirmish and into town comes
+a bull train half-a-mile long.  Twelve yoke of bulls to the team;
+lead, swing, and trail waggons for each, as big as houses on
+wheels.  You don't see the like of that in this country.  Down the
+street they come, the dust flying, whips cracking and the lads
+hollering 'Whoa haw, Mary--up there!  Wherp! whoa haw.'
+
+"And those fellers had picked up dry throats, walking in the dust.
+Also, they had a month's wages aching in their pockets.  We hadn't
+much mor'n got the thump of their arrival out of our ears, when who
+comes roaring into town but the Bengal Tiger gang, and they had
+four months' wages.  Owner of the mine got on a bender and paid
+everybody off by mistake.  You can hardly imagine how this livened
+up things.  There ain't nobody less likely to play lame-duck than
+me, but there was no dodging the hospitality.  The only idea
+prevailing was to be rid of the money as soon as possible.  The
+effects showed right off.  You could hear one man telling the folks
+for their own good that he was the Old Missouri River, and when he
+felt like swelling his banks, it was time for parties who couldn't
+swim to hunt the high ground; whilst the gentleman on the next
+corner let us know that he was a locomotive carrying three hundred
+pounds of steam with the gauge still climbing and the blower on.
+When he whistled three times, he said, any intelligent man would
+know that there was danger around.
+
+"Well, sir, I put the Old Missouri River to bed that night, and
+he'd flattened out to a very small streamlet indeed, while the
+locomotive went lame before supper, and had to be put in the
+round-house by a couple of pushers.  That's the way with fine
+ideas.  Cold facts comes and puts a crimp in them.  Once I knew a
+small feller I could have stuck in my pocket and forgot about, but
+when we went out and took several prescriptions together on a day,
+he spoke to me like this.  'Red,' says he, 'put your little hand in
+mine, and we'll go and take a bird's-eye view of the Universe.'
+Astonishin' idea, wasn't it?  And him not weighing over a hundred
+pound.  Howsomever, he didn't take any bird's-eye view of the
+Universe--he only become strikingly indisposed.
+
+"Well, to get back to Boise, you never in all your life saw so many
+men and brothers as was gathered there that day, and old Aggy, he
+was one of the centres of attraction.  That big voice and black
+beard was always where the crowd was thickest, and the wet goods
+flowing the freest.  'Gentlemen!' says he, 'Let's lift up our
+voices in melody!'  That was one of Ag's delusions--he thought he
+could sing.  So four of 'em got on top of a billiard table and
+presented 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep' to the company, which
+made me feel glad that I hadn't been brought up that way.  After Ag
+had hip-locked the last low note, another song-bird volunteered.
+
+"This was a little fat Dutchman, with pale blue eyes and a mustache
+like two streaks of darning cotton.  He had come to town to sell a
+pair of beef-steers, but got drawn into the general hilarity, and
+now he didn't care a cuss whether he, she, or it ever sold another
+steer.  He got himself on end and sung 'Leeb Fadderlont moxtrue
+eckstein' in a style that made you wonder that the human nose could
+stand the strain.
+
+"'Aw, cheese that!' says a feller near the door.  'Come get your
+steers, one of 'em's just chased the barber up a telegraph pole!'
+
+"So then we all piled out into the street to see the steers.  Sure
+enough, there was the barber, sitting on the cross-piece, and the
+steer pawing dirt underneath.
+
+"'He done made me come a fast heat from de cohner,' says the
+barber.  'I kep' hollerin' "next!" but he ain't pay no 'tention--he
+make it "next" fur me, shuah!  Yah, yah, yah!  You gents orter seen
+me start at de bottom, an' slide all de way up disyer telegraft
+pole!'
+
+"One of the bull-whackers went out to rope the steers, and Ag gave
+directions from the sidewalk.  He wasn't very handy with a riata,
+and that's a fact, but the way Ag lit into him was scandalous.
+When he'd missed about six casts of his rope, Ag opened up on him:
+
+"'Put a stamp on it and send it to him by mail,' says Aggy, in his
+sourcastic way.  'Address it, "Bay Steer, middle of Main St.,
+Boise, Idaho.  If not delivered within ten days, return to owner,
+who can use it to hang himself."  Blast my hide if I couldn't stand
+here and throw a box-car nearer to the critter!  Well, _well_,
+WELL!  How many left hands have you got, anyhow?  Do it up in a wad
+and heave it at him for general results--he might get tangled in
+it.'
+
+"It rattled the bull-whacker, having so much attention drawn to
+him, and he stepped on the rope and twisted himself up in it and
+was flying light generally.
+
+"'Say!' says Ag, appealing to the crowd, 'won't some kind friend
+who's fond of puzzles go down and help that gentleman do himself?'
+
+"That made the whacker mad.  He was as red in the face as a lobster.
+
+"'You come down and show what _you_ can do," says he.  'You've got
+gas enough for a balloon ascension, but that may be all there is to
+you.'
+
+"'Oh, I ain't so much,' says Aggy, 'although I'm as good a man
+to-day as ever I was in my life--but I have a little friend here
+who can rope, down, and ride that critter from here to the
+brick-front in five minutes by the watch; and if you've got a
+twenty-five dollar bill in your pocket, or its equivalent in dust,
+you can observe the experiment.'
+
+"'I'll go you, by gosh!' says the bull-whacker, slapping his hat on
+the ground and digging for his pile.
+
+"'Say, if you're referring to me, Ag,' I says, 'it's kind of a
+sudden spring--I ain't what you might call in training, and that
+steer is full of triple-extract of giant powder.'
+
+"'G'wan!' says Ag.  'You can do it--and then we're twenty-five
+ahead.'
+
+"'But suppose we lose?'
+
+"'Well . . .  It won't be such an awful loss.'
+
+"'Now you look here, Agamemnon G. Jones,' says I, 'I ain't going to
+stand for putting up a summer breeze ag'in' that feller's good
+dough--that's a skin game, to speak it pleasantly.'
+
+"Then Aggy argues the case with me, and when Aggy started to argue,
+you might just as well 'moo' and chase yourself into the corral,
+because he'd get you, sure.  Why, that man could sit in the cabin
+and make roses bloom right in the middle of the floor; whilst he
+was singing his little song you could see 'em and smell 'em; he
+could talk a snowbank off a high divide in the middle of February.
+Never see anybody with such a medicine tongue, and in a big man it
+was all the stranger.  'Now,' he winds up, 'as for cheating that
+feller, _you_ ought to know me better, Red--why, I'll give him my
+note!'
+
+"So, anyhow, I done it.  Up the street we went, steer bawling and
+buck-jumping, my hair a-flying, and me as busy as the little bee
+you read about keeping that steer underneath me, 'stead of on top
+of me, where he'd ruther be, and after us the whole town, whoopin',
+yellin', crackin' off six-shooters, and carryin' on wild.
+
+"Then we had twenty-five dollars and was as good as anybody.  But
+it didn't last long.  The tin-horns come out after pay-day, like
+hop-toads after a rain.  'Twould puzzle the Government at
+Washington to know where they hang out in the meantime.  There was
+one lad had a face on him with about as much expression as a hotel
+punkin pie.  He run an arrow game, and he talked right straight
+along in a voice that had no more bends in it than a billiard cue.
+
+"'Here's where you get your three for one any child may do it no
+chance to lose make your bets while the arrow of fortune swings all
+gents accommodated in amounts from two-bits to double-eagles and
+bets paid on the nail,' says he.
+
+"'Red,' says Aggy, 'I can double our pile right here--let me have
+the money.  I know this game.'  You'd hardly believe it, but I dug
+up.  'Double-or-quits?' says he to the dealer.
+
+"'Let her go,' says the dealer; the arrow swung around.  'Quits,'
+says the dealer, and raked in my dough.  It was all over in one
+second.
+
+"I grabbed Aggy by the shoulder and took him in the corner for a
+private talk.  'I thought you knew this game?' says I.
+
+"'I do,' says he.  'That's the way it always happens.'  And once
+more in my life I experienced the peculiar feeling of being
+altogether at a loss for words.
+
+"'Aggy,' says I at last, 'I've got a good notion to lay two violent
+hands on you, and wind you up like an eight-day clock, but rather
+than make hard feelings between friends, I'll refrain.  Besides you
+are a funny cuss, that's sure.  One thing, boy, you can mark down.
+We leave here to-morrow morning.'
+
+"'All right,' says Ag.  'This sporting life is the very devil.  I
+like out doors as well as the next man, when I get there.'
+
+"So the morrow morning, away we went.  All we had for kit was the
+picks, shovels, and pans; the rest of our belongings was staying
+with the Hotel-man until we made a rise.
+
+"Ag said he'd be cussed if he'd walk.  A hundred and fifty miles of
+a stroll was too many.
+
+"'But we ain't got a cent to pay the stage fare,' says I.
+
+"'Borrow it of Uncle Hotel-keep,' says he.
+
+"'Not by a town site,' says I.  'We owe him all we're going to, at
+this very minute--you'll have to hoof it, that's all.'
+
+"'I tell you I won't.  I don't like to have anybody walk on my
+feet, not even myself.  I can stand off that stage driver so easy,
+that you'll wonder I don't take it up as a profession.  Now, don't
+raise any more objections--please don't,' says he.  'I can't tell
+you how nervous you make me, always finding some fault with
+everything I try to do.  That's no way for a hired man to act, let
+alone a pardner.'
+
+"So, of course, he got the best of me as usual, and we climbed into
+the stage when she come along.  Now, our bad luck seemed to hold,
+because you wouldn't find many men in that country who wouldn't
+stake two fellers to a waggon ride wherever they wanted to go, and
+be pleasant about it, I'd have sure seen that the man got paid,
+even if Aggy forgot it, but the man that drove us was the surliest
+brute that ever growled.  When you'd speak to him, he'd say,
+'Unh'--a style of thing that didn't go well in that part of the
+country.  I kept my mouth shut, as knowing that I didn't have the
+come-up-with weighed on my spirits; but Aggy gave him the jolly.
+He only meant it in fun, and there was plenty of reason for it,
+too, for you never seen such a game of driving as that feller put
+up in all your life.  The Lord save us!  He cut around one corner
+of a mountain, so that for the longest second I've lived through,
+my left foot hung over about a thousand feet of fresh air.  I'd
+have had time to write my will before I touched bottom if we'd gone
+over.  I don't know as I turned pale, but my hair ain't been of the
+same rosy complexion since.
+
+"'Well!' says Aggy in a surprised tone of voice when we got all
+four wheels on the ground again.  'Here we are!' says he.  'Who'd
+have suspected it?  I thought he was going to take the short cut
+down to the creek.'
+
+"The driver turned round with one corner of his lip h'isted--a dead
+ringer of a mean man--Says he to Aggy, 'Yer a funny bloke, ain't
+yer?'
+
+"'Why!' says Ag, 'that's for you to say--wouldn't look well coming
+from me--but if you press me, I'll admit I give birth to a little
+gem now and then.'
+
+"Our bold buck puts on a great swagger.  'Well yer needn't be funny
+in this waggon,' says he.  'The pair of yer spongin' a ride!  Yer
+needn't be gay--yer hear me, don't cher?'
+
+"'Why, I hear you as plain as though you set right next me,' says
+Ag.  'Now, you listen and see if I'm audible at the same
+range--You're a blasted chump!' he roars, in a tone of voice that
+would have carried forty mile.  Did _you_ hear that, Red?' he asks
+very innocent.  I was so hot at the driver's sass--the cussed
+low-downness of doing a feller a favour and then heaving it at
+him--that you could have lit a match on me anywheres, but to save
+me I couldn't help laughing--Ag had the comicallest way!
+
+"At that the driver begins to larrup the horses.  I ain't the kind
+to feel faint when a cayuse gets what's coming to him for raising
+the devil, but to see that lad whale his team because there wasn't
+nothing else he dared hit, got me on my hind legs.  I nestled one
+hand in his hair and twisted his ugly mug back.
+
+"'Quit that!' says I.
+
+"'You let me be--I ain't hurting _you_,' he hollers.
+
+"'That ain't to say I won't be hurting you soon,' says I.  'You put
+the bud on them horses again, and I'll boot the spine of your back
+up through the top of your head till it stands out like a
+flag-staff.  Just one more touch, and you get it!' says I.
+
+"He didn't open his mouth again till we come to the river.  Then he
+pulled up.  'This is about as far as I care to carry you two gents
+for nothin',' he says.  'Of course you're two to one, and I can't
+do nothing if you see fit to bull the thing through.  But I'll say
+this: if either one or both of you roosters has got the least smell
+of a gentleman about him, he won't have to be told his company
+ain't wanted twice.'
+
+"Now, mind you, Ag and me didn't have the first cussed thing--not
+grub, nor blankets, nor gun, nor nothing; and this the feller well
+knew.
+
+"'Red,' says Aggy, 'what do you say to pulling this thing apart and
+seeing what makes it act so?'
+
+"'No,' says I, 'don't touch it--it might be catching.  Now, you
+whelp!' says I to the driver, 'you tell us if there's a place where
+we can get anything to eat around here?'  We'd expected to go
+hungry until we hit the camp some forty mile further on, where we
+knew there'd be plenty for anybody that wanted it.
+
+"'Yes,' says he; 'there's a man running a shack two mile up the
+river.'
+
+"'All right,' says I.  'Drive on.  You've played us as dirty a
+trick as one man can play another.  If we ever get a cinch on you,
+you can expect we'll pull her till the latigoes snap.'
+
+"He kept shut till he got across the river, where he felt safe.
+
+"'It's all right about that cinch!' he hollers back, grinning.
+'Only wait till you get it, yer suckers!  Sponges!  Beats!
+Dead-heads!  Yah!'
+
+"Well, a man can't catch a team of horses, and that's all there is
+about it, but I want to tell you he was on the anxious seat for a
+quarter of a mile.  We tried hard.
+
+"When we got back to where we started and could breathe again, we
+held a council of war.
+
+"'Now Aggy,' says I, 'we're dumped--what shall we do?'
+
+He sat there awhile looking around him, snapping pebbles with his
+thumb.
+
+"'Tell you what it is, Red,' he says at last, 'we might as well go
+mining right here.  This is likely gravel, and there's a river.  If
+that bar in front of you had been further in the mountains, it
+would have been punched full of holes.  It's only because it's on
+the road that nobody's taken the trouble to see what was in it.
+This road was made by cattle ranchers, that didn't know nothing
+about mining, and every miner that's gone over the trail had his
+mouth set to get further along as quick as possible--just like us.
+Do you see that little hollow running down to the river?  Well you
+try your luck there.  I give you that place as it's the most
+probable, and you as a tenderfoot in the business will have all the
+luck.  I'll make a stab where I am.'
+
+"Well, sir, it sounds queer to tell it, and it seems queerer still
+to think of the doing of it, but I hadn't dug two feet before I
+come to bed rock, and there was some heavy black chunks.
+
+"'Aggy,' says I, 'what's these things?' throwing one over to him.
+He caught it and Stared at it.
+
+"'Where did you get that?' says he, in almost a whisper.
+
+"'Why, out of the hole, of course!' says I, laughing.  'Come take a
+look!'
+
+"Aggy wasn't the kind of man to go off the handle over trifles, but
+when he looked into that hole he turned perfectly green.  His knees
+give out from under him and he sat on the ground like a man in a
+trance, wiping the sweat off his face with a motion like a machine.
+
+"'What the devil ails you?' says I astonished.  I thought maybe I'd
+done something I hadn't ought to do, through ignorance of the rules
+and regulations of mining.
+
+"'Red,' says he dead solemn, 'I've mined for twenty year, and from
+Old Mexico to Alaska, but I never saw anything that was ace-high to
+that before.  Gold laying loose in chunks on top of the bed-rock is
+too much for me--I wish Hy could see this.'
+
+"'Gold!' says I.  'What you talking about?  What have those black
+hunks to do with gold?'
+
+"The only answer he made was to lay the one I had thrown to him on
+top of a rock and hit her a crack with a pick.  Then he handed it
+to me.  Sure enough!  There under the black was the yeller.  Of
+course, it I'd known more about the business I could have told it
+by the weight, but I'd never seen a piece of gold fresh off the
+farm before in my life.  I hadn't the slightest idea what it looked
+like, and I learned afterward it all looks different.  Some of it
+shines up yaller in the start; some of it's red, and some is like
+ours, coated black with iron-crust.
+
+"So I looked at Ag, and Ag looked at me, neither one of us
+believing anything at all for awhile.  I simply couldn't get hold
+of the thing--I ain't yet, for that matter.  I expect to wake up
+and find it a pipe dream, and in some ways I wouldn't mind if it
+was.  I never was so completely two men as I was on that occasion.
+One of 'em was hopping around and hollering with Ag, yelling
+'hooray!' and the other didn't take much interest in the
+proceedings at all.  And it wasn't until I thought, 'Now I can pay
+that cussed cayote of a stage driver what I owe him!' that I got
+any good out of it.  That brought it home to me.  When I spoke to
+Ag about paying the driver, he says, 'That's so,' then he takes a
+quick look around.  'We can pay him in full, too, old horse!' he
+hollers, and there was a most joyful smile on his face.
+
+"'Red,' say he, 'do you know this is the only ford on the river
+for--I don't know how many miles--perhaps the whole length of her?'
+
+"'Well?' says I.
+
+"'Our little placer claim,' says Aggy slowly, rubbing his hands
+together, 'covers that ford; and by a judicious taking up of claims
+for various uncles and brothers and friends of ours along the creek
+on the lowlands, we can fix it so they can't even bridge it.'
+
+"'Do you mean they can't cross our claim if we say they can't?'
+
+"'Sure thing!' says Aggy.  'There's you and me and the law to say
+"no" to that--I wish I had a gun.'
+
+"'You don't need any gun for that skunk of a driver.'
+
+"'Of course not, but there'll be passengers, and there's no telling
+how excited them passengers will be when they find they've got to
+go over the hills ford-hunting.'
+
+"'Are you going to send 'em all around, Ag?'
+
+"'The whole bunch.  Anybody coming back from the diggings has gold
+in his clothes, so it won't hurt 'em none, and I propose to give
+that stage line an advertising that won't do it a bit of good.
+Come along, Red; let's see that lad that has the shack up the
+river.  We need something to eat, and maybe he's got a gun.  If
+he's a decent feller, we'll let him in on a claim.  Never mind
+about the hole!--it won't run away, and there's nobody to touch
+anything--come on.'
+
+"So we went up the river.  The man's name was White, and he was a
+white man by nature, too.  He fed us well, and was just as hot as
+us when we told him about the stage driver's trick.  Then we told
+him about the find and let him in.
+
+"'Now,' says Aggy, 'have you got a gun?'
+
+"'I have _that_,' says the man.  'My dad used to be a duck-hunter
+on Chesapeake bay.  When you say "gun," _I'll_ show you a gun.' He
+dove in under his bunk and fetched out what I should say was a
+number one bore shot gun, with barrels six foot long.
+
+"'Gentlemen,' says he, holding the gun up and patting it lovingly,
+'if you ram a quarter-pound of powder in each one of them barrels,
+and a handful of buck-shot on top of that, you've got an argument
+that couldn't be upset by the Supreme Court.  I'll guarantee that
+when you point her anywheres within ten feet of a man not over a
+hundred yards away, and let her do her duty, all the talent that
+that man's fambly could employ couldn't gather enough of him to
+recognise him by, and you won't be in bed more'n long enough to
+heal a busted shoulder.'
+
+"'I hope it ain't going to be my painful line of performance to
+pull the trigger,' says Aggy.  'I think the sight of her would have
+weight with most people.  When's the stage due back?'
+
+"'Day after to-morrow, about noon.'
+
+"'That gives us lots of time to stake, and to salt claims that
+can't show cause their own selves,' says Aggy.  'I think we're all
+right.'
+
+"The next day we worked like the Old Harry.  We had everything
+fixed up right by nightfall, and there was nothing to do but dig
+and wait.
+
+"Curious folks we all are, ain't we?  I should have said my own
+self that if I'd found gold by the bucketful, I'd be more
+interested in that, than I would be in getting even with a mut that
+had done me dirt, but it wasn't so.  Perhaps it was because I
+hadn't paid much attention to money all my life, and I had paid the
+strictest attention to the way other people used me.  Living where
+there's so few folks accounts for that, I suppose.
+
+"Getting even on our esteemed friend the stage driver was right in
+your Uncle Reddy's line, and Aggy and our new pard White seemed to
+take kindly to it, also.
+
+"If ever you saw three faces filled with innocent glee, it was when
+we heard the wheels of that stage coming--why, the night before I
+was woke up by somebody laughing.  There was Aggy sound asleep,
+sitting up hugging himself in the moonlight.
+
+"'Oh, my! Oh, MY!' says he.  'It's the only ford for four thousand
+miles!'
+
+"We planted a sign in the middle of the road with this wording on
+it in big letters, made with the black end of a stick.
+
+
+    NOTICE!!
+
+  THIS AND ADJOINING CLAIMS ARE THE
+  PROPERTY OF AGAMEMNON G. JONES,
+  RED SAUNDERS, JOHN HENRY WHITE,
+  ET AL.
+
+  TRESPASSING DONE AT YOUR OWN
+  RISK.  OWNERS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE
+  FOR THE REMAINS.
+
+
+"There was a stretch of about a mile on the level before us.  When
+the stage come in plain sight Aggy proceeds to load up 'Old Moral
+Suasion,' as he called her, so that the folks could see there was
+no attempt at deception.  They come pretty fairly slow after that.
+At fifty yards, Ag hollers 'Halt!'  The team sat right down on
+their tails.
+
+"'Now, Mr. Snick'umfritz,' says Aggy, 'you that drives, I mean,
+come here and read this little sign.'
+
+"'Suppose I don't?' says the feller, trying to be smart before the
+passengers.
+
+"'It's a horrible supposition,' says Aggy, and the innocent will
+have to suffer with the guilty.'  Then he cocks the gun.
+
+"'God sakes!  Don't shoot!' yells one of the passengers.  'Man, you
+ought to have more sense than to try and pick him out of a crowd
+with a shot-gun!  Get down there, you fool, and make it quick!'
+
+"So the driver walked our way, and read.  He never said a word.  I
+reckon he realized it was the only ford for four thousand miles,
+more or less, just as Aggy had remarked.  There he stood, with his
+mouth and eyes wide open.
+
+"'I'd like to have you other gentlemen come up and see our first
+clean up, so you won't think we're running in a windy,' says Aggy.
+They wanted to see bad, as you can imagine, and when they did see
+about fifteen pound of gold in the bottom of my old hat, they
+talked like people that hadn't had a Christian bringing up.
+
+"'Oh Lord!' groans one man.  'Brigham Young and all the prophets of
+the Mormon religion!  This is my tenth trip over this line, and me
+and Pete Hendricks played a game of seven-up right on the spot
+where that gent hit her, not over a month ago, when the stage broke
+down!  Somebody just make a guess at the way I feel and give me one
+small drink.' And he put his hand to his head.  'Say, boys!' he
+goes on, 'you don't want the whole blamed creek, do you?  Let _us_
+in!'
+
+"'How's that, fellers?' says Ag to me and White.  We said we was
+agreeable.
+
+"'All right, in you come!' says Aggy.  'There ain't no hog about
+our firm--but as for you,' says he, walking on his tip-toes up to
+the driver, 'as for you, you cock-eyed whelp, around you go!
+Around you go!' he hollers, jamming the end of Moral Suasion into
+the driver's trap.  'Oh, and WON'T you go 'round, though!' says he.
+'Listen to me, now: if any one of your ancestors for twenty-four
+generations back had ever done anything as decent as robbing a
+hen-coop, it would have conferred a kind of degree of nobility upon
+him.  It wouldn't be possible to find an ornerier cuss than you, if
+a man raked all hell with a fine-toothed comb.  Now, you
+stare-coated, mangey, bandy-legged, misbegotten, out-law coyote,
+fly!--fly!' whoops Aggy, jumping four foot in the air, 'before I
+squirt enough lead into your system to make it a paying job to melt
+you down!'
+
+"The stage driver acted according to orders.  Three wide steps and
+he was in the waggon, and with one screech like a p'izened bob-cat,
+he fairly lifted the cayuses over the first ridge.  Nobody never
+saw him any more, and nobody wanted to.
+
+"So that's the way I hit my stake, son, just as I'd always
+expected--by not knowing what I was doing any part of the time--and
+now, there comes my iron-horse coughing up the track!  I'll write
+you sure, boy, and you let old Reddy know what's going on--and on
+your life, don't forget to give it to the lads straight why I
+sneaked off on the quiet!  I've got ten years older in the last six
+months.  Well, here we go quite fresh, and damned if I altogether
+want to, neither--too late to argue though--by-bye, son!"
+
+
+
+
+When the Chinook Struck Fairfield
+
+I
+
+Miss Mattie sat on her little front porch,  facing the setting sun.
+Across the road, now ankle deep in June dust, was the wreck of the
+Peters place: back-broken roof, crumbling chimneys, shutters
+hanging down like broken wings, the old house had the pathetic
+appeal of ship-wrecked gentility.  A house without people in it,
+even when it is in repair, is as forlorn as a dog who has lost his
+master.
+
+Up the road were more houses of the nondescript village pattern,
+made neither for comfort nor looks.  God knows why they built such
+houses--perhaps it was in accordance with the old Puritan idea that
+any kind of physical perfection is blasphemy.  Some of these were
+kept in paint and window glass, but there were enough poor
+relations to spoil the effect.
+
+Down the road, between the arches of the weeping willows, came
+first the brook, with the stone bridge--this broken as to coping
+and threadbare in general--then on the hither side of the way some
+three or four neighbour's houses, and opposite, the blacksmith's
+shop and post-office, the latter, of course, in a store, where you
+could buy anything from stale groceries to shingles.
+
+In short, Fairfield was an Eastern village whose cause had
+departed.  A community drained of the male principle, leaving only
+a few queer men, the blacksmith, and some halfling boys, to give
+tone to the background of dozens of old maids.
+
+An unsympathetic stranger would have felt that nothing was left to
+the Fairfieldians but memory, and the sooner they lost that, the
+better.
+
+Take a wineglassful of raspberry vinegar, two tablespoonsful of
+sugar, half a cup each of boneset and rhubarb, a good full cup of
+the milk of human kindness, dilute in a gallon of water, and you
+have the flavor of Fairfield.  There was just enough of each
+ingredient to spoil the taste of all the rest.
+
+Miss Mattie rested her elbow on the railing, her chin in her hand,
+and gazed thoughtfully about her.  As a matter of fact, she was the
+most inspiring thing in view.  At a distance of fifty yards she was
+still a tall, slender girl.  Her body retained the habit, as well
+as the lines of youth; a trick of gliding into unexpected, pleasing
+attitudes, which would have been awkward but for the suppleness of
+limb to which they testified, and the unconsciousness and ease of
+their irregularity.
+
+Her face was a child's face in the ennobling sense of the word.
+The record of the years written upon it seemed a masquerade--the
+face of a clear-eyed girl of fourteen made up to represent her own
+aunt at a fancy dress party.  A face drawn a trifle fine, a little
+ascetic, but balanced by the humour of the large, shapely mouth,
+and really beautiful in bone and contour.  The beauty of
+mignonette, and doves, and gentle things.
+
+You could see that she was thirty-five, in the blatant candor of
+noon, but now, blushed with the pink of the setting sun, she was
+still in the days of the fairy prince.
+
+Miss Mattie's revery idled over the year upon year of respectable
+stupidity that represented life in Fairfield, while her eyes and
+soul were in the boiling gold of the sky-glory.  She sighed.
+
+A panorama of life minced before Miss Mattie's mind about as vivid
+and full of red corpuscles as a Greek frieze.  Her affectionate
+nature was starved.  They visited each other, the ladies of
+Fairfield--these women who had rolled on the floor together as
+babies--in their best black, or green or whatever it might be, and
+gloves!  This, though the summer sun might be hammering down with
+all his might.  And then they sat in a closed room and talked in a
+reserved fashion which was entirely the property of the call.  Of
+course, one could have a moment's real talk by chance meeting, and
+there were the natural griefs of life to break the corsets of this
+etiquette, although in general, the griefs seemed to be long drawn
+out and conventional affairs, as if nature herself at last yielded
+to the system, conquered by the invincible conventionality and
+stubbornness of the ladies of Fairfield.  It was the unspoken but
+firm belief of each of these women, that a person of their circle
+who had no more idea of respectability than to drop dead on the
+public road would never go to Heaven.
+
+Poor Miss Mattie!  Small wonder she dropped her hands, sat back and
+wondered, with another sigh, if it were for this she was born?  She
+did not rebel--there was no violence in her--but she regretted
+exceedingly.  In spite of her slenderness, it was a wide,
+mother-lap in which her hands rested, an obvious cradle for little
+children.  And instinctively it would come to you as you looked at
+her, that there could be no more comfortable place for a tired man
+to come home to, than a household presided over by this
+slow-moving, gentle woman.  There was nothing old-maidish about
+Miss Mattie but the tale of her years.  She had had offers, such as
+Fairfield and vicinity could boast, and declined them with tact,
+and the utmost gratitude to the suitor for the compliment; but her
+"no" though mild was firm, for there lay within her a certain quiet
+valiant spirit, which would rather endure the fatigue and
+loneliness of old age in her little house, than to take a larger
+life from any but the man who was all.  A commonplace in fiction;
+in real life sometimes quite a strain.
+
+The sun distorted himself into a Rugby football, and hurried down
+as though to be through with Fairfield as soon as possible.  It was
+a most magnificent sun-set; flaming, gorgeous, wild--beyond the
+management of the women of Fairfield--and Miss Mattie stared into
+the heart of it with a longing for something to happen.  Then the
+thought came, "What could happen?" she sighed again, and, with eyes
+blinded by Heaven-shine, glanced down the village street.
+
+She thought she saw--she rubbed her eyes and looked again--she did
+see, and surely never a stranger sight was beheld on Fairfield's
+street!  Had a Royal Bengal tiger come slouching through the dust
+it could not have been more unusual.  The spectacle was a man; a
+very large and mighty shouldered man, who looked about him with a
+bold, imperious, keep-the-change regard.  There was something in
+the swing of him that suggested the Bengal tiger.  He wore
+high-heeled boots outside of his trousers, a flannel shirt with a
+yellow silk kerchief around his neck, and on his head sat a white
+hat which seemed to Miss Mattie to be at least a yard in diameter.
+Under the hat was a remarkable head of hair.  It hung below the
+man's shoulders in a silky mass of dark scarlet, flecked with brown
+gold.  Miss Mattie had seen red hair, but she remembered no such
+color as this, nor could she recall ever having seen hair a
+foot-and-a-half long on a man.  That hair would have made a fortune
+on the head of an actress, but Miss Mattie was ignorant of the
+possibilities of the profession.
+
+The face of the man was a fine tan, against which eyes, teeth, and
+moustache came out in brisk relief.  The moustache avoided the
+tropical tint of the upper hair and was content with a modest
+brown.  The owner came right along, walking with a stiff, strong,
+straddling gait, like a man not used to that way of travelling.
+
+Miss Mattie eyed him in some fear.  He would be by her house
+directly, and it was hardly modest to sit aggressively on one's
+front porch, while a strange man went by--particularly, such a very
+strange man as this!  Yet a thrill of curiosity held her for the
+moment, and then it was too late, for the man stopped and asked
+little Eddie Newell, who was playing placidly in the dust--all the
+children played placidly in Fairfield--asked Eddie, in a voice
+which reached Miss Mattie plainly, although the owner evidently
+made no attempt to raise it, if he knew where Miss Mattie Saunders
+lived?
+
+Eddie had not noticed the large man's approach, and nearly fell
+over in a fright; but seeing, with a child's intuition, that there
+was no danger in this fierce-looking person, he piped up instantly.
+
+"Y-y-yessir!--I kin tell yer where she lives--Yessir!  She lives
+right down there in that little house--I kin go down with you jes'
+swell 's not!  Why, there she is now, on the stoop!"
+
+"Thankee sonny," said the big voice.  "Here's for miggles," and
+Miss Mattie caught the sparkle of a coin as it flew into the grimy
+fists of Eddie.
+
+"Much obliged!" yelled Eddie and vanished up the street.
+
+Miss Mattie sat transfixed.  Her breath came in swallows and her
+heart beat irregularly.  Here was novelty with a vengeance!  The
+big man turned and fastened his eyes upon her.  There was no
+retreat.  She noticed with some reassurance that his eyes were
+grave and kindly.
+
+As he advanced Miss Mattie rose in agitation, unconsciously putting
+her hand on her throat--what could it mean?
+
+The gate was opened and the stranger strode up the cinder walk to
+the porch.  He stopped a whole minute and looked at her.  At last.
+
+"Well, Mattie!" he said, "don't you know me?"
+
+A flood of the wildest hypotheses flashed through Miss Mattie's
+mind without enlightening her.  Who was this picturesque giant who
+stepped out of the past with so familiar a salutation?  Although
+the porch was a foot high, and Miss Mattie a fairly tall woman,
+their eyes were almost on a level, as she looked at him in wonder.
+
+Then he laughed and showed his white teeth.  "No use to bother and
+worry you, Mattie," said he, "you couldn't call it in ten years.
+Well, I'm your half-uncle Fred's boy Bill--and I hope you're a
+quarter as glad to see me as I am to see you."
+
+"What!" she cried.  "Not little Willy who ran away!"
+
+"The same little Willy," he replied in a tone that made Miss Mattie
+laugh a little, nervously, "and what I want to know is, are you
+glad to see me?"
+
+"Why, of course!  But, Will--I suppose I should call you Will?  I
+am so flustered--not expecting you--and it's been so warm to-day.
+Won't you come in and take a chair?" wound up Miss Mattie in
+desperation, and fury at herself for saying things so different
+from what she meant to say.
+
+There was a twinkle in the man's eye as he replied in an injured
+tone:
+
+"Why, good Lord, Mattie! I've come two thousand miles or more to
+see you, and you ask me to take a chair.  Just as if I'd stepped in
+from across the way!  Can't you give a man a little warmer welcome
+than that?"
+
+"What shall I do?" asked poor Miss Mattie.
+
+"Well, you might kiss me, for a start," said he.
+
+Miss Mattie was all abroad--still one's half-cousin, who has come
+such a distance, and been received so very oddly, is entitled to
+consideration.  She raised her agitated face, and for the first
+time in her life realised the pleasure of wearing a moustache.
+
+Then Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seeche Ranch, North Dakota,
+sat him down.
+
+"I'm obliged to you, Mattie," he said in all seriousness.  "To tell
+you the truth, I felt in need of a little comforting--here I've
+come all this distance--and, of course, I _heard_ about father and
+mother--but I couldn't believe it was true.  Seemed as if they
+_must_ be waiting at the old place for me to come back, and when I
+saw it all gone to ruin--Well, then I set out to find somebody, and
+do you know, of all the family, there's only you and me left?
+That's all, Mattie, just us two!--whilst I was growing up out West,
+I kind of expected things to be standing still back here, and be
+just the same as I left them--hum--Well, how are you anyhow?"
+
+"I'm well, Will, and"--laying her hand upon his, "_don't_ think I'm
+not glad to see you--_please_ don't.  I'm so glad, Will, I can't
+tell you--but I'm all confused--so little happens here."
+
+"I shouldn't guess it was the liveliest place in the world, by the
+look of it," said Red.  "And as far as that's concerned, I kinder
+don't know what to say myself.  There's such a heap to talk about
+it's hard to tell where to begin--but we've got to be friends
+though, Mattie--we've just _got_ to be friends.  Good Lord!  We're
+all there's left!  Funny, I never thought of such a thing!  Well,
+blast it!  That's enough of such talk!  I've brought you a present,
+Mattie."  He stretched out a leg that reached beyond the limits of
+the front porch, and dove into his trousers pocket, bringing out a
+buck-skin sack.  He fumbled at the knot a minute and then passed it
+over saying, "You untie it--your fingers are soopler than mine,"
+Miss Mattie's fingers were shaking, but the knots finally came
+undone, and from the sack she brought forth a chain of rich, dull
+yellow lumps, fashioned into a necklace.  It weighed a pound.  She
+spread it out and looked at it astounded.  "Gracious, Will!  Is
+that _gold_?" she asked.
+
+"That's what," he replied.  "The real article, just as it came out
+of the ground: I dug it myself.  That's the reason I'm here.  I'd
+never got money enough to go anywheres further than a horse could
+carry me if I hadn't taken a fly at placer mining and hit her to
+beat h--er--the very mischief."
+
+Miss Mattie looked first at the barbaric, splendid necklace and
+then at the barbaric, splendid man.  Things grew confused before
+her in trying to realise that it was real.  What two planets so
+separated in their orbits as her world and his?  She had the
+imagination that is usually lacking in small communities, and the
+feeling of a fairy story come true, possessed her.
+
+"And now, Mattie," said he, "I don't know what's manners in this
+part of the country, but I'll make free enough on the cousin part
+of it to tell you that I could look at some supper without
+flinching.  I've walked a heap to-day, and I ain't used to walking."
+
+Miss Mattie sprang up, herself again at the chance to offer
+hospitality.
+
+"Why, you poor man!" said she.  "Of course you're starved!  It must
+be nearly eight o'clock!  I almost forget about eating, living here
+alone.  You shall have supper directly.  Will you come in or sit a
+spell outside?"
+
+"Reckon I'll come in," said Red.  "Don't want to lose sight of you
+now that I've found you."
+
+It was some time since Miss Mattie had felt that anyone had cared
+enough for her not to want to lose sight of her, and a delicate
+warm bloom went over her cheeks.  She hurried into the little
+kitchen.
+
+"Mattie!" called Red.
+
+"What is it, Will?" she answered, coming to the door.
+
+"Can I smoke in this little house?"
+
+"Cer--tainly! Sit right down and make yourself comfortable.  Don't
+you remember what a smoker father was?"
+
+Red tried the different chairs with his hand.  They were not a
+stalwart lot.  Finally he spied the home-made rocker in the corner.
+"There's the lad for me," he said, drawing it out.  "Got to be
+kinder careful how you throw two-hundred-fifty pounds around."
+
+"Mercy!" cried Miss Mattie, pan in hand.  "Do you weigh as much as
+that, Will?"
+
+"I do," returned Red, with much satisfaction.  "And there isn't
+over two pounds of it fat at that."
+
+"What a great man you have grown up to be, Will!"
+
+Red took in a deep draught of tobacco and sent the vapor clear
+across the little room.
+
+"On the hay-scales, yes," he answered, with a sort of joking
+earnestness--"but otherwise, I don't know."
+
+The return to the old home had touched the big man deeply, and as
+he leaned back in his chair there was a shade of melancholy on his
+face that became it well.
+
+Miss Mattie took in the mass of him stretched out at his ease, his
+legs crossed, and the patrician cut of his face, to which the
+upturned moustache gave a cavalier touch.  They were good stock,
+the Saunders, and the breed had not declined in the only two extant.
+
+"He's my own cousin!" she whispered to herself, in the safety of
+the kitchen.  "And such a splendid looking man!"  She felt a pride
+of possession she had never known before.  Nobody in Fairfield or
+vicinity had such a cousin as that.  And Miss Mattie went on
+joyfully fulfilling an inherited instinct to minister to the wants
+of some man.  She said to herself there was some satisfaction in
+cooking for somebody else.  But alack-a-day, Miss Mattie's ideas of
+the wants of somebody else had suffered a Fairfield change.
+Nothing was done on a large scale in Fairfield.  But she sat the
+little cakes--lucky that she had made them yesterday--and the fried
+mush, and the small pitcher of milk, and the cold ham, and the cold
+biscuit on the table with a pride in the appearance of the feast.
+
+"Supper's ready, Will," said she.
+
+Red responded instanter.  Took a look at the board and understood.
+He ate the little cakes and biscuit, and said they were the durned
+best he ever tasted.  He also took some pot-cheese under a
+misapprehension; swallowed it, and said to himself that he had been
+through worse things than that.  Then, when his appetite had just
+begun to develop, the inroads on the provisions warned him that it
+was time to stop.  Meanwhile they had ranged the fields of old
+times at random, and as Red took in Miss Mattie, pink with
+excitement and sparkling as to eyes, he thought, "Blast the supper!
+It's a square meal just to look at her.  If she ain't pretty good
+people, I miss my guess."
+
+It was a merry meal.  He had such a way of telling things!  Miss
+Mattie hadn't laughed so much for years, and she felt that there
+was no one that she had known so long and so well as Cousin Will.
+There was only one jarring note.  Red spoke of the vigorous
+celebration that had been followed by the finding of gold.  It was
+certainly well told, but Miss Mattie asked in soft horror when he
+had finished, "You didn't get--_intoxicated_--Will?"
+
+"DID I?" said he, lost in memory, and not noticing the tone.
+"Well, I put my hand down the throat of that man's town, and turned
+her inside out!  It was like as if Christmas and Fourth of July had
+happened on the same day."
+
+"Oh, Will!" cried Miss Mattie, "I can't think of you like
+that--rolling in the gutter." Her voice shook and broke off.  Her
+knowledge of the effect of stimulants was limited to Fairfield's
+one drunkard--old Tommy McKee, a disreputable old Irishman--but
+drunkenness was the worst vice in her world.
+
+"Rolling in the gutter!" cried Red, in astonishment.  "Why girl!
+What for would I roll in the gutter?  What's the fun in that?
+Jiminy Christmas!  I wanted to walk on the telegraph wires--there
+wasn't anything in that town high enough for me--what put gutters
+into your head?"
+
+"I--I supposed people did that when they were--like that."
+
+"I wouldn't waste my money on whisky, if that's all the inspiration
+I got out of it," replied Red.
+
+"Well, of course I don't know about those things, but I wish you'd
+promise me one thing."
+
+"Done!" cried Red.  "What is it?"
+
+"I wish you'd promise me not to touch whisky again!"
+
+"Phew!  That's a pretty big order!"  He stopped and thought a
+minute.  "If you'll make that 'never touch it when it ain't
+needed,' leaving when it's needed to what's my idea of the square
+thing on a promise, I'll go you, Mattie--there's my hand."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't have said anything at all, Will!  I have no right.
+But it seemed such a pity such a splendid man--I mean--I think--.
+You mustn't promise me anything, Will," stammered Miss Mattie,
+shocked at her own daring.
+
+"Here!" he cried, "I'm no little kid!  When I promise I mean it!
+As for your not having any right, ain't we all there is?  You've
+got to be mother and sister and aunt and everything to me.  I ain't
+as young as I have been, Mattie, and I miss she-ways terrible at
+times.  Now put out your fin like a good pardner, and here goes for
+no more rhinecaboos for Chantay Seeche Red--time I quit drinking,
+anyhow," he slipped a ring off his little finger.  "Here, hold out
+your hand," said he, "I'll put this on for luck, and the sake of
+the promise--by the same token, I've got a noose on you now, and
+you're my property."
+
+This, of course, was only Cousin Will's joking, but Miss Mattie
+noticed with a sudden hot flush, that he had chosen the engagement
+finger--in all ignorance, she felt sure.  The last thing she could
+do would be to call his attention to the fact, or run the risk of
+hurting his feelings by transferring the ring; besides, it was a
+pretty ring--a rough ruby in a plain gold band--and looked very
+well where it was.
+
+Then they settled down for what Red called a good medicine talk.
+Miss Mattie found herself boldly speaking of little fancies and
+notions that had remained in the inner shrine of her soul for
+years, shrinking from the matter-of-fact eye of Fairfield; yet this
+big, ferocious looking Cousin Will seemed to find them both sane
+and interesting, and as her self-respect went up in the
+arithmetical, her admiration for Cousin Will went up in the
+geometrical ratio.  He frankly admitted weaknesses and fears that
+the males of Fairfield would have rejected scornfully.
+
+Miss Mattie spoke of sleeping upstairs, because she could not rid
+herself of the fear of somebody coming in.
+
+"I know just how you feel about that," said Red.  "My hair used to
+be on its feet most of the time when we were in the hay camp at the
+lake beds.  Gee whizz!  The rattlers!  We put hair ropes
+around--but them rattlers liked to squirm over hair ropes for
+exercise.  One morning I woke up and there was a crawler on my
+chest.  'For God's sake, Pete!' says I to Antelope Pete, who was
+rolled up next me, 'come take my friend away!' and I didn't holler
+very loud, neither.  Pete was chain lightning in pants, and he
+grabs Mr. Rattler by the tail and snaps his neck, but I felt
+lonesome in my inside till dinner time.  You bet!  I know just how
+you feel, exactly.  I didn't have a man's sized night's rest whilst
+we was in that part of the country."
+
+It struck Miss Mattie that the cases were hardly parallel.  "A
+rattlesnake on your chest, Will!" she cried, with her hands clasped
+in terror.
+
+"Oh! it wasn't as bad as it sounds--he was asleep--coiled up there
+to get warm--sharpish nights on the prairie in August--but darn it!
+Mattie!" wrinkling up his nose in disgust, "I hate the sight of the
+brutes!"
+
+"But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!"
+
+"Well, no," admitted he.  "I've never been troubled much that way.
+You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them.
+Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs
+of legs.  I pass right out when I see one of them things.  They
+give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted."
+
+"Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?" asked Miss Mattie.
+"I'm sure they must have been."
+
+"Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right," said Red.  "Not
+that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it," he added
+hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, "but I
+never had but one real argument, man to man.  Black Wolf and I come
+together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we
+backed off and got to shooting.  He raked me from knee to hip, as I
+was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting
+ammunition because I was in a hurry.  Still, I did bust his ankle.
+In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head
+and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools
+miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about!  You could have
+fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to
+get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old
+Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my
+canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water.  He was
+agreeable and we hunched up to each other.  It ain't to my credit
+to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him.
+He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus,
+while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled
+to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun
+wouldn't feel was a compliment."  Red leaned back and roared.  "I
+can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back
+every once in awhile to cuss me.  Turned out that it was his
+cayuse, too.  Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him.  I
+oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I
+think how I did that Injun."
+
+Generally speaking, Miss Mattie had a lively sense of humour, but
+the joke of this was lost on her.  Her education had been that
+getting shot was far from funny.
+
+"Why, I should have thought you would have died, Will!"
+
+"What!  For a little crack in the leg!" cried Red, with some
+impatience.  "You people must quit easy in this country.  Die
+nothin'.  One of our boys came along and took us to camp, and we
+was up and doing again in no time.  'Course, Black Wolf has a game
+leg for good, but the worst that's stuck to me is a yank or two of
+rheumatism in the rainy season.  I paid Wolf for his cayuse," he
+finished shamefacedly.  "I had the laugh on him anyhow."
+
+Miss Mattie told him she thought that was noble of him, which
+tribute Red took as medicine, and shifted the subject with speed,
+to practical affairs.  He asked Miss Mattie how much money she had
+and how she managed to make out.  Now, it was one of the canons of
+good manners in Fairfield not to speak of material matters--perhaps
+because there was so little material matter in the community, but
+Miss Mattie, doomed to a thousand irksome petty economies, had
+often longed for a sympathetic ear, to pour into it a good honest
+complaint of hating to do this and that.  She could not exactly go
+this far with Cousin Will, but she could say that it was pretty
+hard to get along, and give some details.  She felt that she knew
+him so very well, in those few hours!  Red heard with nods of
+assent.  He had scented the conditions at once.
+
+"It ain't any fun, skidding on the thin ice," said he, when they
+had concluded the talk.  "I've had to count the beans I put in the
+pot, and it made me hate arithmetic worse than when I went over
+yonder to school.  Well, them days have gone by for you, Mattie."
+He reached down and pulling out a green roll, slapped it on the
+centre table.  "Blow that in, and limber up, and remember that
+there's more behind it."
+
+Miss Mattie's pride rose at a leap.
+
+"Will!" she said, "I hope you don't think I've told you this to get
+money from you?"
+
+He leaned forward, put his hand on her shoulder and held her eyes
+with a sudden access of sternness and authority.
+
+"And I hope, Mattie," said he, "that you don't think that I think
+anything of the kind?"
+
+The cousins stared into each other's eyes for a full minute.  Then
+Miss Mattie spoke.  "No, Will," said she, "I don't believe you do."
+
+"I shouldn't think I did," retorted Red.  "What in thunder would I
+do with all that money?  Why, good Lord, girl, I could paper your
+house with ten-dollar bills--now you try to fly them green kites,
+like I tell you."
+
+Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen
+years had made itself felt when the cord snapped.  "I don't know
+how to thank you.  I don't know what to say.  Oh, William! it seems
+too good to be true."
+
+"What you crying about, Mattie?" said he in sore distress.  "Now
+hold on!  Listen to me a minute!  There's something I want you to
+do for me."
+
+"What is it?" she asked, drying her eyes.  "For dinner to-morrow,"
+he replied, "let's have a roast of beef about that size,"
+indicating a wash-tub.
+
+The diversion was complete.
+
+"Why, Will!  What would we ever do with it?" said she.
+
+"Do with it?  Why, eat it!"
+
+"But we couldn't eat all that!"
+
+"Then throw what's left to the cats.  You ain't going to fall down
+on me the first favour I ask?" with mock seriousness.
+
+"You shall have the roast of beef.  'Pears to me that you're fond
+of your stomach, Will," said Miss Mattie, with a recovering smile.
+
+"I have a good stomach, that's always done the right thing by me,
+when I've done the right thing by _it_," said Red.  "And moreover,
+just look at the constitution I have to support.  But say, old
+lady, look at that!" pointing to the clock.  "Eleven-thirty; time
+decent people were putting up for the night."
+
+The words brought to an acute stage a wandering fear which had
+passed through Miss Mattie's mind at intervals during the evening.
+Where was she to look for sleeping accommodations for a man?  She
+revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as
+the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the
+purpose.  Long habit of thought had made these niceties
+constitutional.  It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say
+"I'll fix up your bed right there on the sofa" as it would have
+been for Red to pick a man's pocket, yet, when she thought of his
+instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it
+would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have
+no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the
+winds, and speak.
+
+But the difficulty was cut in another fashion.
+
+"There's a little barn in the back-yard that caught my eye," said
+Red, "and if you'll lend me a blanket I'll roll it out there."
+
+"Sleep in the barn!  You'll not do any such thing!" cried Miss
+Mattie.  "You'll sleep right here on the sofa, or upstairs in my
+bed, just as you choose."
+
+"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not.  So help me Bob!  I'd
+smother in here.  Had the darnedest time coming on that ever
+was--hotels.  Little white rooms with the walls coming in on you.
+Worse than rattlesnakes for keeping a man awake.  Reminds me of the
+hospital.  Horse fell on me once and smashed me up so that I had to
+be sent to get puttied up again, and I never struck such a month as
+that since I was born.  The doc. told me I mustn't move, but I told
+him I'd chuck him out of the window if he tried to stop me, and up
+I got.  I'd have gone dead sure if they'd held me a week more.  I
+speak for the barn, Mattie, and I speak real loud; that is, I mean
+to say I'm going to sleep in the barn, unless there's somebody a
+heap larger than you on the premises.  Now, there's no use for you
+to talk--I'm going to do just as I say."
+
+"Well, I think that's just dreadful!" said Miss Mattie.  "I'd like
+to know what folks will think of me to hear I turned my own cousin
+out in the barn."  Her voice trailed off a little at the end as the
+gist of what they might say if he stayed in the house, occurred to
+her.  "Well," she continued, "if you're set, I suppose I can't
+object."  Miss Mattie was not a good hand at playing a part.
+
+"I'm set," said Red.  "Get me a blanket." As she came in with this,
+he added, "Say, Mattie, could you let me have a loaf of bread?
+I've got a habit of wanting something to eat in the middle of the
+night."
+
+"Certainly!  Don't you want some butter with it?  Here, I'll fix it
+for you on a plate."
+
+"No, don't waste dish-washing--I'll show you how to fix it."  He
+cut the loaf of bread in half, pulled out a portion of the soft
+part and filled the hole with butter.  "There we are, and nothing
+to bother with afterwards."
+
+"That's a right smart notion, Will--but you'll want a knife."
+
+In answer he drew out a leather case from his breast pocket and
+opened it.  Within was knife, fork, spoon and two flat boxes for
+salt and pepper.  "You see I'm fixed," said he.
+
+"Isn't that a cute trick!" she cried admiringly.  "You're ready for
+most anything."
+
+"Sure," said Red.  "Now, good night, old lady!"  He bent down in so
+natural a fashion that Miss Mattie had kissed him before she knew
+what she was going to do.
+
+Down to the barn, through the soft June evening, went Red,
+whistling a Mexican love song most melodiously.
+
+Miss Mattie stood in the half-opened door and listened.  Without
+was balm and starlight and the spirit of flowers, breathed out in
+odours.  The quaint and pretty tune rose and fell, quavered, lilted
+along as it listed without regard for law and order.  It struck
+Miss Mattie to the heart.  Her girlhood, with its misty dreams of
+happiness, came back to her on the wings of music.
+
+"Isn't that a sweet tune," she said, with a lump in her throat.
+
+She went up into her room and sat down a moment in confusion,
+trying to grasp the reality of all that had happened.  In the
+middle of the belief that these things were not so, came the regret
+of a sensitive mind for errors committed.  She remembered with a
+sudden sinking, that she had not thanked him for the necklace--and
+the money lay even now on the parlor table, where he had cast it!
+This added the physical fear of thieves.  Down she went and got the
+money, counted out, to her unmitigated astonishment, five hundred
+dollars and thrust it beneath her pillow with a shiver.  She wished
+she had thought to tell him to take care of it--but suppose the
+thieves were to fall on him as he slept?  Red's friends would have
+spent their sympathy on the thieves.  She rejoiced that the money
+was where it was.  Then she tried to remember what she had said
+throughout the evening.
+
+"Well, I suppose I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded.
+"But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face,
+with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted.
+"I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how
+excited I was," said she.  "He seems to understand those things,
+for all he's such a large man.  Well, it doesn't seem as if it
+could be true."  With a half sigh Miss Mattie knelt and sent up her
+modest petition to her Maker and got into her little white bed.
+
+In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion.  He
+hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and
+rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the
+inhabitants, the hens.
+
+"One, two, three, four," he counted.  "Reckon I can last out till
+morning on that.  Mattie, she's white people--just the nicest I
+ever saw, but she ain't used to providing for a full-grown man."
+
+He stepped to the back of the barn and looked about him.  "Nobody
+can see me from here," he said, in satisfaction.  Then he scraped
+together a pile of chips and sticks and built a fire, filled the
+tin can at the brook, sat it on two stones over the fire, rolled
+himself a cigarette and waited.  A large, yellow tom-cat came out
+of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing
+tentatively.
+
+"Hello, pussy!" said Red.  "You hungry too?  Well, just wait a
+minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, pussy?"  The cat
+gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more.  The
+tin can boiled over.  Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette
+to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light.  "Gee! Ten
+minutes more, now!" said he.  "Hardly seems to me as if I could
+wait."  He pulled the watch out several times.  "What's the matter
+with the damn thing?  I believe it's stopped," he growled.  But at
+last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered
+up its treasures in his handkerchief.
+
+"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he.  "Just
+sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by
+Jinks!"  Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in
+generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.
+
+"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep."  He
+swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still
+fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.
+
+"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused.  "If I have got
+only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice.
+She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."
+
+The cat came up, purring and "making bread."  He sniffed feline
+fashion at Red's face.
+
+"Foo!  Shoo!  Go 'way, pussy!  Settle yourself down and we'll pound
+our ear for another forty miles.  I like you first rate when you
+don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously.  "Yes
+sir! Mattie's all right," said he.  "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay
+Seeche Red was in the land of dreams.  Here, back in God's country,
+within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer
+laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and
+poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all,
+sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous,
+devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The next morning when Red awoke,
+arrows of gold were shooting through
+the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird
+life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent
+whistle and the warble, the cackle and the
+pompous crow, were in full chorus.
+
+"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as
+he took in the view.  "Oh, I remember!" and
+his heart leapt.  "I'm in my own home, by
+the Lord!"
+
+He went down to the brook and washed,
+drying hands and face on the silk neckerchief,
+which is meant for use as well as for decoration.
+
+In the meantime, Miss Mattie had
+awakened, with a sense of something delightful at
+hand, the meaning of which escaped her for
+the time.  And then she remembered, and
+sprang out of bed like a girl.  She went to
+the window, threw open the shutters and let
+the stirring morning air flow in.  This had
+been her habit for a long time.  The window
+faced away from the road, and no one could
+see who was not on Miss Mattie's own premises.
+
+But this morning Red had wandered
+around.  Stopping at the rose bushes he
+picked a bud.
+
+"That has the real old-time smell," he said,
+as he held it to his nose.  "Sweetbriars are
+good, and I don't go back on 'em, but they
+ain't got the fram these fellers have."
+
+Bud in hand he walked beneath Miss
+Mattie's windows, and he was the first thing her
+eye fell upon.
+
+Her startled exclamation made him look up
+before she had time to withdraw.
+
+"Hello there!" he called joyfully.  "How
+do you open up this day?  You look pretty
+well!" he added with a note of admiration.
+Miss Mattie had the wavy hair which is never
+in better order than when left to its own
+devices.  Her idea of coiffure was not the most
+becoming that could have been selected, as
+she felt that a "young" style of hair dressing
+was foolish for a single woman of her years.
+Now, with the pretty soft hair flying, her
+eyes still humid with sleep, and a touch of
+color in her face from the surprise, relieved
+against the fleecy shawl she had thrown about
+her shoulders, she was incontestably both a
+discreet and pretty picture.  Yet Miss Mattie
+could not forget the bare feet and night-gown,
+although they were hidden from masculine
+eyes by wood and plaster, and she was
+embarrassed.  Still, with all the super-sensitive
+fancies, Miss Mattie had a strong back-bone
+of New England common-sense.   She
+answered that she felt very well indeed, and, to
+cover any awkwardness, inquired what he had
+in his hand.
+
+"Good old rose," replied Red.  "Old-time
+smeller--better suited to you than to me--ketch!"
+
+At the word he tossed it, and Miss Mattie
+caught it dexterously.  Red had an
+exceedingly keen eye for some things, and he noticed
+the certainty of the action.  He hated
+fumblers.  "A person can do things right if they've
+got minds that work," was one of his pet
+sayings.  "'Taint the muscles at all--it's in the
+head, and I like the kind of head that's in use
+all the time."  Therefore this small affair made
+an impression on him.
+
+"Why, you could be a baseball player," said he.
+
+"I used to play with Joe, when I was a
+girl," said Miss Mattie, smiling.  "I always
+liked boy's play better than I did girl's.  Joe
+taught me how to throw a ball, too.  He said
+he wouldn't play with me unless I learned not
+to 'scoop it,' girl fashion.  I suppose you will
+be wanting breakfast?"  There was a hint of
+sarcasm in the doubt of the inquiry.
+
+"That's what I do!" said Red.  "You
+must just hustle down and get things to
+boiling, or I'll throw bricks through the windows.
+I've been up for the last two hours."
+
+"Why!  I don't believe it!" said Miss Mattie.
+
+"No more do I, but it seems like it,"
+replied Red.  "Don't you want the fire started?
+Come down and open up the house."
+
+When Miss Mattie appeared at the door, in
+he strode with an armful of wood, dropping
+it man-fashion, crash! on the floor.
+
+"Skip out of the way!" said he.  "I'll show
+you how to build a fire!"
+
+The early morning had been the most
+desolate time to Miss Mattie.  As the day warmed
+up the feeling of loneliness vanished, perhaps
+to return at evening, but not then with the
+same absoluteness as when she walked about
+the kitchen to the echo of her own footsteps
+in the morning.
+
+Now the slamming and the banging which
+accompanied Red's energetic actions rang in
+her ears most cheerily.  She even found a
+relish in the smothered oath that heralded
+the thrust of a splinter in his finger.  It
+was very wicked, but it was also very much
+alive.
+
+Red arose and dusted off his knees.  "Now
+we're off!" he said as the fire began to roar.
+"What's next?"
+
+"If you'd grind the coffee, Will?" she suggested.
+
+"Sure! Where's the hand organ?"
+
+He put the mill between his knees, and
+converted the beans to powder, to the tune of
+"Old dog Tray" through his nose, which Miss
+Mattie found very amusing.
+
+She measured out the coffee, one spoonful
+for each cup, and one for the pot.  Red
+watched her patiently, and when she had
+finished, he threw in the rest of the contents of
+the mill-drawer.  "I like it fairly strong," said
+he in explanation.
+
+"Now, Will!" protested Miss Mattie.
+"Look at you!  That will be as bitter as boneset!"
+
+"Thin her up with milk and she'll be all
+right," replied Red.
+
+"Well, such wasteful ways I never did see.
+Nobody'd think you were a day over fifteen."
+
+"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and,"
+catching her chin in his hand and turning her face
+up toward him--"Nobody'd put your score
+much higher than that neither, if they trusted
+to their eyes this morning."
+
+The compliment hit so tender a place that
+Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it
+out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded
+much less like a compliment than a plain
+statement of fact.  She bent hastily over the fire.
+"I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.
+
+"So'm I!" he assented heartily.  "What's
+the sense in being old, anyhow?  I'm as
+limber and good for myself as ever I was, in spite
+of my forty years."
+
+"You're not _forty_ years old!" exclaimed
+Miss Mattie.  "You're joking!"
+
+"Nary joke--forty round trips from flying
+snow to roses since I hit land, Mattie--why,
+you were only a little girl when I left
+here--don't you remember?  You and your folks
+came to see us the week before I left.  I got
+a thrashing for taking you and Joe to the
+millpond, and helping you to get good and wet.
+The thrashing was one of the things that gave
+me a hankering for the West.  Very liberal
+man with the hickory, father.  Spare the
+clothes and spoil the skin was his motto.  He
+used to make me strip to the waist--phee-hew!
+Even a light breeze rested heavy on my back
+when dad got through with me--say, Mattie,
+perhaps I oughtn't to say so, now that he's
+gone, but I don't think that's the proper way
+to use a boy, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Miss Mattie.  "Your
+father meant well, but his way was useless and
+cruel."
+
+"I've forgiven him the whole sweep," said
+Red.  "But damn me!  If I had a boy I
+wouldn't club the life out of him--I'd try to
+reason with him first, anyhow.  Makes a boy
+as ugly as anybody else to get the hide whaled
+off his back for nothing--once in a while he
+needs it.  Boy that's got any life in him gets
+to be too much occasionally and then a
+warming is healthful and nourishing.  Lord!
+You'd think I was the father of my country
+to hear me talk, wouldn't you? If somebody'd
+write a book, 'What Red Saunders don't
+know about raising children' it would be full
+of valuable information--how's that breakfast
+coming on?"
+
+"All ready--sit right down, Will."
+
+"Go you!" cried Red, and incautiously
+flung himself upon one of the kitchen chairs,
+which collapsed instantly and dropped him to
+the floor.
+
+"Mercy on us!  Are you hurt?" cried Miss
+Mattie, rushing forward.
+
+"Hurt?" said Red.  "Try it!--Just jump
+up in the air and sit on the floor where you
+are now, and see if you get hurt!  Oh, no!
+I'm not hurt, but I'm astonished beyond
+measure, like the man that tickled the mule.
+I'll take my breakfast right here--shouldn't
+wonder a bit if the floor went back on me and
+landed me in the cellar--no sir!  I won't get
+up!  Hand me the supplies, I know when I'm
+well off.  If you want to eat breakfast with
+me come sit on the floor.  I'm not going to
+have my spine pushed through the top of my
+head twice in the same day."
+
+"Will!  You are the most ridiculous
+person I ever did see!" said Miss Mattie, and
+she laughed till she cried in sheer
+light-heartedness.  "But there's a chair you can
+trust--come on now."
+
+"Well, if you'll take your solemn oath that
+this one has no moustache to deceive me,"
+said Red doubtfully.  "It looks husky--well,
+I'll try it--Hooray!  She didn't give an inch.
+This kind of reminds me of the time Jimmy
+Hendricks came back from town and walked
+off the edge of the bluff in the dark.  It just
+happened that Old Scotty Ferguson's cabin
+was underneath him.  Jim took most of the
+roof off with him as he went in.  He sat
+awhile to figure out what was trumps, having
+come a hundred and fifty feet too fast to do
+much thinking.  Then, 'Hello!' he yells.
+Old Scotty was a sleeper from 'way back, but
+this woke him up.
+
+"'Hello!' says he.  'Was'er matter?'
+
+"Jim saw he wasn't more than half awake
+yet, so he says, 'Why, I was up on the bluff
+there, Scotty, and seeing it was such a short
+distance I thought I'd drop in!'
+
+"'Aw ri',' grunted Scotty.  'Make y'self t'
+home,' and with that he rolls over.
+
+"Jim couldn't wait for morning, and though
+his leg was pretty badly sprained, he made the
+trip all the way round the trail and woke us
+up to tell us how he'd gone through
+Ferguson's roof and the old man asked him to make
+himself at home.  Next morning there was
+Scotty out in front of his cabin, his thumbs in
+his vest holes, looking up.
+
+"'What's the matter, Scotty?' says I.
+
+"'Well, I wisht you'd tell me what in the
+name of God went through that roof!' says he.
+
+"I swallered a laugh cross-ways and put on
+a serious face.  'Must have been a rock,' says I.
+
+"'Rock nothin'!' says he.  'If it had been
+a rock 'twould have stayed in the cabin,
+wouldn't it!  Well, there ain't the first blasted
+thing of any shape nor description in there but
+the hole--you can go in and look for yourself.'
+
+"It cost Scotty one case of rye to make us
+forget those circumstances."
+
+"I should have thought the man would be
+killed, striking on the roof that way," said
+Miss Mattie.
+
+"Oh, no!  Roof was made of quaking-asp
+saplings, just about strong enough to break
+his fall.  Scotty was the sleeper, though!  It
+wasn't hardly natural the way that man could
+pound his ear through thick and thin.  He
+had quite a surprising time of it once.  He'd
+been prospecting 'round the Ruby refractory
+ore district and he came out at Hank Cutter's
+saw-mill, just at sun-down.  Hank's place was
+full of gold rushers, so Old Scotty thought
+he'd sleep out-doors in peace and quiet.  He
+discovered some big boxes, that Hank was
+making for ore bins for the new mill, and as
+the ground was kind of damp from a
+thunder-shower they had that day, he spreads his
+blanket inside the box and goes to sleep; ore
+bins have to be smooth and dust tight, so it
+wasn't a bad shanty.
+
+"Well, there came a jar and waked him up.
+The box was rolling a little, and going along,
+going along forty mile an hour.  Scotty lit a
+match and found he was in a kind of big
+tunnel but the wall was flying by so fast, he
+couldn't make out just what kind of a tunnel
+it was.  Now, he'd gone to sleep in peace and
+quiet on a side hill, and to wake up and find
+himself boat-riding in a tunnel was enough
+to surprise anybody.  First he pinched
+himself to see if it was Hank's pie, or a cold fact,
+found it was a fact, then he lit another match
+and leaned over and looked at the black water
+underneath, but this made the box tip so it
+scart him and he settled down in the bottom
+again.  He didn't try to think--what was the
+use?  No man living could have figured things
+out with the few facts Scotty had before him.
+All of a sudden the box made a rush and shot
+out into the air, and Scotty felt they were
+falling.   'God sakes!' he says to himself.
+'What's next, I wonder?'  Then they hit the
+water below with a ker-flap that nearly
+telescoped Scotty and sent the spray flying.  After
+that they went along smooth again.  'Well,'
+says Scotty, 'I don't know where I am, nor
+who I am, nor what's happened, nor who's it,
+nor nothing about this game.  So far I ain't
+been hurt, though, and I might just as well
+lie down and get a little more rest.'
+
+"It was broad daylight when he woke up
+again, and a man was looking into the box.
+'Hello, pardner!' he says.  'I hope you've
+had a pleasant journey--do you always travel
+this way?'
+
+"Scotty raised up and found his craft was
+aground--high and dry--no water within a
+hundred feet of it.  On one side was quite a
+little town.
+
+"'Say,' says he, 'could I trouble you to tell
+me where I am, friend?'
+
+"'You're at Placerville,' answers the other.
+
+"'Placerville!' yells Scotty, 'and I went to
+sleep at Cutter's Mill, sixty-five miles from
+here!--what are you giving us, man?'
+
+"'I'm putting it to you straight,' says the
+stranger.  'Take a look around you.'
+
+"Scotty looked and there was all kinds of
+wreckage, from a dead beef critter to a wheel
+barrow.
+
+"'What in nation's all this?' says he.
+
+"'Washout,' says the man.  'Cloud burst
+up on the divide--worst we've ever
+had--your box is about high water mark--you see
+there was water enough for awhile--I reckon
+you're about the only thing that came through
+alive.'
+
+"'Well, wouldn't that knock you?' says Scotty.
+
+--"Whilst the rest of the folk at the mill
+was taking to the high ground for their lives,
+with the water roaring and tearing through
+the gulch, Scotty had peacefully gone off in
+his little boat, down the creek, and instead of
+going over the rapids, where he'd have been
+done, for all his luck, the box ambles through
+the flume they was building for the new mill.
+Of course there was the jounce over the tail
+race, but that hadn't hurt him much, and after,
+he rocked in the cradle of the deep, until he
+got beached at Placerville.
+
+"'Come along, friend,' says Scotty to the
+feller, 'you and me are going to have a little
+drink on this, if it is the last act.'  And I
+reckon probably they made it two, for when
+Scotty got back again he was in a condition
+that made everybody believe that he'd only
+guessed at the story he told.  But they found
+out afterward it was a solemn fact.  Mattie,
+give us some more coffee."
+
+Thus abruptly recalled to Fairfield, Miss
+Mattie started up.
+
+"Well, Will, it does seem as if that was a
+dangerous country to live in," said she.
+
+"Oh, not so awful!" said Red.  "Just as
+many people die here as they do there--this
+world's a dangerous place to live in, wherever
+you strike it, Mattie."
+
+"That's so," said she, thoughtfully.
+
+"And now," said Red, pushing back his
+chair, "it's time I got to work and left you to
+do the housework undisturbed."
+
+"What are you going to do, Will?"
+
+"First place, there's fences and things to
+be tinkered up, I see.  I suppose a millionaire
+like me ought to hire those things done, but
+I'd have measles of the mind if I sat around
+doing nothing."
+
+"I have been wanting to get the place in
+good order for some time," said Miss Mattie,
+"but what with the money I had to spend for
+this and that, and not being able to get
+Mr. Joyce to come in for a day's work when I
+wanted him, it's gone on, until there is a good
+deal of wrack to it."
+
+"We'll wrack it t'other way round in no
+time--got any tools here?"
+
+"Out in the barn is what's left of father's
+tools--people have borrowed 'em and forgot
+to return 'em, and they've rusted or been
+lost until I'm afraid there ain't many of 'em
+left."
+
+"Well, I'll get along to-day somehow, and
+later on we'll stock up--want any help around
+the house?"
+
+"Thank you, no, Will."
+
+"Then I'm off."
+
+It was almost with a feeling of terror that
+Miss Mattie beheld him root up the fence.
+Her idea of repairing was to put in a picket
+here and there where it was most needed;
+Red's was to knock it all flat first, and set it
+up in A1 condition afterward.  So, in two
+hours' time he straightened up and snapped
+the sweat from his brow, beholding the slain
+pickets prone on the grass with thorough
+satisfaction.  Yet he felt tired, for the day was
+already hot with a moist and soaking
+sea-coast heat, to which the plainsman was
+unaccustomed.  A three-quarter-grown boy passed
+by, lounging on the seat of a farm waggon.
+
+"Hey!" hailed Red.  The boy stopped and
+turned slowly around.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered courteously enough.
+
+"Want a job?" said Red.
+
+"Well, I dunno," replied the boy.  He was
+much astonished at the appearance of his
+interrogator, and he was a cautious New
+England boy to boot.
+
+"_You_ don't know?" retorted Red.  "Well,"
+with some sarcasm, "d'ye suppose I could
+find out at the post-office?"
+
+The boy looked at Red with a twinkle in his
+eye, and a comical drawing of his long mouth.
+
+"I calc'late if you cud fin' out anyweres,
+'twould be there," said he.
+
+Red laughed.  He had noticed the busy
+post-mistress rushing out of her store to
+waylay anyone likely to have information on any
+subject, a stream of questions proceeding from
+her through the door.
+
+"Say, you got anything particular to do?"
+
+"No, sir--leastways th'ain't no hurry about it."
+
+"Can I buy stuff to make a fence with,
+around here?"
+
+"Yes, sir--Mister Pettigrew's got all kinds
+of buildin' material at his store--two mile over
+yonder," pointing with the whip.
+
+"You drive over there for me, and get
+some--just like this here--pickets and posts
+and whatever you call them long pieces, and
+I'll make it right with you."
+
+"Yes, sir--how much will I get?"
+
+"Oh, tell him to fill the waggon up with
+it, and I'll send back what I don't
+want--hustle, now, like a good boy; I want to get
+shut of this job; I liked it better before I begun."
+
+When his Mercury had speeded on the
+journey at a faster gait than Red would have
+given him credit for, the architect strode
+down to the blacksmith's shop.  There was a
+larger crowd than usual around the forge, as
+the advent of the stranger had gotten into
+the wind, and the village Vulcan was a person
+who not only looked the whole world in the
+face, but no one of the maiden ladies of
+Fairfield could have excelled his interest in
+looking the whole world as much in the inside
+pocket as possible.  The blacksmith was
+emphatically a gossip, as well as a hardworking,
+God-fearing man.
+
+"Say, there he comes now, Mr. Tuttle!"
+cried one of the loungers, and nudged the
+smith to look.
+
+"Well, let him come!" retorted the smith,
+testily, jamming a shoe in the fire with
+unnecessary force; as a matter of fact, he was
+embarrassed.  The loungers huddled together
+for moral support, as the big cow-man loomed
+through the doorway.
+
+"Good morning, friends!" said he.
+
+"Good morning, sir!" replied the
+blacksmith, rubbing his hands on his apron.  "Nice
+day, sir?"
+
+"For the sake of good fellowship, I'll say
+'yes' to that," responded Red.  "But if you
+want my honest opinion on the subject, it's
+damn hot."
+
+"'Tis that," assented the smith, and a
+silence followed.
+
+"Say, who's your crack fence-builder
+around here?" asked Red.  "The man that
+can make two pickets grow where only one
+grew before and do it so easy that it's a
+pleasure to sit and look at him?"
+
+"Hey?" inquired the smith, not precisely
+getting the meaning of the address.
+
+"Why, I've got a fence to build," exclaimed
+Red.  "And now I want some help--want it
+so bad, I'll produce to the extent of three a
+day and call it a day from now 'till six
+o'clock--any takers here?  Make your bets while the
+little ball rolls."
+
+The loungers understood the general drift
+of this and pricked up their ears, as did the
+blacksmith.  "Guess one of the boys will help
+you," said the latter.
+
+"Well, who's it?" asked Red, glancing at
+the circle of faces.  Three dollars a day was
+enormous wages in that part of the country.
+Nobody knew just what to say.
+
+"Oh, well!" cried Red, "let's everybody
+run--I reckon I can find something to do for
+the five of you--are you with me?"
+
+"Yes, sir," they said promptly.
+
+"Can I borrow a hammer or so off you, old
+man?" questioned Red of the smith.
+
+"Certainly, sir," returned the latter heartily.
+"Take what you want."
+
+"Much obliged--and the gate hinges are
+out of whack--Miss Saunders' place, you
+know--come over and take a squint at 'em
+in the near by-and-by, will you?  May as well
+fix it up all at once--come on, boys!"
+
+It was thus that the greatest enterprise that
+Fairfield had seen in many a day was
+undertaken.  Miss Mattie was simply astounded as
+the army bore down upon the house.
+
+"Whatever in the world is Cousin Will
+doing?" said she; but resting strong in the faith
+that it was necessarily all right, she was
+content to wait for dinner and an explanation.
+Not so the post-mistress.  The agonies of
+unrequited curiosity the worthy woman
+suffered that morning until she at last summoned
+up her resolution and asked the smith plump
+out and out what it all meant, would have to
+be experienced to be appreciated.  And the
+smith kept her hanging for a while, too,
+saying to himself in justification, that it wasn't
+right the way that old gal had to get into
+everybody's business.  The smith was like
+some of the rest of us; he could see through
+a beam if it was in his own eye.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+There was a great din of whacking and hammering that morning.  Red
+worked like a horse, now that he had company.  A sudden thought
+struck him and he went into the house.
+
+"Mattie," said he.
+
+"Well, Will?"
+
+"I see a use for the rest of that nice big roast of beef I smell in
+the oven--let's have all these fellers stay to dinner, and give 'em
+one good feed--what do you say?"
+
+"Why, I'd like to.  Will--but I don't know--where'll I set them?"
+
+"Couple of boards outside for a table--let them sit on boxes or
+something--got plates and things enough?"
+
+"My, yes! Plenty of such things, Will."
+
+"Then if it ain't too much trouble for you, we'll let it go."
+
+"No trouble at all, Will--it will be a regular picnic."
+
+"Boys, you'll eat with me this day," said Red.
+
+They spread the board table beneath an old apple tree, and cleaned
+up for the repast in the kitchen storm-shed with an apologetic,
+"Sorry to trouble you, Miss Saunders," or such a matter as each
+went in.
+
+Just as Miss Mattie was withdrawing the meat from the oven, there
+came a knock at the door.
+
+"Goodness, gracious!" she exclaimed.  "Who can that be now?  Will,
+will you see who that is?  I can't go."
+
+"Sure!" said Red, and went to the door.  There stood two women of
+that indefinite period between forty and sixty, very decently
+dressed and with some agitation visible in the way they fussily
+adjusted various parts of their attire.
+
+They started at the sudden spectacle of the huge man who said
+pleasantly, "Howderdo, ladies!"
+
+"Why, how do you do?" replied the taller instantly, and in a voice
+she had never heard before.  "I hope you're well, sir?"  A remark
+which filled her with surprise.
+
+"Thanks--I'm able to assume the perpendicular, as you can see,"
+responded Red with a handsome smile of welcome.  "How do you find
+yourself?"
+
+"I'm pretty well," said the flustered lady.  "How do you do?"
+
+"Durned if we ain't right back where we started from," mourned Red
+to himself.  "If it's one of the customs of this country saying
+'howderdo' an hour at a stretch, I pass it up." Aloud, he said,
+"Coming along fine--how's your father?"  "Cuss me if I don't shift
+the cut a little, anyhow," he added mentally.
+
+"Why, he's very well indeed!" exclaimed the lady with fervor.
+"How--"  She got no further on the query, for the other woman
+interrupted in a tone of scandal.  "Mary Ann Demilt!  How can you
+talk like that!  Your father's been dead this five year last
+August!"
+
+The horror of the moment was broken by the appearance of Miss
+Mattie, crying hospitably on seeing the visitors, "Why, Mary and
+Pauline!  How do you do?"
+
+The shorter one--Pauline--looked up and said sharply, "We're well
+enough, Mattie." She was weary of the form.
+
+"Come right in," said Miss Mattie.  "You're just in time for
+dinner."
+
+There was a great protest at this.  They "hadn't a moment to
+spare," they were "just going down to the corner, and had stopped
+to say," etc., etc.
+
+"You've got to help me," said Miss Mattie.  "Will here has invited
+the boys who are working for him to stay to dinner, and it won't be
+any more than Christian for you to help me out."
+
+"Ladies!" said Red.  "If you don't want to starve a man who's
+deserving of a better fate, take off your fixings and come out to
+dinner.  No," he continued to their protests, which he observed
+were growing weaker.  "It's no trouble at all: there's plenty for
+everybody--come one, come all, this house shall fly, clean off its
+base as soon as I--Now for Heaven's sake, ladies, it's all
+settled--come on."
+
+Whereat they laughed nervously, and took off their hats.
+
+It was a jolly dinner party.  The young fellows Red had picked up
+in the blacksmith's shop were not the ordinary quality of loungers.
+They were boys of good country parentage, with a common school
+education, who, unfortunately, could find nothing to do but the
+occasional odd job.  Of course it would not take long to transform
+them into common n'er-do-wells, but now they were merely
+thoughtless boys.
+
+The whole affair had an _al fresco_ flavor which stoppered
+convention.  The two women visitors pitched in and had as good a
+time as anybody.
+
+In the middle of the festivities a young man walked past the front
+fence; a stranger evidently, for-his clothes wore the cut of a
+city, and a cosmopolitan, up-to-date city at that.  He stopped and
+looked at the house, hesitated a moment and then walked in, back to
+where the folk were eating.
+
+"Excuse me," said he, as they looked up at him, "but isn't this Mr.
+Demilt's house?"
+
+A momentary silence followed, as it was not clear whose turn it was
+to answer.  Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye on
+her, replied, "No sir--Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile further
+up the road."
+
+"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully.  He was a spic-and-span,
+intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than the
+air of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the proper
+trim, and become quite used to it.  Nevertheless the sweat stood
+out in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street"
+savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broiling
+summer day.
+
+The young man sighed frankly and wiped his head.  "Well, that's too
+bad," he said.  "I'm a stranger here--would you kindly tell me
+where I could get some dinner?"
+
+"What's the matter with that?" inquired Red, pointing to the roast,
+which still preserved an air of fallen greatness.  He had liked the
+look of the other instantly.
+
+The stranger looked first at Red and then at the roast.  "The only
+thing I can see the matter with that," he answered, "is that it is
+a slice too thick."
+
+"Keno!" cried Red, "you get it.  Mattie, another plate and weapons
+to fit.  Sit down, sir, and rest your fevered feet.  It you don't
+like walking any better than I do, you've probably strewn fragments
+of one of the commandments all the way from where the stage dropped
+you to this apple tree."
+
+"It seems to me that I did make some remarks that I never learned
+at my mother's knee," returned the other laughing.  "And I'm
+exceedingly obliged for the invitation, as there doesn't seem to be
+a hotel here, and I am but a degree south of starvation."
+
+"Red or black?" asked the host, with a quick glance at his guest.
+
+The other caught the allusion.  "I haven't followed the deal," he
+replied, "but I'll chance it on the red."
+
+Somehow he felt instantly at home and at ease; it was a quality
+that Red Saunders dispersed wherever he went.
+
+"There you are, sir," said Red, forwarding a plate full of juicy
+meat.  "The ladies will supply the decorations."
+
+"Do you like rice as a vegetable, sir?" inquired Miss Mattie.
+
+"No--he doesn't," interrupted Red.  "He likes it as an
+animal--never saw anyone who looked less like a vegetable than our
+friend," The young man's laugh rang out above the others.
+
+Poor Miss Mattie was confused.  "It's too bad of you, Will, to put
+such a meaning on my words," she said.
+
+"The strange part of it is," spoke the young man, seeing an
+opportunity for a joke, and to deal courteously with his
+entertainers at the same time.  "The peculiar fact is, that my name
+is Lettis."
+
+"Lettuce?" cried Red.  "Mattie, I apologise--he is a vegetable."
+
+At which they all laughed again.
+
+"And now," said Red, "I'm Red Saunders, late of the Chantay Seeche
+Ranch, Territory of Dakota--State of North Dakota, I mean, can't
+get used to the State business; there's a Bill and a Dick on this
+side of me and two Johns and a Sammy on the other.  Foot of the
+table is Miss Mattie Saunders, next to her--just as they run--Miss
+Pauline Doolittle and Miss Mary Ann Demilt, who may be kin to the
+gentleman you're seeking."
+
+"Mr. Thomas F. Demilt?" asked the stranger.
+
+"He's my sister," responded Miss Mary Ann.  Whereat the youths
+buried their faces in the plates, as Mr. Thomas F., in spite of
+many excellent qualities, bore a pathetic resemblance to the title.
+
+"I mean," continued the lady hurriedly, "that I'm his brother."
+
+"By Jimmy, ma'am!" exclaimed Red.  "But yours is a strange family!"
+
+"What Miss Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with some
+asperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenstone Demilt is her brother."
+She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I have
+some hope--remote, alas! but there--of becoming sister to Miss
+Demilt myself."
+
+"Thank you!" said Lettis.  "Shall I be able to see him this
+afternoon?"
+
+"Oh, mercy, yes!" said Miss Mary Ann.  "Tom is home all day."
+
+"I can thank the kind fates for that," said Lettis.  "I had begun
+to think he was a myth," and he fell in upon the tender meat with
+the vigorous appetite of youth and a good digestion.
+
+Nathaniel Lettis was by no means a fool, and he had experience in
+business, but the mainspring of the young fellow was frankness, and
+in the course of the dinner he told his errand.  Mr. Demilt had
+written to his firm explaining the advantages of starting a
+straw-board factory in Fairfield.  It was too small a thing for the
+firm to be interested in, but Lettis had a small capital which he
+wished to invest in an enterprise of his own handling, and it had
+struck him that there might be a chance for independence; therefore
+he had come to find out the lay of the land.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as he
+told of his business.  The cowman did not blame people who took
+devious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in the
+world, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craft
+was a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not for
+those who used it.
+
+In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving a
+false impression of his financial standing to alter his position in
+one's regard, than he would wear corsets.  Money was of small
+consequence; its sequelae of less.  Men spoke openly of how much
+they made; how they liked the job; how their claims were paying;
+such matters were neutral ground of chance conversation, as the
+weather is in the East.  The rapid and unpredictable changes of
+fortune gave a tendency to make light of one's present condition.
+A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he would
+say "I have a cold."  Now, in Fairfield, that is not likely
+lonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life was
+to conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gaunt
+elbows through the cloth of words spread over it.  Red asked
+straight-forward questions--shrewd ones, too--seeing that the other
+was one of his own kind and would not resent it.
+
+Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on the
+subject.  It was close to his heart.  He had been a subordinate
+about as long as a proud and masterful young fellow ought to be.
+Now he was quivering to try his own strength, and seeing, for his
+part, that his host was inspired with a genuine interest and not
+curiosity, he gave him all the information in his power.
+
+"But a plant like that is going to cost some money, ain't it?"
+asked Red.
+
+"Too much for me, I'm afraid," replied Lettis.  "I have five
+thousand to put in, and I suppose I could borrow the rest, but
+that's saddling the business with too heavy charges right in the
+beginning.  Still, it may not be as bad as I fancy."
+
+Red drummed on the table, thinking.  "I wouldn't mind getting into
+a business of some kind, as long as it was making things," he said.
+"I don't hanker to keep store much--suppose I go along with you,
+when you look up how much straw is raised and the rest of it?"
+
+"Would you?" cried the young fellow, eagerly.  "By George, sir, I
+wish you could see your way clear to take hold of it.  Could you
+stand ten thousand, for instance?  Excuse the question, but I'm so
+anxious over this----"
+
+"Lord! What's the harm of asking facts?" said Red.  Then with a
+gleam of genial pride, "Ten thousand wouldn't break me by a durn
+sight".
+
+Lettis' boyish face fairly glowed.  "It was my good angel made me
+stop in front of your fence," he said.  "I saw you all eating in
+here and you looked so jolly, that I thought I'd stop, on the
+chance you might be the man I was looking for; now I'll go right on
+and see Mr. Demilt and find out what he wants to do in the matter."
+
+"Wait for the waggon and you can ride," said Red.  "Boy's gone home
+to see his dad about working for me this afternoon; in the
+meantime, it you're not too proud to take hold and help us with
+this dod-ratted fence, I'll be obliged to you."
+
+"Bring on your fence! I'm ready," said Lettis.
+
+"Come on, boys!" said Red, and the party rose from the table.
+Later the waggon came up.
+
+"Well, good day, Lettis," said Red.  "If you can't get quarters
+anywhere else, come on and help me hold the barn down."
+
+"Do you sleep in the barn?  Then I'll come back sure.  Tell you how
+it is, Mr. Saunders.  I've been stuck up in a three-by-nine office
+for four years--nose held to 'A to M, Western branch,' and if I'm
+not sick of it there's no such thing as sickness; to get out and
+breathe the fresh air, to see the country, to be my own master!
+Well, sir, it just makes me tremble to think of it.  I hope you
+find the straw-board what you want to take up."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if it would be," answered Red.  "We'll make a
+corking team to do business, Lettis, I can see that--so cautious
+and full of tricks, and all that."
+
+The young man laughed and then sobered down.  "Of course, I know
+the whole thing would look insane to most people," he said
+sturdily, "but I've been in business long enough to see sharp
+gentlemen come to grief in spite of their funny work.  I don't
+believe a man'll come to any more harm by believing people mean
+well by him than he would by working on the other tack."
+
+"Good boy!" said Red, slapping him on the back.  "You stick to that
+and you'll get a satisfaction out of it that money couldn't buy
+you.  Another thing, you'd never get a cent out of me in this world
+it you were one of these smooth young men.  My eye teeth are cut,
+son, for all I may seem easy.  The man that does me a trick has a
+chance for bad luck, and you can bet on that."
+
+"Lord!  I believe you!" replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions of
+his new friend.  "Well, good-bye for the present, Mr.
+Saunders--thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart you
+have put into me."
+
+At six o'clock the fence was not quite finished.
+
+"If you'll stay with me until the thing's done, I'll stand another
+dollar all around," said Red.  "I don't want it to stare me in the
+face to-morrow."
+
+The eldest spoke up.  "We'll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but we
+don't want any money for it, do we, fellers?"
+
+"No," they replied in chorus, well meaning what they said.
+
+"Why, you're perfectly welcome to the cash!" said Red.
+
+"And you're welcome to the work," retorted the boy.  "We're paid
+plenty as it is."
+
+"If that's the way you look at it, I'm much obliged to you," said
+Red, who would not have discouraged such a feeling for anything.
+He said to himself, "This don't seem much like the kind of people
+I've heard inhabited these parts.  Those boys are all right.
+Reckon it you use people decent they'll play up to your lead, no
+matter what country it is."
+
+At seven thirty the fence was done, gorgeous in a coat of fresh red
+paint, and the hands departed, each with a slice of Miss Mattie's
+chocolate cake, a thing to make the heathen gods feel contemptuous
+of ambrosia.
+
+They went straight to the blacksmith's shop, where they were
+anxiously expected.
+
+"Good Lord!" he said a little later, "it you fellers will talk one
+at a time, p'r'aps I can make out what's happened.  Now, Sammy,
+sp'ose you do the speaking?"
+
+Whereupon Sammy faithfully chronicled the events of the day.  The
+boys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of the
+common happening while they were with Red, being held up by a sense
+of pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, his
+picturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money around
+and the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day's hard
+work, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very much
+excited.
+
+"I'd like to know how many Injuns that feller's killed!" piped up
+the youngest.  "My!  he could grab hold of a man and wring his neck
+like a chicken."
+
+"Aw, tst!" remonstrated the blacksmith.  But the elders stood by
+the younker this time.
+
+"Yes, he could, Mr. Farrel!" said they.  "You ought to seen him
+when he rolled up his sleeves!  He's got an arm on him like the
+hind leg of a horse, and he uses an ax like a tack-hammer.  He got
+mad once when he pounded his thumb, and busted the post square in
+two with one crack."
+
+"Well, he looks like a husky man," admitted the blacksmith.  "But
+why didn't you boys take the extry dollar when he made the offer?
+He 'pears to know what he was about and looks kind of foolish to
+say 'no' to it."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  "We wanted to show him we were just
+as good as the folks he knew," explained the eldest, somewhat
+shame-facedly.
+
+The  blacksmith  straightened  himself.  "Quite right, too," said
+he.  "We _air_, when you come to that."  A little pride is a
+wonderful tonic.  Each unit of that gathering felt himself the
+better for the display of it.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+In the meantime, Red was repairing the ravages of the day opposite
+Miss Mattie at a supper table which was bountifully spread.  Miss
+Mattie put two and two together, and found they meant a larger sum
+of eatables than she had hitherto felt sufficient, and with a
+little pang at the thought of the inadequacy of her first offering
+to her cousin, provided such fatness as the land of Fairfield
+boasted.
+
+They discussed the events of the day with satisfaction.
+
+"My!" said Miss Mattie.  "You do things wholesale while you are
+about it, Will, don't you?"
+
+Red smiled in pleased acknowledgment.  "I'm no peanut stand, old
+lady," said he.  "I like to see things move."
+
+Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering around
+ever since her guests had taken their leave.
+
+"Do you think you'll really go into business with that young man
+who was here to dinner?" she asked.
+
+"Why, I think it's kinder likely," said Red.
+
+"But you don't know anything about him, Will," she continued,
+putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest more
+securely if that stood the test.
+
+"No, I don't," agreed Red.  "But here's the way I feel about that:
+I want to be doing something according to my size; besides that, it
+would be a good thing for this place if some kind of a live doings
+was to start here.  All right, that's my side of it.  Now, as far
+as not knowing that young feller's concerned, I might think I knew
+him from cyclone-cellar to roof-tree, and he might do me to a
+crowded house.  My idea is that life's a good deal like faro--you
+know how that is."
+
+"I remember about his not letting the people go, but I'm afraid I
+don't know my Bible as well as I ought to, Will," apologised Miss
+Mattie, rather astonished at his allusion.
+
+"Let the people go?  Bible?" cried Red, laying down his knife and
+fork, still more astonished at her allusion.  "Will you kindly tell
+me what that has to do with faro-bank?  Girl, one of us is full of
+ghost songs, and far, far off the reservation.  What in the name of
+Brigham Young's off-ox are you talking about?"
+
+"Why, you spoke of Pharaoh, Will, and I can remember about his
+holding the children of Israel captive, and the plagues, but I
+really don't see just how it applies."
+
+"Oh!" said Red, as a great light broke upon him.  "Oh, I see what
+you're thinking about.  The old boy who corralled the Jews, and
+made 'em work for the first and last time in their history, and
+they filled him full of fleas, and darkness, and all kinds of
+unpleasant experiences to break even?  Well, I was not talking
+about him at all.  My faro is a game played with a lay-out and a
+pack of cards and a little tin box that you ought to look at
+carefully before you put any money on the board, to see that it
+ain't arranged for dealing seconds; and there's a lookout and a
+case keeper and--well, I don't believe I could tell you just how it
+works, but some day I'll make a layout and we'll have some fun.
+It's a bully game, but I say, it's a great deal like life--the
+splits go to the dealer; that is to say, that if the king comes out
+to win and lose at the same time, you lose anyhow, see?"
+
+"No," said Miss Mattie, truthfully.
+
+Red thrust his fingers through his hair and sighed.  "I'm afraid I
+know too much about it to explain it clearly," he replied.   "But
+what I mean is this: some people try to play system at faro, and
+they last about as quick as those that don't.  I always put the
+limit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me a
+cent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear a
+pained expression when they saw me coming across the room.  I've
+split 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used a
+copper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time.  Now," and
+he brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play that
+young man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.
+He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind of
+nice.  I might just as well try him on the fly, as to go
+lunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactory
+addition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."
+
+Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but the
+ring of the voice and the little she understood made the tenor
+plain.  A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You're
+too good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that's
+what I think, Will."
+
+"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in an
+injured voice.  "It ain't hardly respectable."
+
+After which there was a silence for a short time.  Then said Miss
+Mattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, after
+all the things you've seen?"
+
+Red brightened at the change of topic.  "I'll tell you how that is:
+if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, I
+don't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother;
+but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securely
+planted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thusly
+being able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I like
+the country.  It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that's
+only held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real live
+man's town out of it."
+
+Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief.  "You came like the hero
+in a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"
+she said.
+
+He reached across the table and patted her hand.  "You'd have had
+to gone, too," said he.  "The family'll stick together."
+
+She thanked him in a soft little voice.  "Dear me!" she murmured.
+"It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."
+
+"Never was told that I was such slow company before."
+
+"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."
+
+"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am;
+insomuch as I'm to be a manufacturer and the Lord knows what.  Then
+some day I'm going to have an awful hankering for the land where
+the breeze blows, and then we'll take a shute for open prairie.
+It's cruelty to animals for me to straddle a horse now, yet there's
+where I'm at home, and I'm going to buy me a cayuse of some
+kind--say, I ought to get at that; if I'm going around with Lettis
+I want to ride a horse--know anybody that's got a real live horse
+for sale, Mattie?  No?  Well, I'll stop in and see the lady that
+deals the mail--I'll bet you what that woman doesn't know about
+what's going on in this camp will never get into history--be back
+right away."
+
+Said he to the post-mistress, "My name's Saunders, ma'am--cousin to
+Miss Mattie.  I just stopped in to find out if you knew anyone that
+had a riding horse for sale; horse with four good legs that'll
+carry me all day, and about the rest I don't care a frolicsome
+cuss."
+
+The post-mistress replied at such length, and with such velocity
+that Red was amazed.  He gathered from her remarks that a certain
+Mr. Upton had an animal, purchased of a chance horse dealer, which
+it was altogether likely he would dispose of, as the first time he
+had tried the brute it went up into the air all sorts of ways, and
+caused the owner to perform such tricks before high Heaven as made
+the angels weep.
+
+"Where does this man live?" asked Red, with a kindling eye.
+
+"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's in
+town to-night visitin' Miss Alders--Johnny!" to a small boy who had
+been following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red,
+and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight in
+vigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's a
+gentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse."
+
+"Don't disturb him if he's visiting," remonstrated Red.
+
+"He won't call that disturbing him," replied the post-mistress,
+with a shrill laugh.  "He'll be here in no time."
+
+She was a true prophet.  It seemed as if the boy had barely left
+the store when he returned with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-faced
+man, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower part
+of his face.  After greetings and the explanation of the errand,
+Mr. Upton stroked his chin-whisker regretfully.  "Young man," said
+he, "I'm in a pecooliar and onpleasant position; there's mighty
+feyew things I wouldn't do in a hawse trade, but I draw the line on
+murder.  That there hawse'll kill you, just's sure as you're fool
+enough to put yerself on his back.  I'll sell you a real hawse
+mighty reasonable--"
+
+"I'll risk him," cut in Red.  "Could you lead him down here in the
+morning?"
+
+"Yes, indeedy--he's a perfect lady of a horse to lead---you can
+pick up airy foot--climb all over him in fac', s'long's you don't
+try to ride him or hitch him up.  If you do that--well, young man,
+you'll get a pretty fair idee of what is meant by one of the demons
+of hell."
+
+"What kind of saddle have you got?"
+
+"One of them outlandish Western affairs that the scamp threw in
+with the animal--you see, I thought I'd take up horse-back riding
+for my health; I was in bed three weeks after my fust try."
+
+"I'll go you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you got
+it--chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front of
+my house at nine o'clock to-morrow."
+
+"All right, young man--all right sir--now don't blame me if you air
+took home shoes fust."
+
+"Nary," said Red.  "Come and see the fun."
+
+"I shorely will," replied the old gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+At nine the next morning there was a crowd in front of the house.
+
+"What have you been doing now, Will?" asked Miss Mattie with
+prescience.
+
+"Only buying a horse, Mattie," returned Red soberly.  "Seems to be
+quite an event here."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all, so help me Bob!" Red had a suspicion that there would
+be objections if she knew what kind of a horse it was.
+
+Lettis, who had roomed with Red overnight, was in the secret.
+
+The horse arrived, leading very quietly, as Mr. Upton had said.  It
+was a buckskin, fat and hearty from long resting.  Nothing could be
+more docile than the pensive lower lip, and the meek curve of the
+neck; nothing could be more contradictory than the light of its
+eye; a brooding, baleful fire, quietly biding its time.
+
+"Scatter, friends!" cried Red, as he put his foot in the stirrup.
+"Don't be too proud to take to timber!"
+
+He swung over as lightly as a trapeze performer, deftly catching
+his other stirrup.  The horse groaned and shivered.
+
+"Don't let him get his head down!  Gol-ding it!  Don't you!"
+screamed Mr.   Upton in wild excitement.
+
+Red threw the bridle over the horn of the saddle.  "Go it, you
+devil!" cried he.  And they went.  Six feet straight in the air,
+first pass.  The crowd scattered, as requested.  They hurried at
+that.  Red gave the brute the benefit of his two hundred and a half
+as they touched earth, and his opponent grunted when he felt the
+jar of it.  They rocketted and ricochetted; they were here, they
+were there, they were everywhere, the buckskin squealing like a
+pig, and fighting with every ounce of the strength that lay in his
+steel strung legs; the dust rose in clouds; Red's hat flew in no
+time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like
+more maniacs.  Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be
+caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would
+roll up and hide everything.  No one was more pleased at the
+spectacle than the blacksmith.  He was capering in the middle of
+the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him _down_!  Hold
+him DOWN!  Why do you let him jump up like that?  If _I_ was on
+that horse I'd show you!  Aw, there it is again--Stop him!  _Stop_
+him!"
+
+At this point the buckskin made three enormous leaps for the
+blacksmith, as though he had understood.  The smith cast dignity to
+the winds and went over the nearest fence in the style that little
+boys, when coasting, call "stomach-whopper"--or words to that
+effect--and took his next breath two minutes later.  He might have
+saved the labour, as the horse wheeled on one foot, and pulled
+fairly for the picket fence opposite.  Red regretted the absence of
+herders as the sharp pickets loomed near.  It was no time for
+regrets.  The horse was over with but little damage--a slight
+scratch, enough to rouse his temper, however, for he whaled away
+with both hind feet, and parts of the fence landed a hundred feet
+off.  Then a dash through an ancient grape arbor, and they were
+lost to view of the road.  Some reckless small boys scampered
+after, but the majority preferred to trace the progress of the
+conflict by the aboriginal "Yerwhoops" that came from somewhere in
+behind the old houses.
+
+"There they go!" piped up a shrill voice of the small-boy brigade.
+"Right through Mis' Davisses hen coops!--you _ought_ to see them
+hens FLY!" The triumphant glee is beyond the reach of words.
+Simultaneous squawking verified the remark, as well as a feminine
+voice, urging a violent protest, cut short by a scream of terror,
+and the slam of a door.  The inhabitants of "Mis' Davisses" house
+instantly appeared through the front door, seeking the street.
+
+To show the erraticalness of fate, no sooner had they reached the
+road, than Red's mount cleared the parapet of the bridge in a
+single leap--a beautiful leap--and came down upon them in the road.
+
+All got out of the way but a three-year-old, forgotten in the
+excitement.  Upon this small lad, fallen flat in the road, bore the
+powerful man and horse.  Then there were frantic cries of warning.
+Fifty feet between the youngster and those mangling
+hoofs--twenty--five! the crowd gasped--they were blotted together!
+Not so.  A mighty hand had snatched the boy away in that instant of
+time.  He was safe and very indignant in a howling, huddled heap in
+the ditch by the roadside, but alas, for horse and rider!  The
+buckskin was not used to such feats, and when Red's weight was
+thrown to the side for the reach he missed his stride, struck his
+feet together, and down they went, while the foot-deep dust sprang
+into the air like an explosion.
+
+Miss Mattie rushed to the scene of the accident, followed by
+everybody.  Young Lettis, equally frightened, was close beside her.
+
+"Oh, Will! Are you killed?" she cried.
+
+And then a voice devoid of any signs of weakness, but loaded to the
+breaking point with wrath, told in such language as had never been
+heard in Fairfield that the owner was still much alive.
+
+"Run away, Mattie!  Run away and let me cuss!" shrieked Red.  Miss
+Mattie collapsed into the arms of Lettis.
+
+The dust settled enough so that the anxious villagers could see
+horse and man; the former resting easily, as if he had had enough
+athletics for one day, and the latter sitting in the road.  Neither
+showed any intention of rising.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Saunders, are you hurt?" inquired the fussy
+post-mistress.
+
+"Please go 'way, ma'am," said Red, waving his arm.
+
+"I'm sure you're hurt--I'm perfectly sure you're hurt," she
+persisted, holding her ground.  "Now, do tell us what can possibly
+be the matter with you?"
+
+"Very well," returned the exasperated cow-puncher, "I will.  My
+pants, ma'am, have suffered in this turn-up, and they're now in a
+condition to make my appearance in polite society difficult, if not
+impossible; now please go 'way and somebody fetch me a horse
+blanket."
+
+It is regrettable that the discomfiture of the post-mistress was
+received with undisguised hilarity.  The blanket was produced, and
+Red stalked off in Indian dignity, marred by a limp in his left
+leg, for he had come upon Mother Earth with a force which made
+itself felt through all that foot of soft dust.
+
+"Bring that durn-fool horse along," he called over his shoulder.
+Buckskin rose and followed his owner.  There was no light in his
+eye now; he looked thoughtful.  He, too, limped, and there was a
+trickle of blood down his nose.  Verily it had been a hard fought
+field.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+As both men were anxious to see the lay of the land as soon as
+possible.  Red took his place in the waggon that day, after the
+damages were repaired, content to wait until his leg was less sore
+for horseback riding.
+
+There followed a busy two weeks for them.  Mr. Demilt had some
+money he wished to put into the enterprise, but his most valuable
+assistance was, of course, his thorough knowledge of the resources
+of the country.
+
+They found an admirable site for the mill, in an old stone barn,
+which had stood the ravages of desolation almost unimpaired.  Red's
+mining experience told him that the creek could easily be flumed to
+the barn, and as that was the only objection of the others to this
+location, they wrote the owner of the property for a price.  They
+were astonished when they received the figures.  It had come by
+inheritance to a man to whom it was a white elephant of the most
+exasperating sort, and he was glad to get rid of it for almost a
+song.  They were a jubilant three at the news.  It saved the cost
+of building a mill, and including that, the price was as low per
+acre as any land they could have obtained.  Red closed the bargain
+instantly.
+
+Lettis' part of the business was chiefly to arrange for the
+disposal of their product, and when he explained to his partners
+what he could reasonably hope to do in that line, the affair lost
+its last tint of unreality, and became a good proposition, for
+Lettis had an excellent business acquaintance, who would be glad to
+deal with the straightforward young fellow.
+
+The night after the signing of the deeds, Red said to Miss Mattie,
+"We ought to have a stockholders' dinner to-morrow night, Mattie.
+If you could hire that scow-built girl, who wears her hair
+scrambled, to come in and give you a lift, would you feel equal to
+it?"
+
+"You always put it that I'm doing you a great favour in such
+things, Will, but you know perfectly well there's nothing I'd
+rather do," replied Miss Mattie, with a dimpling smile.  "However,
+it adds to the pleasure of it to have it put in that way, so I
+won't complain.  I'll just have my supper first, and then you men
+can talk over your business undisturbed."
+
+"You _will_ not--you'll eat with the rest of us."
+
+"Yes, but you stockholders--"  The word had an import to Miss
+Mattie; a something, if not regal, at least a kinship to the king.
+Under her democracy lay a respect for the founded institution;
+impersonal; an integral part of the law of the State; in fact, a
+minor sovereignty within an empire.
+
+"Stockholder yourself!" retorted Red.  "Don't you call me names."
+
+"What do you mean, Will?" asked Miss Mattie, with wide-opened eyes.
+
+"I mean you're a stockholder as good as anybody--you've got half my
+stack.  Now, hold on!  Just listen!  This is a queer run, Mattie,
+from the regulation point of view, this company of ours; I know
+enough about fillin' and backin' to know that--you ought to have
+seen the pryin', and pokin', and nosin' around them Boston men did
+before they took holt of the Chantay Seeche and made it a stock
+company!  One feller was the ablest durn fool I ever come acrosst.
+I used to let on I didn't savvey anything about it.  'Now, explain
+to me,' says I to him.  'You say you have so many shares of them
+stock,' waving my hand to a bunch of critters in the distance.
+'What part do you take?  I mean, what's your share of each animal,
+and does the last man get the hoofs and the tail?' 'Oh! you don't
+understand,' says he.  'I'll explain it to you.'  So he starts in
+to tell me that 'stock didn't necessarily mean beef critters,' and
+a lot more things, whilst old man Ferguson, who was putting the
+deal through, stood listening and chewing his teeth, thinking I was
+going to give our friend the frolicsome hee-hee at the wind-up.
+But I stood solemn, and never even drew a smile, for fear of
+queering Ferguson.  Well.  That's the proper way to start a
+company; make it as dreary and long-winded as possible.  We ain't
+done that, and perhaps we'll go broke for breaking the rules, and
+then your stock won't be worth a cuss; so don't you get excited
+about it.  I wanted the Saunders family to be represented.  Pretty
+soon the old lad with the nose will be around, and you'll have a
+chance to read about the 'parties of the first part,' and 'second
+parts of the party' and 'aforesaids' and 'behindsaids' and the rest
+of the yappi them lawyers swing so that honest men won't know what
+the devil they're up to."
+
+"Oh, Will! How can I ever thank you!" cried Miss Mattie, her eyes
+filling.  It seemed a great and responsible position to the gentle
+lady to be a stockholder in the corporation.  It wasn't the
+monetary value of the thing; it was the pride of place.
+
+"If you don't know how, don't try," returned Red.  "You give the
+other three stockholders a good feed to-morrow and the thanks will
+be up to you.  Hello!  There's the old lad now!" as a trumpet blast
+rang out from the front porch.  "It must take some practise to blow
+your nose like that.  I've heard Jackasses that could not bray in
+the same class with that little old gent--come in.  Come in!  You
+needn't sound the rally again."
+
+Thus adjured the lawyer made his entrance, and Miss Mattie became
+in due and involved course of law a stockholder in the Fairfield
+Strawboard Mfg. Co.
+
+Fairfield rose to activity like a very small giant refreshed.
+Teams and their heavy loads kept the respectable dust in constant
+commotion.  A grist mill was added to the intended plant, thus
+offering an inducement to the farmer to raise grain, and
+incidentally straw, "So we can ketch 'em on both ends, too," as Red
+put it.
+
+The time seemed like enchantment to Miss Mattie.  As a bringer of
+the tidings, and a stockholder in the company, she had risen to be
+a person of importance, with the result that she was even more
+modestly shy than before, although in her heart she liked it; but
+more delightful yet was the spirit of holiday activity which
+inspired and pervaded the place.
+
+Red had insisted on operating on the lines that are laid down with
+railroad spikes in the Western communities; to patronise home
+industries as much as possible.  Therefore the machinery orders
+went through Mr. Farrel, the blacksmith, initiating that worthy man
+into the mysteries of making money without doing anything for it,
+which seemed little less than a miracle to him.  Everything that
+could be bought through local people was obtained in that way.  It
+cost a trifle more, but it brought more money into the place, and
+enabled the villagers to partake of the enlivenment, without the
+feeling that it was a Barmecide feast.  The post-mistress furnished
+the paint, and it is painful to add that she tried to furnish a
+number three paint for a number one price, arguing that she was a
+poor, lone woman, struggling through an uncharitable world and that
+the increased profit would do her considerable good--a view which
+Red did not share.  He would willingly have made her a present of
+the difference, but he did not in the least intend to be choused
+out of it by man nor woman.  They had a very funny debate in
+private, wherein the feminine tried to dominate the masculine
+principle by sheer volubility and found to its disgust that the
+method didn't work.  Red listened most respectfully and always
+replied, "Yes ma'am, but we don't want that paint.  Get us some
+good paint--bully old paint with stick'um in it--this stuff is like
+whitewash, only feebler.  We're going to put on a swell front up at
+the mill, and we've got to have the right thing." And at last the
+post-mistress said that she would, her respect for the
+ex-cowpuncher having risen noticeably in the meantime.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+The work on the mill was pushed, and in spite of the usual amount
+of unforeseen delays, it was ready for work by the latter part of
+September.  The official opening was set for the
+twenty-seventh--Miss Mattie's birthday--and the village of
+Fairfield was invited to a picnic to be held at the mill in honor
+of the occasion.  It is needless to say that the Fairfield
+Strawboard Mfg. Co.  did the thing up in shape.  Waggons loaded
+with straw, and drawn by four-horse teams, went the rounds of the
+village, collecting the guests.  It is doubtful if Fairfield was
+ever more surprised than at the realisation of how much there was
+of her--using the pronoun out of respect to the majority--"when she
+was bunched," as Red said.  You would not have believed that
+straggling, lonesome-looking place held so many people.  As Red
+could discover no means in the town's resources to provide a meal
+for three hundred people it was necessarily a basket party, which
+struck Mr. Saunders as being grievously like a Swede treat.  He
+made up for it in a measure by having barrels of lemonade and cider
+on tap at the grounds--stronger beverages being barred--and by
+hiring a quartette of strings "clear from town."
+
+At half-past two on a resplendent but hot September afternoon the
+caravan started for the mill grounds, the women dressed in the most
+un-picnicky costumes imaginable, and the men ostentatiously at ease
+in their store clothes.  Everyone was in the best of spirits, keen
+for the excitement and pleasure that was sure to mark the occasion.
+
+Red rode old Buckskin, who had succumbed to the inevitable, and
+only "jumped around a little," as Red put it, on being mounted.  It
+was pretty lively "jumping around," but perhaps Mr. Saunders found
+some satisfaction in sitting perfectly at his ease, smoking his
+cigarette, while Buck jumped and Fairfield admired.  And, at any
+rate, Buck had legs of iron, and the wind of a locomotive, carrying
+Red all day, and willing to kick at anything which bothered him
+when night came.  He was a splendid beast through and through, from
+forelock to tail-tip, but he had learned who was his master and
+obeyed him accordingly.
+
+It was a five mile ride, mostly under the shade of fine old trees.
+The road wound around the hills; here and there a break in the
+arboreal border showed views of rolling country, well-shaped and
+pleasing, winding up grassy slopes in groves of verdure.  Of course
+most of the freshness of leaf was past, yet the modest gray-green
+gave a silvery sheen to the landscape that brought it into unity.
+
+One member of the party felt that his heart was very full as he
+looked at it.  That was Lettis.  "Blast the old office!" he kept
+saying to himself.  "Blast its six dingy windows, and the clock at
+the end!  Doesn't this look good, and doesn't it smell good, dust
+and all?" and then he'd howl at the horses in sheer exuberance of
+good feeling, making the mild old brutes put a better foot of it to
+the front.
+
+Red cantered up beside his waggon.  "Well, Lettis," he said, "here
+we go for the opening overture, with the full strength of the
+company--we're great people this day, ain't we?"  And the big man
+smiled like a pleased big boy.
+
+"Oh, what a bully old fellow you are!" thought Lettis as he looked
+at him.  Lettis was thinking of other qualities than flesh, but the
+physical Red Saunders on horseback was deserving of a glance from
+anybody; the massive figure so well poised; the clear cut, proud
+profile; the shapely head with its crown of red-gold hair; the easy
+grace of him by virtue of his strength--it would be a remarkable
+crowd in which Chanta Seechee Red couldn't pass for a man.  He was
+every inch of that from the ground up.
+
+Lettis had come to bow down to him in adoration, with all an
+affectionate boy's worship.  To those eyes Red was just right, in
+every particular.  Likewise to Miss Mattie, who even now was
+filling her eyes with him, from behind the vantage of a
+broad-brimmed straw hat.
+
+At last the whole party disembarked at the flat before the mill,
+and made ready for the official starting of the machinery.  The big
+doors were thrown open, so that the company could see within while
+resting outside in the shade, and under the cooling influence of
+what breeze there was.  The mill was officially started.  Red
+climbed the bank to the flume, and raised the gate.  The crowd
+cheered as the imprisoned waters leapt to freedom with a hollow
+roar, raising in pitch as the penstock filled and the wheels began
+to go round.  Speech was called for, and the vigorously protesting
+Red forced to the front by his former friends, Demilt and Lettis.
+Thus betrayed by those he trusted, Red made the best of it.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens!" said he.  "The mill is now
+open to all comers.  We hope to make this thing a success; we hope
+to see every horny-handed, hump-backed farmer in the country rosin
+the soles of his moccasins, and shove his plough through twice as
+much ground as he ever did before, and if he comes here with his
+plunder, we'll give him a square shake.  We'll pay him as much as
+we dast, and not let him in on the ground floor, so he can crawl
+out through the coal-hole, as is sometimes done.  Now, everybody
+run away and have a good time, for I don't like to talk this yappi
+any more than you like to hear it.  Kola geus!  By-bye!"
+
+It was a very successful picnic.  They spent the afternoon in
+wandering around in the usual picnic fashion, developing appetites,
+until it occurred to Red to liven the performance by showing them
+the art of roping, as practiced upon an old cow found in the woods.
+As a spectacle it was a failure.  The combined efforts of all the
+hooting small boys could not make that cow run; she even stretched
+her neck toward Red, as though saying, "Hurry up with your
+foolishness.  I have a cud to chew and can't stand here idle all
+day."  So Red galloped by and threw the noose over her head as an
+exhibition of how the thing was done, rather than how it ought to
+be done.  Nevertheless, picnic parties are not hypercritical in the
+matter of amusement, and the feat received three encores.  The last
+time he missed his cast through overconfidence.  Whereat the old
+cow tossed her head and tail in the air, and tore off at an
+elephantine gallop, with a bawl that sounded to Red mightily like
+derision.
+
+"Durned if she ain't laughing at me!" he cried.  But as a matter of
+fact, it was a hornet and its unmistakable sting that injected this
+activity into her system.
+
+It was all very pleasant to Miss Mattie, as one's first picnic in
+many years should be.  She enjoyed the crisp green sod, the great
+trees standing around, park-like, with the sunlight falling between
+their shade like brilliant tatters of cloth-of-gold; while from the
+near distance came the tiny shouting of cool waters.  They had a
+camp-fire at night, making the moonlight still more mysterious and
+remote by contrast.  The quartette of strings played for the ears
+of those who cared to listen and for the legs of those who chose to
+take chances on tripping their light fantastic toes over tree roots
+in the grass.
+
+Red loved music, and he loved the night.  The poetic side of his
+memories of watching the Dipper swing around Polaris, while he sung
+the cows to sleep, came back to him.  In his mind he saw the vast
+prairie roll on to infinity; saw the mountains stand out, a world
+of white peaks, rising from a sea of darkness.  Again he heard the
+plaintive shrilling of an Indian whistle, or the song of the lad
+down creek made tuneful and airy by the charm of distance.
+
+"Having a good time, Mattie?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"The best I ever had, Will," she answered, smiling back unsteadily.
+Poor lady!  The size of an occasion is so many standards, whether
+the standard be inches or feet, or miles.  Miss Mattie's events had
+been measured in hundredths of an inch, and it took a good many of
+them to cover so small an action as a successful picnic on a
+beautiful night.  Her eyes were humid; her mouth smiled and drooped
+at the corners alternately.  Red felt her happiness with a keen
+sympathy, and as he looked at her, suddenly she changed in his
+eyes.  Just what the difference was he could not have told; nor
+whether it was in her or in him.  A sudden access of feeling,
+undefinable, unplaceable, but strong, possessed him.  There is a
+critical temperature in the life of a man, when no amount of
+pressure can ever make the more expansive emotions assume the
+calmer form of friendship.  There was something in Miss Mattie's
+eye which had warmed Red to that degree, but he didn't know it.  He
+only knew that he wanted to sit rather unnecessarily close beside
+her, and that he would be sorry when it came time to go home.  And
+he was very silent.
+
+During the drive back to the house he spoke in monosyllables; he
+went straight to the barn with Lettis afterward, and made no
+attempt to take the usual frank and hearty good-night kiss.
+
+"You're as glum as an oyster!" said Lettis, when they reached their
+quarters.  "What's the matter, old man?"
+
+"I don't know, Let; I feel kind of quiet, somehow."
+
+"Sick?  Or something go wrong?"
+
+"No; nothing of the kind; it's just sort of an attack of stillness,
+but I feel durn good."
+
+Lettis laughed.  "If it wasn't you, Red, I'd say you were in love,"
+he said.
+
+It was well the barn was dark; or he would have seen a change
+wonderful to behold come over the ex-puncher's face.  "The lad has
+hit it," he said to himself in astonishment; aloud he grunted
+"hunh" scornfully, and aroused himself for an unnecessary joke or
+two.
+
+Miss Mattie had noticed the "attack of stillness" and immediately
+tried to fasten the blame upon herself.  What had she done?  She
+couldn't recall anything.  She remembered she had said something
+about the way his hair looked with the moon shining on it; perhaps
+he had taken offence at that; the remark was entirely
+complimentary, but sometimes people are touchy about such things;
+still that was not the least like Cousin Will.  She must have said
+or done something though--what could it be?  Oh what a pitiful
+memory that could not recollect an injury done to one's best
+friend!  She tossed and wondered over it for a long time before at
+length she tell asleep.
+
+Red also looked up at the roof, and took account of stock.  His
+face was radiant in the dark.  "If I could only pull that off!" he
+thought.  "I must seem an awful rough cuss to her, though; all
+right for a cousin, but it's different when you come to the other
+proposition.  My Jiminy!  I'll take a chance in the morning and
+find out anyhow!" said he, and, eased in mind by the decision of
+action, he too shook hands with Morpheus and was presently dreaming.
+
+It had never occurred to Red Saunders that he was afraid of
+anybody.  He even chuckled, when he got Lettis out of the way with
+a plausible excuse the next morning.  Then he strode briskly into
+the house, his question on his lips in a plump out-and-out form.
+
+Miss Mattie looked at him with her slow smile.  "What is it?" she
+asked.
+
+Red swallowed his question whole.  "I--I wanted a little hot water
+to shave with," said he.  Then a fury took hold of him.  "What the
+devil am I lying like this for?" he thought.  He exhorted himself
+to go on and say what he had to say like a man; but the other Red
+Saunders refused to do anything of the sort.  He took the cup of
+hot water most abjectly and fled from the house.  He had to shave
+then, and in his hurry and indignation he turned the operation into
+a clinic.  "Oh Jiminy!  Look at that!" he cried, as the razor
+opened up another part of the subject.  "There's a slit an inch
+long!  If I keep on at this gait, I won't have face enough to say
+good morning, let alone what I want to do.  What ails me?  What
+ails me?  Why should I be scart of the nicest woman God ever built?
+Now by all the Mormon Gods!  I'll post right into the house and say
+my little say as soon as these cuts stop bleeding!"
+
+Cob-webs stopped the cuts, and other cob-webs stopped Red Saunders,
+late of the Chanta Seechee ranch; two hundred and fifty pounds of
+the very finest bone and muscle.  And the cob-webs held him,
+foaming and boiling with rage and disgust, calling himself all the
+yaller pups he could think of, but staying strictly within the safe
+limits of the barn.  It was a revelation to the big man, and not a
+pleasant one.  How was he to know that the most salient point of
+his apparent cowardice was nothing less worthy than respect for the
+woman's purity?  That if he would stop swearing long enough to get
+at the springs of his action, he would find that he hesitated
+because the new light on the matter made huge shadows of the slips
+in the career of a strong, lawless, untrained but sorely tempted
+man?  He knew nothing of the sort, and the funniest of comedies
+took place in the barn.  He would reach the sensible stage.  "Pah!
+All foolishness.  Go?  Of course he'd go, and this very minute, and
+have the thing done with, good or bad"; he was quite amused at his
+former conduct--until he reached the door.  Then he'd skip nimbly
+back again, with a hot feeling that somebody was watching him,
+although a careful inspection through the crack of the door
+revealed no one.
+
+Red discovered another thing that afternoon, which was that the
+more nervous you are the more nervous you get.  He groaned in
+perfect misery: "Ohoho!  That I should have seen the day when I was
+afraid to ask anybody anything.  What's come over me anyhow?  It's
+this darn country, I believe--'tain't me," then he stopped short.
+"What you saying, Red?" he queried.  "Why don't you own up like a
+man!"  The fact that it had a funny side struck him, and he
+laughed, half forlornly, and half in thorough enjoyment.  He
+suddenly sobered down.  "She's worth it, anyway," said he.  "She's
+the best there is, and I ought to feel kind of leery of the
+outcome--Well--Now, I guess I won't say anything till there's a
+downright good chance.  I see I didn't savvy this kind of business
+like I thought I did.  'Twouldn't be no kind of manners to step up
+to a lady and shout, 'I'd like to have you marry me, if you feel
+you've got the time!'  That don't go no more than a Chinaman on
+roller-skates.  Your work is good, Red, but it's a little lumpy in
+spots; them two left feet bother you; you're good in your place,
+but you'd better build a fence around the place--damn the luck!
+Smotheration!  I think she likes me, all right, but when it comes
+to more'n that--oh, blast it, I'll just have to wait for a real
+good chance; now come, old man, get four feet on the ground and
+don't roll your eyes, take it easy till the chance comes."
+
+Little he knew the chance was coming up the street at that moment.
+He only saw Miss Mattie step out into the bed of flowers, her face
+looking unusually pretty and youthful under the big straw hat, and
+start to reduce the weeds to order.  She glanced around as though
+in search of some one, and Red felt intuitively that the one was
+himself.
+
+"Here's where I ought to act as if I wore long pants," said he;
+"now, what's to hinder me from going out there and get a-talking?"
+And then he sat down hastily, more disgusted than ever, and smote
+the air with his fist.  "You'd think the nicest, quietest woman
+that ever lived was a wild beast, the way I act; yes sir, you
+would!"
+
+Meantime the chance drew nearer.  It was not a pleasant looking
+opportunity.  Its eyes, full of dread and dreadful, peeped out from
+beneath a brush of matted hair; a tough, ropy foam hung from its
+mouth.  If you put as much of that foam as would go on the point of
+a pin in an open cut, you would have an end that your worst enemy
+would shudder at.  For this was the most horrifying of dangerous
+animals--a mad dog.  Poor brute!  As he came shambling down the
+road, he was the grisly mask of tragedy.
+
+It was near noon, intensely hot, and the street of Fairfield was
+deserted.   No one saw the dog, and if his occasional rattling,
+strangling howl reached any ears, they were dead to its meaning.
+He was unheeded until he lurched through the gate which Lettis had
+left open, as usual, and spinning around in a circle gave voice to
+his cry.
+
+It brought Miss Mattie to her feet in an unknown terror; it brought
+Red from the barn in a full cognizance--he had heard that sound
+before, when a mad coyote landed in a cabin-full of fairly strong
+nerved cowmen, and set them screeching like hysterical women before
+a chance shot ended him.
+
+Red saw the brute jump toward Miss Mattie.  Instantly his hand flew
+to his hip, and as instantly he remembered there was nothing there.
+Then with great, uneven leaps he sprang forward.  "Keep your hands
+up, Mattie, and don't move!" he screamed.  "Let him chew the dress!
+For God's sake, don't move!"
+
+She turned her white face toward his, and through the dimness of
+sight from his straining efforts, he saw her try to smile, as she
+obeyed him to the letter, and without a sound.  "O, brave girl!" he
+thought, and threw the ground behind him desperately.
+
+At twenty feet distance he dove like a base-runner, and his hands
+closed around the dog's neck.  Over they went with the shock of the
+onset, and before they were still, the hands had finished their
+work.  A clutch, and a snap, and it was done.
+
+The dog lay quivering.  Red rose to his knees wondering at the
+humming in his head.  His wits came back to him sharply.
+
+"Did he bite you, Mattie?" he cried.  But she had already caught
+his hands and was looking at them, with a savage eagerness one
+would not have believed to be in her.
+
+"There is no mark," she said, suddenly weak, "he didn't touch you?"
+
+"Answer me when I speak to you!" shouted Red, beside himself.  "Did
+he bite you?"
+
+She answered him with a sob "No."  And then his question asked
+itself, and answered itself, although, again, he did not know it.
+He gathered her up in his arms, kissed her like one raised from the
+dead, and swore and prayed and thanked God all in the same breath.
+
+His old imperious nature came back with the relief.  "Here!" said
+he, putting her away for a moment.  "Take off that dress--that
+slime on there's enough to kill a hundred men--take it right off."
+
+Miss Mattie started blindly to obey, then stopped.  "Not here,
+Will--I'll go in the house," she said.
+
+"You'll take it off right here and now," said Red, "and I'll burn
+it up on the spot.  I'd ruther have forty rattlesnakes around than
+that stuff--off with it.  This is no child's play, and I don't care
+a damn what the old lady next door thinks."
+
+Miss Mattie slipped off her outer skirt, and stood a second,
+confused and dainty.  She took flight to the house, running as
+lithely as a greyhound.
+
+"By Jingo!" said Red in admiration.
+
+"Let's see you bring another woman that can run like that!"
+
+He gathered some hay and piled it on the dress, firing the heap.
+
+Then he turned to his antagonist.  "Poor old boy!  Hard luck, eh?
+But I had to do it," he said, and gave him decent interment at the
+end of the garden; washed his hands carefully and went into the
+house on pleasanter duties.
+
+"I'll ask her now, by the great horn spoon!" said he, valiantly.
+
+Miss Mattie was in a curious state of mind.  There was an after
+effect from the fright, which made her tremble, and a remembrance
+of Cousin Will's actions which made her tremble more yet.  When she
+heard him coming she started to fly, although now clothed beyond
+reproach, but her knees deserted her, and she was forced to sink
+back in her chair.  Red came in whistling blithely--vainglorious
+man!
+
+He had _his_ suspicions, generated by the peculiar fervour Miss
+Mattie had shown in regard to his hands.
+
+"Mattie," quoth he, "I'm tired of living out there in the barn--I
+want a respectable house of my own."
+
+"Yes, Will," replied Miss Mattie, astonished that he should choose
+such a subject at such a time.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "and I want a wife, too.  You often said you'd
+like to do something for me, Mattie; suppose you take the job?"
+
+How much of glancing at a thing in one's mind as a beautiful
+improbability will ever make such a cold fact less astonishing?
+Miss Mattie eyed him with eyes that saw not; speech was stricken
+from her.
+
+Red caught fright.  He sprang forward and took her hand.  "Couldn't
+you do it, Mattie?" said he.  There was a world of pleading in the
+tone.  Miss Mattie looked up, her own honest self; all the little
+feminine shrinkings left her immediately.
+
+"Ah, but I _could_, Will!" she said.  Lettis came up on the stoop
+unheard.  He stopped, then gingerly turned and made his way back on
+tip-toe, holding his arms like wings.
+
+"Well, by George!" he murmured, "I'll come back in a little while,
+when I'll be more welcome."
+
+He spoke to Red in strong reproach that night, in the barn.  "You
+never told me a word, you old sinner!" said he.
+
+"Tell you the honest truth, Let," replied Red earnestly, looking up
+from drawing off a boot, "I didn't know it myself till you told me
+about it."
+
+They talked it all over a long time before blowing out the light,
+but then the little window shut its bright eye, and the only life
+the mid-night stars saw in Fairfield was Miss Mattie, her elbow on
+the casement, looking far, far out into the tranquil night, and
+thinking mistily.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+By Stewart Edward White
+
+THE BLAZED TRAIL
+
+Mr. White has intermingled the romance of the forests with the
+romance of a man's heart, making a story that is big and elemental,
+while not lacking in sweetness and tenderness.  It is an epic of
+the life of the lumbermen in the great forests of the Northwest,
+permeated in every line by out-of-door freshness and the glory of
+the labor of the struggle with nature.  It will appeal to everyone
+who cares for trees, the forests or the open air.
+
+"Mr. White has the power to make you feel the woods as the masters
+of salt-water fiction make you feel the sea."--_The Boston Herald_.
+
+"Of the majesty of the falling forests the book is eloquent, and
+its place in the history of our literature is secure."--_The
+Chicago Nevis_.
+
+"He has realized to the full the titanic character of the struggle
+between man and nature in the forest, and has reproduced it in his
+pages with an enthusiasm and strength of insight worthy of his
+theme."--_The St. James Gazette_.
+
+_Eleven Editions in eleven months_          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By George Douglas
+
+THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
+
+A story remarkable for its power, remarkable for its originality,
+and remarkable for its success.  The unique masterpiece of an
+unfortunate young author, who died without knowing the unstinted
+praise his work was to receive.  The book portrays with striking
+realism a phase of Scottish life and character new to most
+novel-readers.  John Gourlay, the chief personage in the drama,
+inhabitant of the "House With the Green Shutters" and master of the
+village destinies, looms up as the personification of the brute
+force that dominates.  He stands apart from all characters in
+fiction.  In the broad treatment and the relentless sweep of its
+tragedy, the book suggests the work of Dumas.
+
+"If a more powerful story than this has been written in recent
+years we have not seen it.  It must take first honors among the
+novels of the day."--_Philadelphia Item_.
+
+"One of the most powerful books we have seen for a long time, and
+it marks the advent of a valuable writer."--_New York Press_.
+
+$1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Seumas McManus
+
+Author of "Through the Turf Smoke"
+
+"A LAD OF THE O'FRIEL'S"
+
+This is a story of Donegal ways and customs; full of the spirit of
+Irish life.  The main character is a dreaming and poetic boy who
+takes joy in all the stories and superstitions of his people, and
+his experience and life are thus made to reflect all the essential
+qualities of the life of his country.  Many characters in the book
+will make warm places for themselves in the heart of the reader.
+
+Cloth, 12mo  $l.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Shan F. Bullock
+
+Author of "The Barrys," "Irish Pastorals"
+
+THE SQUIREEN
+
+Mr. Bullock takes us into the North of Ireland among
+North-of-Ireland people.  His story is dominated by one remarkable
+character, whose progress towards the subjugation of his own
+temperament we cannot help but watch with interest.  He is swept
+from one thing to another, first by his dare-devil, roistering
+spirit, then by his mood of deep repentance, through love and
+marriage, through quarrels and separation from his wife, to a
+reconciliation at the point of death, to a return to health, and
+through the domination of the devil in him, finally to death.  It
+is a strong, convincing novel suggesting, somewhat, "The House with
+the Green Shutters."  What that book did for the Scotland of Ian
+Maclaren and Barrie, "The Squireen" will do for Ireland.
+
+Cloth, 12mo                          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Arthur Morrison
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL
+
+No one knows the lower side of London life so well as Arthur
+Morrison, and this novel is his most masterly presentation of the
+underworld with which he is so familiar.  He has knit mean
+characters, mean passions, mean stage setting into a powerful drama
+of life that thrills as much because of the realism with which it
+is drawn as because of the exciting scenes that come treading
+helter-skelter upon each others heels.  The rough sailors, the
+thugs and criminals that frequent the "Hole in the Wall" Inn lose
+none of their picturesqueness, nor any of their sordidness either,
+from Mr. Morrison's treatment of them.  He handles his material in
+a way that suggests strongly the work of Dickens.  As an intimate
+picture of the lowest life in London, the novel is without an equal.
+
+"It is a section of human life showing true lights and shadows, a
+section cut by an exceedingly sharp blade.  Some of the things that
+Dickens is most praised for are evident in the work of Mr.
+Morrison."--_Springfield Republican_.
+
+"All of Mr. Morrison's work deserves the recognition it has
+attained, but this is undoubtedly the most artistic, the most
+virile, and the most heartrendingly true."--_Baltimore Sun_.
+
+$1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Arnold Bennett
+
+Author of "The Great Babylon Hotel"
+
+ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+
+Probably no story of the year is so simply and yet so artistically
+told as this one.  It portrays the development of a sweet and
+natural girl's character, amid a community of strict Wesleyan
+Methodists in a Staffordshire town.  How her upright nature
+progresses with constant rebellions against the hypocrisy and cant
+of the religionists, by whom she is surrounded, is brought out by
+the author faithfully and with great delicacy of insight.  Many
+will love Anna, and not a few will find something in her to suggest
+"Tess of the Durbervilles."  The plot is extremely simple, but the
+reader will find a surprise in the last chapters.
+
+The English letter from W. L. Alden, in the _New York Times Review_
+says:
+
+"It will be promptly recognized by the critics whose opinion is
+worth something _as the most artistic story of the year_."
+
+Cloth.  12mo                          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Saunders, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12196 ***
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c45963c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12196 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12196)
diff --git a/old/12196.txt b/old/12196.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e308958
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/12196.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5191 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Saunders, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Red Saunders
+
+Author: Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED SAUNDERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+RED SAUNDERS
+
+His Adventures West & East
+
+
+By
+
+
+Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+
+1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+A CHANCE SHOT
+A RED-HAIRED CUPID
+THE GOLDEN FORD
+WHEN THE CHINOOK STRUCK FAIRFIELD
+
+
+
+
+A Chance Shot
+
+Reddy and I were alone at the Lake beds.  He sat outside the cabin,
+braiding a leather hat-band--eight strands, and the "repeat"
+figure--an art that I never could master.
+
+I sat inside, with a one-pound package of smoking tobacco beside
+me, and newspapers within reach, rolling the day's supply of
+cigarettes.
+
+Reddy stopped his story long enough to say: "Don't use the
+'Princess' Slipper,' Kid--that paper burns my tongue--take the
+'Granger'; there's plenty of it."
+
+
+Well, as I was saying, I'd met a lot of the boys up in town this
+day, and they threw as many as two drinks into me; I know that for
+certain, because when we took the parting dose, I had a glass of
+whisky in both my right hands, and had just twice as many friends
+as when I started.
+
+When I pulled out for home, I felt mighty good for myself--not
+exactly looking for trouble, but not a-going to dodge it any,
+either.  I was warbling "Idaho" for all I was worth--you know how
+pretty I can sing?  Cock-eyed Peterson used to say it made him
+forget all his troubles.  "Because," says he, "you don't notice
+trifles when a man bats you over the head with a two-by-four."
+
+Well, I was enjoying everything in sight, even a little drizzle of
+rain that was driving by in rags of wetness, when a flat-faced
+swatty at Fort Johnson halted me.
+
+Now it's a dreadful thing to be butted to death by a nanny-goat,
+but for a full-sized cowpuncher to be held up by a soldier is worse
+yet.
+
+To say that I was hot under the collar don't give you the right
+idea of the way I felt.
+
+"Why, you cross between the Last Rose of Summer and a bobtailed
+flush!" says I, "what d'yer mean?  What's got into you?  Get out of
+my daylight, you dog-robber, or I'll walk the little horse around
+your neck like a three-ringed circus.  Come, pull your freight!"
+
+It seems that this swatty had been chucked out of the third story
+of Frenchy's dance emporium by Bronc. Thompson, which threw a great
+respect for our profesh into him.  Consequently he wasn't fresh
+like most soldiers, but answers me as polite as a tin-horn gambler
+on pay-day.
+
+Says he: "I just wanted to tell you that old Frosthead and forty
+braves are some'ers between here and your outfit, with their war
+paint on and blood in their eyes, cayoodling and whoopin' fit to
+beat hell with the blower on, and if you get tangled up with them,
+I reckon they'll give you a hair-cut and shampoo, to say nothing of
+other trimmings.  They say they're after the Crows, but it's a
+ten-dollar bill against a last year's bird's-nest that they'll take
+on any kind of trouble that comes along.  Their hearts is mighty
+bad, they state, and when an Injun's heart gets spoiled, the
+disease is d--d catching.  You'd better stop awhile."
+
+"Now, cuss old Frosthead, and you too!" says I.  "If he comes
+crow-hopping on my reservation; I'll kick his pantalettes on top of
+his scalp-lock."
+
+"All right, pardner!" says he.  "It's your own funeral.  My orders
+was to halt every one going through; but I ain't a whole company,
+so you can have it your own way.  Only, if your friends have to
+take you home in a coal-scuttle, don't blame me.  Pass, friend!"
+
+So I went through the officers' quarters forty miles an hour,
+letting out a string of yells you might have heard to the coast,
+just to show my respect for the United States army.
+
+Now this has always been my luck: Whenever I made a band-wagon
+play, somebody's sure to strike me for my licence.  Or else the
+team goes into the ditch a mile further on, and I come out about as
+happy as a small yaller dog at a bob-cat's caucus.
+
+Some fellers can run in a rhinecaboo that 'd make the hair stand up
+on a buffeler robe, and get away with it just like a mice; but that
+ain't me.  If I sing a little mite too high in the cellar, down
+comes the roof a-top of me.  So it was this day.  Old Johnny
+Hardluck socked it to me, same as usual.
+
+Gosh a'mighty!  The liquor died in me after a while, and I went
+sound asleep in the saddle, and woke up with a jar--to find myself
+right in the middle of old Frosthead's gang; the drums
+"_boom_-blipping" and those forty-odd red tigers "hyah-hayahing" in
+a style that made my skin get up and walk all over me with cold
+feet.
+
+How in blazes I'd managed to slip through those Injuns I don't
+know.  'Twould have been a wonderful piece of scouting if I'd meant
+it.  You can 'most always do any darn thing you don't want to do.
+Well, there I was, and, oh Doctor! but wasn't I in a lovely mess!
+That war-song put a crimp into me that Jack Frost himself couldn't
+take out.
+
+It was as dark as dark by this time.  The moon just stuck one eye
+over the edge of the prairie, and the rest of the sky was covered
+with cloud.  A little light came from the Injuns' camp-fire, but
+not enough to ride by, and, besides, I didn't know which way I
+ought to go.
+
+Says I to myself, "Billy Sanders, you are the champion all-around,
+old-fashioned fool of the district.  You are a jackass from the
+country where ears less'n three foot long are curiosities.  You
+sassed that poor swatty that wanted to keep you out of this,
+tooting your bazoo like a man peddling soap; but now it's up to
+you.  What are you going to do about it?" and I didn't get any
+answer, neither.
+
+Well, it was no use asking myself conundrums out there in the dark
+when time was so scarce.  So I wraps my hankercher around.  Laddy's
+nose to keep him from talking horse to the Injun ponies, and
+prepared to sneak to where I'd rather be.
+
+Laddy was the quickest thing on legs in that part of the
+country--out of a mighty spry little Pinto mare by our thoroughbred
+Kentucky horse--and I knew if I could get to the open them Injuns
+wouldn't have much of a chance to take out my stopper and examine
+my works--not much.  A half-mile start, and I could show the whole
+Sioux nation how I wore my hair.
+
+I cut for the place where the Injuns seemed thinnest, lifting
+myself up till I didn't weigh fifteen pound, and breathing only
+when necessary.  We got along first-rate until we reached the edge
+of 'em, and then Laddy had to stick his foot in a gopher-hole, and
+walloped around there like a whale trying to climb a tree.
+
+Some dam cuss of an Injun threw a handful of hay on the fire, and,
+as it blazed up, the whole gang spotted me.
+
+I unlimbered my gun, sent the irons into Laddy, and we began to
+walk.
+
+I didn't like to make for the ranch, as I knew the boys were
+short-handed, so I pointed north, praying to the good Lord that I'd
+hit some kind of settlement before I struck the North Pole.
+
+Well, we left those Injuns so far behind that there wasn't any fun
+in it.  I slacked up, patting myself on the back; and, as the
+trouble seemed all over, I was just about to turn for the ranch,
+when I heard horses galloping, and as the moon came out a little I
+saw a whole raft of redskins a-boiling up a draw not half a mile
+away.  That knocked me slab-sided.  It looked like I got the wrong
+ticket every time the wheel turned.
+
+I whooped it up again, swearing I wouldn't stop this deal short of
+a dead sure thing.  We flew through space--Laddy pushing a hole in
+the air like a scart kiyote making for home and mother.
+
+A ways down the valley I spotted a little shack sitting all alone
+by itself out in the moonlight.  I headed for it, hollering murder.
+
+A man came to the door in his under-rigging.
+
+"Hi, there!  What's eating you?" he yells.
+
+"Injuns coming, pardner!  The country's just oozing Injuns!  Better
+get a wiggle on you!"
+
+"All right--slide along, I'll ketch up to you," says he.
+
+I looked back and saw him hustling out with his saddle on his arm.
+"He's a particular kind of cuss," I thought; "bareback would suit
+most people."
+
+Taking it a little easier for the next couple of miles, I gave him
+a chance to pull up.
+
+We pounded along without saying anything for a spell, when I
+happened to notice that his teeth were chattering.
+
+"Keep your nerve up, pardner!" says I.  "Don't you get
+scared--we've got a good start on 'em."
+
+He looked at me kind of reproachful.
+
+"Scared be derned!" says he.  "I reckon if you was riding around
+this nice cool night in your drawers, _your_ teeth 'ud rattle some,
+too."
+
+I took a look at him, and saw, sure enough, while he had hat, coat,
+and boots on, the pants was missing.  Well, if it had been the last
+act, I'd have had to laugh.
+
+"Couldn't find 'em nohow," says he; "hunted high and low, jick,
+Jack, and the game--Just comes to my mind now that I had 'em rolled
+up and was sleeping on 'em.  I don't like to go around this way'--I
+feel as if I was two men, and one of 'em hardly respectable."
+
+"Did you bring a gun with you?"
+
+He gave me another stare.  "Why, pardner, you must think I have got
+a light and frivolous disposition," says he, and with that he
+heaves up the great-grand-uncle of all the six-shooters I ever did
+see.  It made my forty-five-long look like something for a kid to
+cut its teeth on.  "That's the best gun in this country," he went
+on.
+
+"Looks as if it might be," says I.  "Has the foundry that cast it
+gone out of business?  I'd like to have one like it, if it's as
+dangerous as it looks."
+
+"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go
+pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving
+him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something
+that'll touch his conscience."
+
+He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an
+elephant over a township.
+
+We loped along quiet and easy until sun-up.  The Grindstone Buttes
+lay about a mile ahead of us.  Looking back, we saw the Injuns
+coming over a rise of ground 'way in the distance.
+
+"Now," says my friend, "I know a short cut through those hills
+that'll bring us out at Johnson's.  They've got enough punchers
+there to do the United States army up--starched and blued.  Shall
+we take it?"
+
+"Sure!" says I.  "I'm only wandering around this part of the
+country because this part of the country is here--if it was
+anywheres else I'd be just as glad."
+
+So in we went.  It was the steepest and narrowest kind of a canon,
+looking as if it had been cut out of the rock with one crack of the
+axe.  I was just thinking: "Gee whiz! but this would be a poor
+place to get snagged in," when bang! says a rifle right in front of
+us, and m-e-arr! goes the bullet over our heads.
+
+We were off them horses and behind a, couple of chunks of rock
+sooner than we hoped for, and that's saying a good deal.
+
+"Cussed poor shot, whoever he is," says my friend.  "Some Injun
+holding us here till the rest come up, I presume."
+
+"That's about the size of it--and I'd like to make you a bet that
+he does it, too, if I thought I'd have a chance to collect."
+
+"Oh, you can't always tell--you might lose your money," says he,
+kind of thoughtful.
+
+"I wouldn't mind that half as much as winning," says I.  "But on
+the square, do you think we can get out?  I'll jump him with you if
+you say so, although I ain't got what you might call a passion for
+suicide."
+
+"Now you hold on a bit," says he.  "I don't know but what we'd have
+done better to stick to the horses, and run for it, but it's too
+late to think of that.  Jumping him is all foolishness; he'd sit
+behind his little rock and pump lead into us till we wouldn't float
+in brine--and we can't back out now."
+
+He talked so calm it made me kind of mad.  "Well," says I, "in that
+case, let's play 'Simon says thumbs up' till the rest of the crowd
+comes."
+
+"There you go!" says he.  "Just like all young fellers--gettin'
+hosstyle right away if you don't fall in with their plans.  Now,
+Sonny, you keep your temper, and watch me play cushion carroms with
+our friend there."
+
+"Meaning how?"
+
+"You see that block of stone just this side of him with the square
+face towards us?  Well, he's only covered in front, and I'm a-going
+to shoot against that face and ketch him on the glance."
+
+"Great, if you could work it!" says I.  "But Lord!"
+
+"Well, watch!" says he.  Then he squinched down behind his cover,
+so as not to give the Injun an opening, trained his cannon and
+pulled the trigger.  The old gun opened her mouth and roared like
+an earthquake, but I didn't see any dead Injun.  Then twice more
+she spit fire, and still there weren't any desirable corpses to be
+had.
+
+"Say, pardner," says I, "you wouldn't make many cigars at this
+game!"
+
+"Now, don't you get oneasy," says he.  "Just watch!"
+
+"_Biff_!" says the old gun, and this time, sure enough, the Injun
+was knocked clear of the rock.  I felt all along that he wouldn't
+be much of a comfort to his friends afterwards, if that gun did
+land on him.
+
+Still, he wasn't so awful dead, for as we jumped for the horses he
+kind of hitched himself to the rock, and laying the rifle across
+it, and working the lever with his left hand, he sent a hole plumb
+through my hat.
+
+"Bully boy!" says I.  I snapped at him, and smashed the lock of his
+rifle to flinders.  Then, of course, he was our meat.
+
+As we rode up to him, my pard held dead on him.  The Injun stood up
+straight and tall, and looked us square in the eye--say, he was a
+man, I tell you, red-skin or no red-skin.  The courage just stuck
+out on him as he stood there, waiting to pass in his checks.
+
+My pardner threw the muzzle of his gun up.  "D--n it!" says he, "I
+can't do it--he's game from the heart out!  But the Lord have mercy
+on his sinful soul if he and I run foul of each other on the
+prairie again!"
+
+Then we shacked along down to Johnson's and had breakfast.
+
+"What became of Frosthead and his gang?"  Oh, they sent out a
+regiment or two, and gathered him in--'bout twenty-five soldiers to
+an Injun.  No, no harm was done.  Me and my pard were the only ones
+that bucked up against them.  Chuck out a cigarette, Kid; my lungs
+ache for want of a smoke.
+
+
+
+
+A Red-Haired Cupid
+
+"How did I come to get myself disliked down at the Chanta Seechee?
+Well, I'll tell you," said Reddy, the cow-puncher.  "The play came
+up like this.  First, they made the Chanta Seechee into a stock
+company, then the stock company put all their brains in one think,
+and says they, 'We'll make this man Jones superintendent, and the
+ranch is all right at once.'  So out comes Jones from Boston,
+Massachusetts, and what he didn't know about running a ranch was
+common talk in the country, but what he thought he knew about
+running a ranch was too much for one man to carry around.  He
+wasn't a bad-hearted feller in some ways, yet on the whole he felt
+it was an honour to a looking-glass to have the pleasure of
+reflecting him.  Looking-glass?  I should say he had!  And a
+bureau, and a boot-blacking jigger, and a feather bed, and
+curtains, and truck in his room.  Strange fellers used to open
+their eyes when they saw that room.  'Helloo-o!' they'd say, 'whose
+little birdie have we here?'  And other remarks that hurt our
+feelings considerable.  Jonesy, he said the fellers were a rank lot
+of barbarians.  He said it to old Neighbour Case's face, and he and
+the old man came together like a pair of hens, for Jonesy had sand
+in spite of his faults, That was a fight worth travelling to see.
+They covered at least an acre of ground; they tore the air with
+upper swats and cross swipes; they hollered, they jumped and they
+pitched, and when the difficulty was adjusted we found that
+Jonesy's coat was painfully ripped up the back and Neighbour Case
+had lost his false teeth.  One crowd of fellers patted Jones on the
+back and said, 'Never mind your coat, old horse; you've licked a
+man twice your age,' and the other comforted Neighbour, saying,
+'Never mind, Case; you can ease your mind by thinking how you
+headed up that rooster, and he fifty pounds lighter than you.'
+
+"Jonesy put on airs after that.  He felt he was a hard citizen.
+And then he had the misfortune to speak harshly to Arizona Jenkins
+when Old Dry Belt was in liquor.  Then he got roped and dragged
+through the slough.  He cried like a baby whilst I helped him
+scrape the mud off, but not because he was scared!  No, sir!  That
+little runt was full of blood and murder.
+
+"'You mark me, now, Red,' says he, the tears making bad-land water
+courses through the mud on his cheeks, 'I shall fire upon that man
+the first time I see him--will you lend me your revolver?'
+
+"'Lord, Jones, see here,' says I, 'don't you go making any such
+billy-goat play as that--keep his wages until he apologizes; put
+something harmful in his grub; but, as you have respect for the
+Almighty's handiwork as represented by your person, don't pull a
+gun on Arizona Jenkins--that's the one thing he won't take from
+nobody.'
+
+"'D-d-darn him!' snivels Jonesy, 'I ain't afraid o-o-of him;' and
+the strange fact is that he wasn't.  Well, I saw he was in such a
+taking that he might do something foolish and get hurt, so I goes
+to Arizona and says I, 'You ought to apologize to Jones.'  What
+Zony replied ain't worth repeating--'and you along with him,' he
+winds up.
+
+"'Now ain't that childish?' I says.  'A six-footer like you that
+can shoot straight with either hand, and yet ain't got generosity
+enough to ease the feelings of a poor little devil that's fair
+busting with shame.'
+
+"'Well, what did he want to tell me to shut up my mouth for?' cried
+Old Dry Belt.  'Men have died of less than that.'
+
+"'Aw, shucks, Zony,' I says, 'a great, big man like you oughtn't to
+come down on a little cuss who's all thumb-hand-side and left feet.'
+
+"'That be blowed,' says he--only he says it different.  'I'd like
+to know what business such a sawed-off has to come and tell a
+full-grown man like me to shut up his mouth?  He'd ought to stay in
+a little man's place and talk sassy to people his own size.  When
+he comes shooting off his bazoo to a man that could swaller him
+whole without loosening his collar, it's impidence; that's what it
+is.'
+
+"'Well, as a favour to me?' I says.
+
+"'Well, if you put it in that way--I don't want to be small about
+it.'
+
+"So Arizona goes up to Jones and sticks out his hand.  'There's my
+hand, Jones,' he says.  'I'm mighty sorry you told me to shut up my
+mouth,' says he.
+
+"'So am I,' says Jones heartily, not taking in the sense of the
+words, but feeling that it was all in good intention.  So that was
+all right and I stood in with the management in great shape for
+fixing up the fuss so pleasant.  But it didn't last.  They say
+nothing lasts in this world.  There's some pretty solid rocks in
+the Coeur d'Alene, however, and I should like to wait around and
+see if they don't hold out, but I'll never make it.  I've been in
+too much excitement.
+
+"Well, the next thing after Jonesy got established was that his
+niece must come out during vacation and pay him a visit.
+'Jee-rusalem!' thinks I, 'Jonesy's niece!'  I had visions of a
+thin, yaller, sour little piece, with mouse-coloured hair plastered
+down on her head, and an unkind word for everybody.  Jonesy told me
+about her being in college, and then I stuck a pair of them
+nose-grabber specks on the picture.  I can stand 'most any kind of
+a man, but if there's anything that makes the tears come to my eyes
+it's a botch of a woman.  I know they may have good qualities and
+all that, but I don't like 'em, and that's the whole of it.  We
+gave three loud groans when we got the news in the bull-pen.  And I
+cussed for ten minutes straight, without repeating myself once,
+when it so fell out that the members of the board rolled out our
+way the day the girl had to be sent for, and Jonesy couldn't break
+loose, and your Uncle was elected to take the buckboard and drive
+twenty miles to the railroad.  I didn't mind the going out, but
+that twenty miles back with Jonesy's niece!  Say, I foamed like a
+soda-water bottle when I got into the bull-pen and told the boys my
+luck.
+
+"'Well,' says Kyle Lambert, 'that's what you might expect; your
+sins have found you out.'
+
+"'No, they ain't; they've caught me at home as usual,' says I.
+'Well, I'll give that Eastern blossom an idea of the quality of
+this country anyhow.'  So I togs myself up in the awfullest rig I
+could find; strapped two ca'tridge belts to me, every hole filled,
+and a gun in every holster; put candle-grease on my mustache and
+twisted the ends up to my eye-winkers; stuck a knife in my hatband
+and another in my boot; threw a shotgun and a rifle in the
+buckboard, and pulled out quick through the colt-pens before Jonesy
+could get his peeps onto me.
+
+"Well, sir, I was jarred witless when I laid my eyes on that young
+woman.  I'd had my mind made up so thorough as to what she must be
+that the facts knocked me cold.  She was the sweetest, handsomest,
+healthiest female I ever see.  It would make you believe in fairy
+stories again just to look at her.  She was all the things a man
+ever wanted in this world rolled up in a prize package.  Tall,
+round and soople, limber and springy in her action as a
+thoroughbred, and with something modest yet kind of daring in her
+face that would remind you of a good, honest boy.  Red, white, and
+black were the colours she flew.  Hair and eyes black, cheeks and
+lips red, and the rest of her white.  Now, there's a pile of
+difference in them colours; when you say 'red,' for instance, you
+ain't cleaned up the subject by a sight.  My top-knot's red, but
+that wasn't the colour of Loy's cheeks.  No; that was a colour I
+never saw before nor since.  A rose would look like a tomater
+alongside of 'em.  Then, too, I've seen black eyes so hard and
+shiny you could cut glass with 'em.  And again that wasn't her
+style.  The only way you could get a notion of what them eyes were
+like would be to look at 'em; you'd remember 'em all right if you
+did.  Seems like the good Lord was kind of careless when he built
+Jonesy, but when he turned that girl out he played square with the
+fambly.
+
+"I ain't what you might call a man that's easily disturbed in his
+mind, but I know I says to myself that first day, 'If I was ten
+year younger, young lady, they'd never lug you back East again.'
+Gee, man!  There was a time when I'd have pulled the country up by
+the roots but I'd have had that girl!  I notice I don't fall in
+love so violent as the years roll on.  I can squint my eye over the
+cards now and say, 'Yes, that's a beautiful hand, but I reckon I'd
+better stay out,' and lay 'em down without a sigh; whereas, when I
+was a young feller, it I had three aces in sight I'd raise the rest
+of the gathering right out of their foot-leather--or get caught at
+it.  Usually I got caught at it, for a man couldn't run the mint
+long with the kind of luck I have.
+
+"Well, I was plumb disgusted with the fool way I'd rigged myself
+up, but, fortunately for me, Darragh, the station-man, came out
+with the girl.  'There's Reddy, from your ranch now, ma'am,' says
+he, and when he caught sight of me, 'What's the matter, Red; are
+the Injuns up?'
+
+"Darragh was a serious Irishman, and that's the mournfullest thing
+on top of the globe; and besides, he believed anything you'd tell
+him.  There ain't any George Washington strain in my stock, so I
+proceeded to get out of trouble.
+
+"'They ain't up exactly,' says I, 'but it looked as if they were a
+leetle on the rise, and being as I had a lady to look out for, I
+thought I'd play safe.'
+
+"The colour kind of went out of the girl's cheeks.  Eastern folks
+are scandalous afraid of Injuns.
+
+"'Perhaps I'd better not start?' says she.
+
+"'Don't you be scart, miss,' says Darragh.  'You're all right as
+long as you're with Red--he's the toughest proposition we've got in
+this part of the country.'
+
+"'I'm obliged to you, Darragh,' says I.  He meant well, but hell's
+full of them people.  I'd have given a month's wages for one lick
+at him.  Nice reputation to give me before that girl!  She eyed me
+mighty doubtful.
+
+"I stepped up to her, with my hat in my hand.  'Miss Andree,' says
+I (she was Jonesy's sisters child), 'if you come along with me I'll
+guarantee you a safe journey.  If any harm reaches you it will be
+after one of the liveliest times in the history of the Territory.'
+
+"At this she laughed.  'Very well,' says she, 'I'll chance it, Mr.
+Red.'
+
+"'His name ain't Red,' puts in Darragh, solemn.  'His name's
+Saunders.  We call him Red becus uf his hair.'
+
+"'I'm sure I beg your pardon,' says Miss Loys, all of a fluster.
+
+"'That's all right, ma'am; no damage done at all,' says I.  'It's
+useless for me to try to conceal the fact that my hair is a little
+on the auburn.  You mustn't mind what Darragh says.  We've had a
+good deal of hot weather lately and his brains have gone wrong.
+Now hop in and we'll touch the breeze,'  So I piled her trunk in
+and away we flew.
+
+"Bud and Dandy were a corking little team.  They'd run the whole
+distance from the railway to the ranch if you'd let 'em--and I
+never interfered.  A straight line and the keen jump hits me all
+right when I'm going some place, although I can loaf with the next
+man on occasion.  So we missed most of the gulleys.
+
+"The ponies were snorting and pulling grass, the buckboard bouncing
+behind 'em like a rubber ball, and we were crowding into the teeth
+of the northwest wind, which made it seem as if we were travelling
+100 per cent. better than a Dutch clock would show.
+
+"'Goodness gracious!' says the girl, 'do you always go like this in
+this country?  And aren't there any roads?'
+
+"'Why, no,' says I.  'Hike!' and I snapped the blacksnake over the
+ponies' ears, and they strung themselves out like a brace of
+coyotes, nearly pulling the buckboard out from under us.
+'Sometimes we travel like _this_,' I says.  'And as for roads, I
+despise 'em.  You're not afraid, are you?'
+
+"'Indeed I'm not.  I think it's glorious.  Might I drive?'
+
+"'If I can smoke,' says I, 'then _you_ can drive.'  I'd heard about
+young women who'd been brought up so tender that tobacker smoke
+would ruin their morals or something, and I kind of wondered if she
+was that sort.
+
+"'That's a bargain,' says she prompt.  'But how you're going to
+light a cigar in this wind I don't see.'
+
+"'Cigarette,' says I.  'And if you would kindly hold my hat until I
+get one rolled I'll take it kind of you.'
+
+"'But what about the horses?' says she.
+
+"'Put your foot on the lines and they'll make.  That's the main and
+only art of driving on the prairie--not to let the lines get under
+the horses' feet--all the rest is just sit still and look at the
+scenery.'
+
+"She held my hat for a wind-break, and I got my paper pipe
+together.  And then--not a match.  I searched every pocket.  Not a
+lucifer.  That is more of what I got for being funny and changing
+my clothes.  And then she happened to think of a box she had for
+travelling, and fished it out of her grip.
+
+"'Young lady,' I says, 'until it comes to be your bad luck--which I
+hope won't ever happen--to be very much in love with a man who
+won't play back, you'll never properly know the pangs of a man
+that's got all the materials to smoke with except the fire.  Now,
+if I have a chance to do as much for you sometime, I'm there.'
+
+"She laughed and crinkled up her eyes at me.  'All right, Mr.
+Saunders.  When that obdurate man disdains me, I'll call for your
+help.'
+
+"'The place for the man that would disdain you is an asylum,' says
+I.  'And the only help I'd give you would be to put him there.'
+She blushed real nice.  I like to see a woman blush.  It's a trick
+they can't learn.
+
+"But I see she was put out by my easy talk, so I gave her a pat on
+the back and says, 'Don't mind me, little girl.  We fellers see an
+eighteen-carat woman so seldom that it goes to our heads.  There
+wasn't no offence meant, and you'll be foolish if you put it there.
+Let's shake hands.'
+
+"So she laughed again and shook.  I mean _shook_.  It wasn't like
+handing you so much cold fish--the way some women shake hands.  And
+Loys and me, we were full pards from date.
+
+"I made one more bad break on the home trip.
+
+"'Jonesy will be powerful glad to see you,' says I.
+
+"'Jonesy!' says she, surprised.  'Jonesy!  Oh, is that what you
+call Uncle Albert?'
+
+"'Well, it does sometimes happen that way," says I.  And then my
+anti-George Washington blood rose again.  'You see, he was kind of
+lonesome out there at first, and we took to calling him Jonesy to
+cheer him up and make him feel at home,' I says.
+
+"'Oh!' says she.  And I reckon she didn't feel so horribly awful
+about it, for after looking straight towards the Gulf of Mexico for
+a minute, suddenly she bust right out and hollered.  It seems that
+Jones cut a great deal of grass to a swipe when he was back home in
+his own street.  It's astonishing how little of a man it takes to
+do that in the East.  We had an argument once on the subject.
+'It's intellect does it,' says Silver Tompkins.  'Oh, that's it,
+eh?' says Wind-River Smith.  'Well, I'm glad I'm not troubled that
+way.  I'd rather have a forty-four chest than a number eight head
+any day you can find in the almanac.'  And I'm with Smithy.  This
+knowing so much it makes you sick ain't any better than being so
+healthy you don't know nothing, besides being square miles less
+fun.  Another thing about the Eastern folks is they're so sot in
+their views, and it don't matter to them whether the facts bear out
+their idees or not.
+
+"'Here, take a cigar,' says one of the Board of Directors to me--a
+little fat old man, who had to draw in his breath before he could
+cross his legs--'them cigarettes'll ruin your health,' says he.
+Mind you, he was always kicking and roaring about his liver or
+stummick, or some of his works.  I'm a little over six-foot-three
+in my boots when I stand up straight, and I stood up straight as
+the Lord would let me and gazed down at that little man.
+'Pardner,' says I, 'I was raised on cigarettes.  When I was two
+years old I used to have a pull at the bottle, and then my
+cigarette to aid digestion.  It may be conceit on my part,' I says,
+'but I'd rather be a wreck like me than a prize-fighter like you.'
+They're queer; you'd think that that little fat man would have
+noticed the difference without my pointing it out to him.
+
+"Well, I don't have to mention that Loys stirred things up
+considerable around the Chanta Seechee and vicinity.  Gee!  What a
+diving into wannegans and a fetching out of good clothes there was.
+And trading of useful coats and things for useless but decorating
+silk handkerchers and things!  And what a hair cutting and whisker
+trimming!
+
+"But Kyle was the man from the go in.  And it was right it should
+be so.  If ever two young people were born to make trouble for each
+other it was Kyle and Loys.
+
+"A nice, decent fellow was Kyle.  Nothing remarkable, you could
+say, and that was one of his best points.  Howsomever, he had a
+head that could do plain thinking, a pair of shoulders that
+discouraged frivoling, and he was as square a piece of furniture as
+ever came out of a factory.  More'n that; he had quite a little
+education, saved his money, never got more than good-natured
+loaded, and he could ride anything that had four legs, from a
+sawhorse to old tiger Buck, who would kick your both feet out of
+the sturrups and reach around and bite you in the small of the back
+so quick that the boys would be pulling his front hoofs out of your
+frame before you'd realize that the canter had begun.  Nice horse,
+Buck.  He like to eat Jonesy up one morning before Sliver and me
+could get to the corral.  Lord!  The sounds made my blood run cold!
+Old Buck squealing like a boar-pig in a wolf trap, and Jonesy
+yelling, 'Help!  Murder!  Police!' Even that did not cure Jones
+from sticking his nose where it wasn't wanted.  Why, once--but
+thunder!  It would take me a long while to tell you all that
+happened to Jones.
+
+"One thing that didn't hurt Kyle any in the campaign was that he
+was 'most as good-looking for a man as she was for a woman.  They
+made a pair to draw to, I tell you, loping over the prairie, full
+of health and youngness!  You wouldn't want to see a prettier sight
+than they made, and you could see it at any time, for they were
+together whenever it was possible.  Loys was so happy it made you
+feel like a boy again to see her.  She told me in private that it
+was wonderful how the air out here agreed with her, and I said it
+was considered mighty bracing, and never let on that they
+proclaimed their state of mind every time they looked at each
+other.  I reckon old smart-Aleck Jonesy was the only party in the
+township who didn't understand.  Kyle used to put vinegar in his
+coffee and things like that, and if you'd ask him, 'What's that
+fellow's name that runs the clothing store in town?' he'd come out
+of his trance and say 'Yes,' and smile very amiable, to show that
+he thoroughly admitted you were right.
+
+"Well, things went as smooth and easy as bob-sledding until it came
+time for Loys to be moseying back to college again.
+
+"Then Kyle took me into his confidence.  I never was less
+astonished in my whole life, and I didn't tell him so.  'Well, what
+are you going to do about it?' says I.
+
+"He kind of groaned and shook his head.  'I dunno,' says he.  'Do
+you think she likes me, Red?'  I felt like saying, 'Well, if you
+ain't got all the traits but the long ears, I miss my guess,' but I
+made allowances, and says I, 'Well, about that, I don't think I
+ought to say anything; still, if I had only one eye left I could
+see plain that her education's finished.  She don't want any more
+college, that girl don't.'
+
+"'Think not?' says he, bracing up.  And then, by-and-by, they went
+out to ride, for Jonesy was good to the girl, I'll say that for
+him.  He was willing to do anything for her in reason, according to
+his views.  But Kyle wasn't in them views; he was out of the
+picture as far as husbands went.
+
+"They came back at sunset, when the whole world was glowing red the
+same as they were.  I reached for the field glasses and took a
+squint at them.  There was no harm in that, for they were
+well-behaved young folks.  One look at their faces was enough.
+There were three of us in the bull-pen--Bob, and Wind-River Smith,
+and myself.  We'd brought up a herd of calves from Nanley's ranch,
+and we were taking it easy.  'Boys,' says I, under my breath,
+'they've made the riffle.'
+
+"'No!' says they, and then everybody had to take a pull at the
+glasses.
+
+"'Well, I'm glad,' says Smithy.  And darn my buttons if that old
+hardshell's voice didn't shake.  'They're two of as nice kids as
+you'd find in many a weary day,' says he.  'And I wish 'em all the
+luck in the world.'
+
+"'So do I,' says I, 'and I really think the best we could do for
+'em would be to shoot Jones.'
+
+"'Man!  Won't he sizz!' says Bob.  And you can't blame us old
+codgers if we had a laugh at that, although it was such a powerful
+serious matter to the youngsters.
+
+"'Let's go out and meet 'em,' says I.  And away we went.  They
+weren't a particle surprised.  I suppose they thought the whole
+universe had stopped to look on.  We pump-handled away and laughed,
+and Loys she laughed kind of teary, and Kyle he looked red in the
+face and proud and happy and ashamed of himself, and we all felt
+loosened up considerable, but I told him on the quiet, 'Take that
+fool grin off your face, unless you want Uncle Jones to drop the
+moment he sees you.'
+
+"Now they only had three days left to get an action on them, as
+that was the time set for Loys to go back to college.
+
+"Next day they held a council behind the big barn, and they called
+in Uncle Red--otherwise known as Big Red Saunders, or Chanta
+Seechee Red, which means 'Bad-heart Red' in Sioux language, and
+doesn't explain me by a durn sight--to get the benefit of his
+valuable advice.
+
+"'Skip,' says I.  'Fly for town and get married, and come back and
+tell Jonesy about it.  It's a pesky sight stronger argument to tell
+him what you have done than what you're going to do.'
+
+"They couldn't quite agree with that.  They thought it was sneaky.
+
+"'So it is,' says I.  'The first art of war is understanding how to
+make a grand sneak.  If you don't want to take my advice you can
+wait.'  That didn't hit 'em just right either.
+
+"'What will we wait for?' says Kyle.
+
+"'Exercise--and the kind you won't take when you get as old and as
+sensible as me.  You're taking long chances, both of you; but it's
+just like playing cards, you might as well put all your money on
+the first turn, win or lose, as to try and play system.  Systems
+don't work in faro, nor love affairs, nor any other game of chance.
+Be gone.  Put your marker on the grand raffle.  In other words take
+the first horse to town and get married.  Ten chances to one Jonesy
+will have the laugh on you before the year is out.'
+
+"'I don't think you are a bit nice to-day, Red,' says Loys.
+
+"'He's jealous,' says Kyle.
+
+"'That's what I am, young man,' says I.  'If I had ten years off my
+shoulders, and a little of the glow off my hair, I'd give you a run
+for your alley that would leave you breathless at the wind-up.'
+
+"'I think your hair is a beautiful color, Red,' says Loys.  'Many a
+woman would like to have it.'
+
+"'Of course they would,' I answered.  'But they don't get it.  I'm
+foxy, I am.'  Still I was touched in a tender spot.  That young
+woman knew Just the right thing to say, by nature.  'Well, what are
+you young folks going to do?' I asked them.
+
+"They decided that they'd think it over until next day, but that
+turned out to be too late, for what must Kyle do but get chucked
+from his horse and have his leg broke near the hip.  You don't want
+to take any love affairs onto the back of a bad horse, now you mark
+me!  There was no such thing as downing that boy when he was in his
+right mind.
+
+"Now here was a hurrah!  Loys, she dasn't cry, for fear of uncle,
+and Kyle, he used the sinfullest language known to the tongue of
+man.  'Twas the first time I'd ever heard him say anything much,
+but he made it clear that it wasn't because he couldn't.
+
+"'What will we do, Red?  What will we do?' says he.
+
+"'Now,' says I, 'don't bile over like that, because it's bad for
+your leg.'
+
+"He cussed the leg.
+
+"'Go on and tell me what we can do,' says he.
+
+"'When you ask me that, you've pulled the right bell,' says I.
+'I'll tell you exactly what we'll do.  I go for the doctor.  Savvy?
+Well, I bring back the minister at the same time.  Angevine, he
+loses the Jersey cow over in the cane-break, and uncle and Angevine
+go hunting her, for not even Loys is ace high in uncle's mind
+alongside that cow.  The rest is easy.'
+
+"'Red, you're a brick--you're the best fellow alive,' says Kyle,
+nearly squeezing the hand off me.
+
+"'I've tried to conceal it all my life, but I knew it would be
+discovered some day,' says I.  'Well, I suppose I'd better break
+the news to Loys--'twouldn't be any more than polite.'
+
+"'Oh, Lord!  I wonder if she'll be willing?' says he.
+
+"'No reason I shouldn't turn an honest dollar on the
+transaction--I'll bet you a month's wages she is,' says I.  He
+wanted to do it, thinking I was in earnest, but I laughed at him.
+
+"She was willing all right--even anxious.  There's some women, and
+men, too, for that matter, who go through life like a cat through a
+back alley, not caring a cuss for either end or the middle.  They
+would have been content to wait.  Not so Loys.  She wanted her
+Kyle, her poor Kyle, and she wanted him quick.  That's the kind of
+people for me!  Your cautious folk are all the time falling down
+wells because their eyes are up in the air, keeping tabs so that
+they can dodge shooting stars.
+
+"Now, I had a minister friend up in town, Father Slade by name.
+No, he was not a Catholic, I think.  They called him 'Father'
+because it fitted him.  His church had a steeple on it, anyhow, so
+it was no maverick.  Just what particular kind of religion the old
+man had I don't know, but I should say he was a homeopath on a
+guess.  He looked it.  'Twas a comfort to see him coming down the
+street, his old face shining in his white hair like a shrivelled
+pink apple in a snowdrift, God-blessing everything in sight--good,
+bad, or indifferent.  He had something pleasant to say to all.  We
+was quite friends, and every once in a while we'd have a chin about
+things.
+
+"'Are you keeping straight, Red?' he'd ask when we parted.
+
+"'Um,' I'd say, 'I'm afraid you'd notice a bend here and there, if
+you Slid your eyes along the edge.'
+
+"'Well, keep as straight as you can; don't give up trying, my boy,'
+he'd tell me, mighty earnest, and I'd feel ashamed of myself clear
+around the corner.
+
+"I knew the old man would do me a favour if it could be done, so I
+pulled out easy in my mind.
+
+"First place, I stopped at the doctor's, because I felt they might
+fix up the marrying business some other time, but if a leg that's
+broke in the upper joint ain't set right, you can see a large
+dark-complected hunk of trouble over the party's left shoulder for
+the rest of his days.  The doctor was out, so I left word for him
+what was wanted, and to be ready when I got back, and pulled for
+Father Slade's.  The old gentleman had the rheumatism, and he
+groaned when I come in.  Rheumatism's no disease for people who
+can't swear.
+
+"'How are you, my boy?' says he; 'I'm glad to see you.  Here am I,
+an old man, nipped by the leg, and much wanting to talk to
+somebody.'
+
+"I passed the time of day to him, but felt kind of blue.  This
+didn't look like keeping my word with the kids.  I really hated to
+say anything to the old man, knowing his disposition; still I felt
+I had to, and I out with my story.
+
+"'Dear! dear!' says he.  'The hurry and skurry of young folks!  How
+idle it seems when you get fifty years away from it, and see how
+little anything counts!  For all that, I thank God,' says he, 'that
+there's a little red left in my blood yet, which makes me
+sympathise with them.  But the girl's people object you say?'
+
+"I made that all clear to him.  The girl's _always_ all right,
+Father,' says I, 'and as for the man in this case, my word for him.'
+
+"Now it ain't just the right thing for me to say, but seeing as
+I've never had anything in particular to be modest about, and I'm
+proud of what the old gentleman told me, I'm going to repeat it.
+
+"'Your word is good for me, Red,' says he.  'You're a mischievous
+boy at times, but your heart and your head are both reliable; give
+me your arm to the waggon.'
+
+"Then I felt mighty sorry to think of lugging that poor old man all
+that ways.
+
+"'Here!' says I.  'Now you sit down again; don't you do anything of
+the sort--you ain't fit.'
+
+"He put his hand on my shoulder and hobbled his weight off the game
+leg.
+
+"'Reddy, I was sitting there thinking when you came in--thinking of
+how comfortable it was to be in an easy-chair with my foot on a
+stool, and then I thought, "If the Lord should send me some work to
+do, would I be willing?"  Now, thanks be to Him!  I am willing, and
+glad to find myself so, and I do not believe there's any work more
+acceptable to Him than the union of young folk who love each other.
+Ouch!' says he, as that foot touched the ground.  'Perhaps you'd
+better pick me up and carry me bodily.'
+
+"So I did it, the old housekeeper following us with an armful of
+things and jawing the both of us--him for a fool and me for a
+villain.  She was a strong-minded old lady, and I wish I could
+remember some of her talk--it was great.
+
+"We went around and got the doctor.
+
+"'Hoo!' says he.  'Is it as bad as that?' I winked at Father Slade.
+
+"'It's a plenty worse than that,' says I; 'you won't know the half
+of it till you get down there.'
+
+"But of course we had to tell him, and he was tickled.  Funny what
+an interest everybody takes in these happenings.  He wanted all the
+details.
+
+"'By Jove!' says he, 'the man whose feelings ain't the least dimmed
+by a broken leg--horse rolled on him, you said?  Splintered it,
+probably--that man is one of the right sort.  He'll do to tie to.'
+
+"When we reached the ranch the boys were lined up to meet us.
+'Hurry along!' they called.  'Angey can't keep uncle amused all
+day!'
+
+"So we hustled.  Kyle was for being married first, and then having
+his leg set, but I put my foot down flat.  It had gone long enough
+now, and I wasn't going to have him cripping it all his life.  But
+the doctor worked like a man who gets paid by the piece, and in
+less than no time we were able to call Loys in.
+
+"Wind-River Smith spoke to get to give the bride away, and we let
+him have it.
+
+"We'd just got settled to business when in comes Angevine, puffing
+like a buffalo.  'For Heaven's sakes! Ain't you finished yet?' says
+he; 'well, you want to be at it, for the old man ain't over two
+minutes behind me, coming fast.  I took the distance in ten-foot
+steps.  Just my luck!  Foot slipped when I was talking to him, and
+I dropped a remark that made him suspicious--I wouldn't have done
+it for a ton of money--but it's too late now.  I'll down him and
+hold him out there if you say so.'
+
+"Well, sir, at this old Father Slade stood right up, forgetting
+that foot entirely.
+
+"'Children, be ready,' says he, and he went over the line for a
+record.
+
+"'Hurry there!' hollers old Bob from the outside, where he was on
+watch; 'here comes uncle up the long coulee!'
+
+"'What are your names?' says Father Slade.  They told him, both
+red'ning.
+
+"'Do you, Kyle, take this woman, Loys, to have and keep track of,
+come hell or high water, her heirs and assigns for ever?'--or such
+a matter--says he, all in one breath, They both said they did.
+
+"Things flew till we came to the ring.  There was a hitch.  We had
+plumb forgotten that important article.  For a minute I felt
+stingy; then I cussed myself for a mean old long-horn, and dived
+into my box.
+
+"'Here, take this!' I says.  'It was my mother's!'
+
+"'Oh, Red! You mustn't part with that!' cried Loys, her eyes
+filling up.
+
+"'Don't waste time talking; I put through what I tackle.  Hurry,
+please, Father.'
+
+"'Has anybody any objections to these proceedings?' says he.
+
+"'I have,' says I, 'but I won't mention 'em.  Give them the
+verdict.'
+
+"'I pronounce you man and wife.  Let us pray,' says he.
+
+"'What's that?' screeches Uncle Jonesy from the doorway.  And then
+he gave us the queerest prayer you ever heard in your life.  He
+stood on one toe and clawed chunks out of the air while he
+delivered it.
+
+"He seemed to have it in for me in particular.  'You villain!  You
+rascal!  You red-headed rascal!  You did this!  I know you did!'
+
+"'Oh, uncle!' says I, 'forgive me!'  With that I hugged him right
+up to me, and he filled my bosom full of smothered language.
+
+"'Cheese it, you little cuss!' I whispered in his ear, 'or I'll
+break every rib in your poor old chest!'  I came in on him a
+trifle, Just to show him what I could do if I tried.
+
+"'Nuff!' he wheezes.  'Quit.  'Nuff.'
+
+"'Go up and congratulate 'em,' I whispered again.
+
+"'I won't,' says he.  'Ouch!  Yes, I will!  I will!'  So up he
+goes, grinding his teeth.
+
+"'I wish you every happiness,' he grunts.
+
+"'Won't you forgive me, uncle?' begs Loys.
+
+"'Some other time; some other time!'  he hollers, and he pranced
+out of the house like a hosstyle spider, the maddest little man in
+the Territory.
+
+"Loys had a hard time of it until Kyle got so he could travel, and
+they went up to the Yellowstone with a team for a wedding trip.
+
+"The rest of Loys's folks was in an unpleasant frame of mind, too.
+They sent out her brother, and while I'd have took most anything
+from Loys's brother, there comes a place where human nature is
+human nature, and the upshot of it was I planked that young man
+gently but firmly across my knees.  Suffering Ike!  But he was one
+sassy young man!  Howsomever, the whole outfit came round in
+time--all except uncle and me.  He used to grit his teeth together
+till the sparks flew when he saw me.  I was afraid he'd bust a
+blood-vessel in one of them fits, so I quit.  I hated to let go of
+the old ranch, but I'm pretty well fixed--I'm superintendent here.
+It's Kyle's ranch, you know.  That's his brand--the queer-looking
+thing on the left hip of that critter, over the vented hash-knife.
+Loys's invention, that is.  She says it's a cherublim, but we call
+it the 'flying flap-jack.'  There's a right smart lot of beef
+critters toting that signal around this part of the country.
+Kyle's one of the fellers that rises like a setting of bread--quiet
+and gentle, but steady and sure.  He's going to the State
+Legislature next year.  'Twon't do no harm to have one honest man
+in the outfit.
+
+"Now, perhaps if I'd married some nice woman I might have had 1,000
+steers of my own, and a chance to make rules and regulations for my
+feller-citizens--and then again I might have took to gambling and
+drinking and raising blazes, and broke my poor wife's broom-handle
+with my hard head.  So I reckon we'll let it slide as it is.  Now
+you straddle that cayuse of yours and come along with me and I'll
+show you some rattling colts."
+
+
+
+
+The Golden Ford
+
+Reddy was on the station platform, walking up and down, looking
+about him anxiously.  We caught sight of each other at the same
+time.
+
+"Hi, there!" said he and jumped for me.  "Gad-dog your little
+hide!" he cried as he put my right hand in line for a pension.  "I
+thought I was booked to go without saying good-bye to you--you got
+the note I pinned on your shack?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, there's time for a chin before the choo-choo starts--thought
+I'd be early, not savvying this kind of travelling a great deal.
+Darned if you ain't growed since I saw you--getting fat, too!
+Well, how's everything?  I didn't say nothing to the other boys
+about pulling my freight, as I wanted to go sober for once.  You
+explain to 'em that old Red's head ain't swelled, will you?  Seems
+kind of dirty to go off that way, but I'm bound for God's country
+and the old-time folks, and somehow I feel that I must cut the
+budge out of it.  'Nother thing is I'm superstitious, as you may or
+may not have noticed, and I believe if you try the same game twicet
+you'll get just as different results as can be the second time--you
+heard how I hit it in the mines, didn't you?  No?  Well, that's so;
+you dint seen many people out on the flat, have you?  Hum.  I don't
+know principally where to begin.  You remember Wind-River Smith's
+pardner that the boys called Shadder, because he was so thin?  Nice
+feller, always willing to do you a favour, or say something comical
+when you least expected it--had kind of a style with him, too.
+Yes, sir, that's the man.  Well him and me was out in the Bend one
+day, holding a mess of Oregon half-breeds that was to be shipped by
+train shortly, when old Smithy comes with the mail.  'Letter for
+you, Shadder,' says Smith, and passes over a big envelope with wads
+of sealing wax all over it.  Shadder reads his letter, and folds it
+up.  Then he takes a look over the county--the kind of a look a man
+gives when he's thinking hard.  Then says he, 'Red, take off your
+hat.' I done it.  'Smithy, take off your hat.'  'All right,' says
+Smith; 'but you tell me why, or I'll snake the shirt off you to
+square things.'
+
+"'Boys,' says Shadder, 'I'm Lord Walford.'
+
+"'Lord Hellford;' hollers Smithy.  'You'd better call somebody in
+to look at your plumbing--what you been drinkin', Shadder?'
+
+"'Read for yourself,' says Shadder, and he handed him the letter.
+
+"Wish't you could have seen old Smithy's face as he read it!  He
+thought his pardner had been cut out of his herd for ever.
+
+"'It's the God's truth, Red,' says he slowly, and he had a sideways
+smile on his face as he turned to Shadder.  'Well, sir,' says he,
+'I suppose congratulations are in order?'
+
+"Shadder's hand stopped short on its way to the cigarette, and he
+looked at Smithy as if he couldn't believe what he saw.
+
+"'To hell with 'em!' says he, as savage as a wildcat, and he jabbed
+the irons in and whirled his cayuse about on one toe, heading for
+the ranch.
+
+"'Now you go after him, you jealous old sore-head,' says I.  'Go
+on!' I says, as he started to argue the point, 'or I'll spread your
+nose all the way down your spinal column!'  The only time to say
+'no' to me is when I'm not meaning what I say, so away goes
+Wind-River, and they made it up all right in no time.  Well,
+Shadder had to pull for England to take a squint at the ancestral
+estates, and all of us was right here at this station to see him
+off--Lord! it seems as if that happened last world!--well, it took
+a little bit the edge off any and all drunks a ranch as an
+institution had ever seen before.  There was old Smithy crying
+around, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and explaining to a lot of
+Eastern folks that it wasn't Shadder's fault--gad-hook it all!  He
+was the best, hootin', tootin' son-of-a-sea-cook that ever hit a
+prairie breeze, in spite of this dum foolishness.
+
+"'They can't make no "lord" of Shadder!' hollers Smithy.  'That is,
+not for long--he's a _man_, Shadder is--ain't cher, yer damned old
+gangle-legged hide-rack?'
+
+"And Shadder never lost his patience at all, though it must have
+been kind of trying to be made into such a holy show before the
+kind of people he used to be used to.  All he'd say was 'Bet your
+life, old boy!'  Well, it was right enough too, as Smithy had
+nursed him through small-pox one winter up in the Shoshonee
+country, and mighty near starved himself to death feeding Shadder
+out of the slim grub stock, when the boy was on the mend; still
+some people would have forgot that.
+
+"But did your uncle Red get under the influence of strong drink?
+DID he?  Oh _my_!  Oh MY!  I wish I could make it clear to you.
+The vigilantes put after a horse thief once in Montana, and they
+landed on him in a butt-end canon, and there was all the stock with
+the brands on 'em as big as a patent medicine sign, as the lad
+hadn't had time to stop for alterations.
+
+"'Well,' says they, 'what have you got to say for yourself?'  He
+looked at them brands staring him in the face, and he bit off a
+small hunk of chewing 'Ptt-chay!'  Says he, 'Gentlemen, I'm at a
+loss for words!'  And they let him go, as a good joke is worth its
+price in any man's country.  I'm in that lad's fix; I ain't got the
+words to tell you how seriously drunk I was on that occasion.  I
+remember putting for what I thought was the hotel, and settling
+down, thinking there must be a lulu of a scrap in the barroom from
+the noise; then somebody gave me a punch in the ribs and says,
+'Where's your ticket?' and I don't know what I said nor what he
+said after that, but it must have been all right.  Then it got
+light and I met a lot of good friends I never saw before nor since;
+then more noise and trouble and at last I woke up.--in a hotel
+bedroom, all right, but not the one I was used to.  I went to the
+window, heaved her open and looked out.  It was a bully morning and
+I felt A1.  There was a nice range of mountains out in front of me
+that must have come up during' the night.  'I'd like to know where
+I am,' I thinks.  'But somebody will tell me before long, so there
+is no use worrying about that--the main point is, have I been
+touched?'  I dug down into my jeans and there wasn't a thing of any
+kind to remember me by.  'No,' I says to myself, 'I ain't been
+touched--I've been grabbed--they might have left me the price of a
+breakfast!  Well, it's a nice looking country, anyhow!'  So down I
+walks to the office.  A cheerful-seeming plump kind of a man was
+sitting behind the desk.  'Hello!' says he, glancing up and smiling
+as I came in.  'How do you open up this morning?'
+
+"'Somebody saved me the trouble,' says I.  'I'm afraid I'll have to
+give you the strong arm for breakfast.'
+
+"He grinned wide.  'Oh, it ain't as bad as that, I hardly reckon,'
+says he.  He dove into a safe and brought out a cigar-box.
+
+"'When a gentleman's in the condition you was in last night,' he
+says, 'I always make it a point to go through his clothes and take
+out anything a stranger might find useful, trusting that there
+won't be no offence the next morning.  Here's your watch and the
+rest of your valuables, including the cash--count your money and
+see if it's right.'
+
+"Well, sir! I was one happy man, and I thanked that feller as I
+thumbed over the bills, but when I got up to a hundred and seventy
+I begun to feel queer.  Looked like I'd made good money on the trip.
+
+"'What's the matter?' says he, seeing my face.  'Nothing wrong, I
+hope!'
+
+"'Why, the watch and the gun, and the other things is all right,'
+says I.  'But I'm now fifty dollars to the good, even figuring that
+I didn't spend a cent, which ain't in the least likely, and here's
+ten-dollar bills enough to make a bed-spread left over.'
+
+"'Pshaw!' says he.  'Blame it!  I've mixed your plunder up with the
+mining gentleman that came in at the same time.  You and him was
+bound to fight at first, and then you both turned to to lick me,
+and what with keeping you apart and holding you off, and taking
+your valuables away from you all at the same time, and me all alone
+here as it was the night-man's day-off, I've made a blunder of it.
+Just take your change out of the wad, and call for a drink on me
+when you feel like it, will you?'
+
+"I said I would do that, and moreover that he was an officer and a
+gentleman, and that I'd stay at his hotel two weeks at least to
+show my appreciation, no matter where it was, but to satisfy a
+natural curiosity, I'd like to know what part of the country I was
+at present inhabiting.
+
+"'You're at Boise, Idaho,' says he, 'one of the best little towns
+in the best little Territory in the United States of America,
+including Alaska.'
+
+"'Well . . .' says I.  'Well . . .' for again I was at a loss for
+words.  I had no idea I'd gone so far from home.  'I believe what
+you say,' says I.  'What do you do around these parts?'
+
+"'Mining,' says he.  'You're just in time--big strike in the
+Bob-cat district.  Poor man's mining.   Placer, and durned good
+placer, right on the top of the ground.  The mining gentleman I
+spoke about is having his breakfast now.  Suppose you go in and
+have a talk with him?  Nice man, drunk or sober, although excitable
+when he's had a little too much, or not quite enough.  He might put
+you onto a good thing.  I'm not a mining person myself.'
+
+"'Thanks,' says I, and in I went to the dining room.
+
+There was a great, big, fine-looking man eating his ham and eggs
+the way I like to see a man eat the next morning.  He had a black
+beard that was so strong it fairly jumped out from his face.
+
+"'Mornin',' says I.
+
+"'Good morning', sir!' says he.  'A day of commingled lucent
+clarity and vernal softness, ain't it?'
+
+"'Well, I wouldn't care to bet on that without going a little
+deeper into the subject,' says I; 'but it smells good at least--so
+does that ham and eggs.  Mary, I'll take the same, with coffee
+extra strong.'
+
+"'You have doubtless been attracted to our small but growing city
+from the reports--which are happily true--of the inexhaustible
+mineral wealth of the surrounding region?' says he.
+
+"'No-o--not exactly,' says I; 'but I do want to hear something
+about mines.  Mr. Hotel-man out there (who's a gentleman of the old
+school if ever there lived one) told me that you might put me on to
+a good thing.'
+
+"'Precisely,' says he.  'Now, sir, my name is Jones--Agamemnon G.
+Jones--and my pardner, Mr. H. Smith, is on a business trip, selling
+shares of our mine, which we have called "The Treasury" from
+reasons which we can make obvious to any investor.  The shares, Mr.
+------'
+
+"'Saunders--Red Saunders--Chantay Seeche Red.'
+
+"'Mr. Saunders, are fifty cents apiece, which price is really only
+put upon them to avoid the offensive attitude of dealing them out
+as charity.  As a matter of fact, this mine of ours contains a
+store of gold which would upset the commercial world, were the bare
+facts of its extent known.  There is neither sense nor amusement in
+confining such enormous treasure in the hands of two people.
+Consequently, my pardner and I are presenting an interest to the
+public, putting the nominal figure of fifty cents a share upon it,
+to save the feelings of our beneficiaries.'
+
+"'What the devil do I care?' says I.  'I'm looking for a chance to
+dig--could you tell a man where to go?'
+
+"'Oh!' says he, 'when you come to that, that's different.  Strictly
+speaking, my pardner Hy hasn't gone off on a business trip.  As a
+matter of fact, he left town night before last with two-thirds of
+the money we'd pulled out of a pocket up on Silver Creek, in the
+company of two half-breed Injuns, a Chinaman, and four more
+sons-of-guns not classified, all in such a state of beastly
+intoxication that their purpose, route, and destination are matters
+of the wildest conjecture.  I've been laying around town here
+hating myself to death, thinking perhaps I could sell some shares
+in a mine that we'll find yet, if we have good luck.  If you want
+to go wild-catting over the hills and far away, I'm your
+huckleberry.'
+
+"'That hits me all right,' says I.  'For, what I don't know about
+mining, nobody don't know.  When do we start?'
+
+"'This, or any other minute,' says he, getting up from the table.
+
+"'Wait till I finish up these eggs,' says I.  'And there's a matter
+of one drink coming to me outside--I may as well put that where it
+won't harm any one else before we start.'
+
+"'All right!' says he, waving his hand.  'You'll find me
+outside--at your pleasure, sir.'
+
+"I swallered the rest of my breakfast whole and hustled out to the
+bar, where my friend and the Hotel-man was waiting.  'Now I'll take
+that drink that's coming, and rather than be small about it, I'll
+buy one for you too, and then we're off,' says I.
+
+"'You won't do no such thing,' says the Hotel-man.  'It's a horse
+on me, and I'll supply the liquor.  Mr. Jones is in the play as
+much as anybody.'
+
+"So the Hotel-man set 'em up, and that made one drink.  Then Jones
+said he'd never let a drink suffer from lonesomeness yet when he
+had the price, and that made two drinks.  I had to uphold the
+honour of the ranch, and that made three drinks.  Hotel-man said it
+was up-sticks now, and he meant to pay his just debts like an
+honest man, and that made four drinks, then Jones said--well, by
+this time I see I needn't have hurried breakfast so much.  More
+people came in.  I woke up the next morning in the same old
+bedroom.  Every breakfast Aggy and me got ready to pull for the
+mines, and every morning I woke up in the bedroom.  I should like
+to draw a veil over the next two weeks, but it would have to be a
+pretty strong veil to hold it.  I tried to keep level with Aggy,
+but he'd spend three dollars to my one, and the consequence of that
+was that we went broke within fifteen minutes of each other.
+
+"Well, sir, we were a mournful pair to draw to that day.  We sat
+there and cussed and said, 'Now, why didn't we do this, that, and
+t'other thing instead of blowing our hard earned dough?'--till
+bimeby we just dripped melancholy, you might say.   Howsomever, we
+weren't booked for a dull time just yet.  That afternoon there was
+a great popping of whips like an Injun skirmish and into town comes
+a bull train half-a-mile long.  Twelve yoke of bulls to the team;
+lead, swing, and trail waggons for each, as big as houses on
+wheels.  You don't see the like of that in this country.  Down the
+street they come, the dust flying, whips cracking and the lads
+hollering 'Whoa haw, Mary--up there!  Wherp! whoa haw.'
+
+"And those fellers had picked up dry throats, walking in the dust.
+Also, they had a month's wages aching in their pockets.  We hadn't
+much mor'n got the thump of their arrival out of our ears, when who
+comes roaring into town but the Bengal Tiger gang, and they had
+four months' wages.  Owner of the mine got on a bender and paid
+everybody off by mistake.  You can hardly imagine how this livened
+up things.  There ain't nobody less likely to play lame-duck than
+me, but there was no dodging the hospitality.  The only idea
+prevailing was to be rid of the money as soon as possible.  The
+effects showed right off.  You could hear one man telling the folks
+for their own good that he was the Old Missouri River, and when he
+felt like swelling his banks, it was time for parties who couldn't
+swim to hunt the high ground; whilst the gentleman on the next
+corner let us know that he was a locomotive carrying three hundred
+pounds of steam with the gauge still climbing and the blower on.
+When he whistled three times, he said, any intelligent man would
+know that there was danger around.
+
+"Well, sir, I put the Old Missouri River to bed that night, and
+he'd flattened out to a very small streamlet indeed, while the
+locomotive went lame before supper, and had to be put in the
+round-house by a couple of pushers.  That's the way with fine
+ideas.  Cold facts comes and puts a crimp in them.  Once I knew a
+small feller I could have stuck in my pocket and forgot about, but
+when we went out and took several prescriptions together on a day,
+he spoke to me like this.  'Red,' says he, 'put your little hand in
+mine, and we'll go and take a bird's-eye view of the Universe.'
+Astonishin' idea, wasn't it?  And him not weighing over a hundred
+pound.  Howsomever, he didn't take any bird's-eye view of the
+Universe--he only become strikingly indisposed.
+
+"Well, to get back to Boise, you never in all your life saw so many
+men and brothers as was gathered there that day, and old Aggy, he
+was one of the centres of attraction.  That big voice and black
+beard was always where the crowd was thickest, and the wet goods
+flowing the freest.  'Gentlemen!' says he, 'Let's lift up our
+voices in melody!'  That was one of Ag's delusions--he thought he
+could sing.  So four of 'em got on top of a billiard table and
+presented 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep' to the company, which
+made me feel glad that I hadn't been brought up that way.  After Ag
+had hip-locked the last low note, another song-bird volunteered.
+
+"This was a little fat Dutchman, with pale blue eyes and a mustache
+like two streaks of darning cotton.  He had come to town to sell a
+pair of beef-steers, but got drawn into the general hilarity, and
+now he didn't care a cuss whether he, she, or it ever sold another
+steer.  He got himself on end and sung 'Leeb Fadderlont moxtrue
+eckstein' in a style that made you wonder that the human nose could
+stand the strain.
+
+"'Aw, cheese that!' says a feller near the door.  'Come get your
+steers, one of 'em's just chased the barber up a telegraph pole!'
+
+"So then we all piled out into the street to see the steers.  Sure
+enough, there was the barber, sitting on the cross-piece, and the
+steer pawing dirt underneath.
+
+"'He done made me come a fast heat from de cohner,' says the
+barber.  'I kep' hollerin' "next!" but he ain't pay no 'tention--he
+make it "next" fur me, shuah!  Yah, yah, yah!  You gents orter seen
+me start at de bottom, an' slide all de way up disyer telegraft
+pole!'
+
+"One of the bull-whackers went out to rope the steers, and Ag gave
+directions from the sidewalk.  He wasn't very handy with a riata,
+and that's a fact, but the way Ag lit into him was scandalous.
+When he'd missed about six casts of his rope, Ag opened up on him:
+
+"'Put a stamp on it and send it to him by mail,' says Aggy, in his
+sourcastic way.  'Address it, "Bay Steer, middle of Main St.,
+Boise, Idaho.  If not delivered within ten days, return to owner,
+who can use it to hang himself."  Blast my hide if I couldn't stand
+here and throw a box-car nearer to the critter!  Well, _well_,
+WELL!  How many left hands have you got, anyhow?  Do it up in a wad
+and heave it at him for general results--he might get tangled in
+it.'
+
+"It rattled the bull-whacker, having so much attention drawn to
+him, and he stepped on the rope and twisted himself up in it and
+was flying light generally.
+
+"'Say!' says Ag, appealing to the crowd, 'won't some kind friend
+who's fond of puzzles go down and help that gentleman do himself?'
+
+"That made the whacker mad.  He was as red in the face as a lobster.
+
+"'You come down and show what _you_ can do," says he.  'You've got
+gas enough for a balloon ascension, but that may be all there is to
+you.'
+
+"'Oh, I ain't so much,' says Aggy, 'although I'm as good a man
+to-day as ever I was in my life--but I have a little friend here
+who can rope, down, and ride that critter from here to the
+brick-front in five minutes by the watch; and if you've got a
+twenty-five dollar bill in your pocket, or its equivalent in dust,
+you can observe the experiment.'
+
+"'I'll go you, by gosh!' says the bull-whacker, slapping his hat on
+the ground and digging for his pile.
+
+"'Say, if you're referring to me, Ag,' I says, 'it's kind of a
+sudden spring--I ain't what you might call in training, and that
+steer is full of triple-extract of giant powder.'
+
+"'G'wan!' says Ag.  'You can do it--and then we're twenty-five
+ahead.'
+
+"'But suppose we lose?'
+
+"'Well . . .  It won't be such an awful loss.'
+
+"'Now you look here, Agamemnon G. Jones,' says I, 'I ain't going to
+stand for putting up a summer breeze ag'in' that feller's good
+dough--that's a skin game, to speak it pleasantly.'
+
+"Then Aggy argues the case with me, and when Aggy started to argue,
+you might just as well 'moo' and chase yourself into the corral,
+because he'd get you, sure.  Why, that man could sit in the cabin
+and make roses bloom right in the middle of the floor; whilst he
+was singing his little song you could see 'em and smell 'em; he
+could talk a snowbank off a high divide in the middle of February.
+Never see anybody with such a medicine tongue, and in a big man it
+was all the stranger.  'Now,' he winds up, 'as for cheating that
+feller, _you_ ought to know me better, Red--why, I'll give him my
+note!'
+
+"So, anyhow, I done it.  Up the street we went, steer bawling and
+buck-jumping, my hair a-flying, and me as busy as the little bee
+you read about keeping that steer underneath me, 'stead of on top
+of me, where he'd ruther be, and after us the whole town, whoopin',
+yellin', crackin' off six-shooters, and carryin' on wild.
+
+"Then we had twenty-five dollars and was as good as anybody.  But
+it didn't last long.  The tin-horns come out after pay-day, like
+hop-toads after a rain.  'Twould puzzle the Government at
+Washington to know where they hang out in the meantime.  There was
+one lad had a face on him with about as much expression as a hotel
+punkin pie.  He run an arrow game, and he talked right straight
+along in a voice that had no more bends in it than a billiard cue.
+
+"'Here's where you get your three for one any child may do it no
+chance to lose make your bets while the arrow of fortune swings all
+gents accommodated in amounts from two-bits to double-eagles and
+bets paid on the nail,' says he.
+
+"'Red,' says Aggy, 'I can double our pile right here--let me have
+the money.  I know this game.'  You'd hardly believe it, but I dug
+up.  'Double-or-quits?' says he to the dealer.
+
+"'Let her go,' says the dealer; the arrow swung around.  'Quits,'
+says the dealer, and raked in my dough.  It was all over in one
+second.
+
+"I grabbed Aggy by the shoulder and took him in the corner for a
+private talk.  'I thought you knew this game?' says I.
+
+"'I do,' says he.  'That's the way it always happens.'  And once
+more in my life I experienced the peculiar feeling of being
+altogether at a loss for words.
+
+"'Aggy,' says I at last, 'I've got a good notion to lay two violent
+hands on you, and wind you up like an eight-day clock, but rather
+than make hard feelings between friends, I'll refrain.  Besides you
+are a funny cuss, that's sure.  One thing, boy, you can mark down.
+We leave here to-morrow morning.'
+
+"'All right,' says Ag.  'This sporting life is the very devil.  I
+like out doors as well as the next man, when I get there.'
+
+"So the morrow morning, away we went.  All we had for kit was the
+picks, shovels, and pans; the rest of our belongings was staying
+with the Hotel-man until we made a rise.
+
+"Ag said he'd be cussed if he'd walk.  A hundred and fifty miles of
+a stroll was too many.
+
+"'But we ain't got a cent to pay the stage fare,' says I.
+
+"'Borrow it of Uncle Hotel-keep,' says he.
+
+"'Not by a town site,' says I.  'We owe him all we're going to, at
+this very minute--you'll have to hoof it, that's all.'
+
+"'I tell you I won't.  I don't like to have anybody walk on my
+feet, not even myself.  I can stand off that stage driver so easy,
+that you'll wonder I don't take it up as a profession.  Now, don't
+raise any more objections--please don't,' says he.  'I can't tell
+you how nervous you make me, always finding some fault with
+everything I try to do.  That's no way for a hired man to act, let
+alone a pardner.'
+
+"So, of course, he got the best of me as usual, and we climbed into
+the stage when she come along.  Now, our bad luck seemed to hold,
+because you wouldn't find many men in that country who wouldn't
+stake two fellers to a waggon ride wherever they wanted to go, and
+be pleasant about it, I'd have sure seen that the man got paid,
+even if Aggy forgot it, but the man that drove us was the surliest
+brute that ever growled.  When you'd speak to him, he'd say,
+'Unh'--a style of thing that didn't go well in that part of the
+country.  I kept my mouth shut, as knowing that I didn't have the
+come-up-with weighed on my spirits; but Aggy gave him the jolly.
+He only meant it in fun, and there was plenty of reason for it,
+too, for you never seen such a game of driving as that feller put
+up in all your life.  The Lord save us!  He cut around one corner
+of a mountain, so that for the longest second I've lived through,
+my left foot hung over about a thousand feet of fresh air.  I'd
+have had time to write my will before I touched bottom if we'd gone
+over.  I don't know as I turned pale, but my hair ain't been of the
+same rosy complexion since.
+
+"'Well!' says Aggy in a surprised tone of voice when we got all
+four wheels on the ground again.  'Here we are!' says he.  'Who'd
+have suspected it?  I thought he was going to take the short cut
+down to the creek.'
+
+"The driver turned round with one corner of his lip h'isted--a dead
+ringer of a mean man--Says he to Aggy, 'Yer a funny bloke, ain't
+yer?'
+
+"'Why!' says Ag, 'that's for you to say--wouldn't look well coming
+from me--but if you press me, I'll admit I give birth to a little
+gem now and then.'
+
+"Our bold buck puts on a great swagger.  'Well yer needn't be funny
+in this waggon,' says he.  'The pair of yer spongin' a ride!  Yer
+needn't be gay--yer hear me, don't cher?'
+
+"'Why, I hear you as plain as though you set right next me,' says
+Ag.  'Now, you listen and see if I'm audible at the same
+range--You're a blasted chump!' he roars, in a tone of voice that
+would have carried forty mile.  Did _you_ hear that, Red?' he asks
+very innocent.  I was so hot at the driver's sass--the cussed
+low-downness of doing a feller a favour and then heaving it at
+him--that you could have lit a match on me anywheres, but to save
+me I couldn't help laughing--Ag had the comicallest way!
+
+"At that the driver begins to larrup the horses.  I ain't the kind
+to feel faint when a cayuse gets what's coming to him for raising
+the devil, but to see that lad whale his team because there wasn't
+nothing else he dared hit, got me on my hind legs.  I nestled one
+hand in his hair and twisted his ugly mug back.
+
+"'Quit that!' says I.
+
+"'You let me be--I ain't hurting _you_,' he hollers.
+
+"'That ain't to say I won't be hurting you soon,' says I.  'You put
+the bud on them horses again, and I'll boot the spine of your back
+up through the top of your head till it stands out like a
+flag-staff.  Just one more touch, and you get it!' says I.
+
+"He didn't open his mouth again till we come to the river.  Then he
+pulled up.  'This is about as far as I care to carry you two gents
+for nothin',' he says.  'Of course you're two to one, and I can't
+do nothing if you see fit to bull the thing through.  But I'll say
+this: if either one or both of you roosters has got the least smell
+of a gentleman about him, he won't have to be told his company
+ain't wanted twice.'
+
+"Now, mind you, Ag and me didn't have the first cussed thing--not
+grub, nor blankets, nor gun, nor nothing; and this the feller well
+knew.
+
+"'Red,' says Aggy, 'what do you say to pulling this thing apart and
+seeing what makes it act so?'
+
+"'No,' says I, 'don't touch it--it might be catching.  Now, you
+whelp!' says I to the driver, 'you tell us if there's a place where
+we can get anything to eat around here?'  We'd expected to go
+hungry until we hit the camp some forty mile further on, where we
+knew there'd be plenty for anybody that wanted it.
+
+"'Yes,' says he; 'there's a man running a shack two mile up the
+river.'
+
+"'All right,' says I.  'Drive on.  You've played us as dirty a
+trick as one man can play another.  If we ever get a cinch on you,
+you can expect we'll pull her till the latigoes snap.'
+
+"He kept shut till he got across the river, where he felt safe.
+
+"'It's all right about that cinch!' he hollers back, grinning.
+'Only wait till you get it, yer suckers!  Sponges!  Beats!
+Dead-heads!  Yah!'
+
+"Well, a man can't catch a team of horses, and that's all there is
+about it, but I want to tell you he was on the anxious seat for a
+quarter of a mile.  We tried hard.
+
+"When we got back to where we started and could breathe again, we
+held a council of war.
+
+"'Now Aggy,' says I, 'we're dumped--what shall we do?'
+
+He sat there awhile looking around him, snapping pebbles with his
+thumb.
+
+"'Tell you what it is, Red,' he says at last, 'we might as well go
+mining right here.  This is likely gravel, and there's a river.  If
+that bar in front of you had been further in the mountains, it
+would have been punched full of holes.  It's only because it's on
+the road that nobody's taken the trouble to see what was in it.
+This road was made by cattle ranchers, that didn't know nothing
+about mining, and every miner that's gone over the trail had his
+mouth set to get further along as quick as possible--just like us.
+Do you see that little hollow running down to the river?  Well you
+try your luck there.  I give you that place as it's the most
+probable, and you as a tenderfoot in the business will have all the
+luck.  I'll make a stab where I am.'
+
+"Well, sir, it sounds queer to tell it, and it seems queerer still
+to think of the doing of it, but I hadn't dug two feet before I
+come to bed rock, and there was some heavy black chunks.
+
+"'Aggy,' says I, 'what's these things?' throwing one over to him.
+He caught it and Stared at it.
+
+"'Where did you get that?' says he, in almost a whisper.
+
+"'Why, out of the hole, of course!' says I, laughing.  'Come take a
+look!'
+
+"Aggy wasn't the kind of man to go off the handle over trifles, but
+when he looked into that hole he turned perfectly green.  His knees
+give out from under him and he sat on the ground like a man in a
+trance, wiping the sweat off his face with a motion like a machine.
+
+"'What the devil ails you?' says I astonished.  I thought maybe I'd
+done something I hadn't ought to do, through ignorance of the rules
+and regulations of mining.
+
+"'Red,' says he dead solemn, 'I've mined for twenty year, and from
+Old Mexico to Alaska, but I never saw anything that was ace-high to
+that before.  Gold laying loose in chunks on top of the bed-rock is
+too much for me--I wish Hy could see this.'
+
+"'Gold!' says I.  'What you talking about?  What have those black
+hunks to do with gold?'
+
+"The only answer he made was to lay the one I had thrown to him on
+top of a rock and hit her a crack with a pick.  Then he handed it
+to me.  Sure enough!  There under the black was the yeller.  Of
+course, it I'd known more about the business I could have told it
+by the weight, but I'd never seen a piece of gold fresh off the
+farm before in my life.  I hadn't the slightest idea what it looked
+like, and I learned afterward it all looks different.  Some of it
+shines up yaller in the start; some of it's red, and some is like
+ours, coated black with iron-crust.
+
+"So I looked at Ag, and Ag looked at me, neither one of us
+believing anything at all for awhile.  I simply couldn't get hold
+of the thing--I ain't yet, for that matter.  I expect to wake up
+and find it a pipe dream, and in some ways I wouldn't mind if it
+was.  I never was so completely two men as I was on that occasion.
+One of 'em was hopping around and hollering with Ag, yelling
+'hooray!' and the other didn't take much interest in the
+proceedings at all.  And it wasn't until I thought, 'Now I can pay
+that cussed cayote of a stage driver what I owe him!' that I got
+any good out of it.  That brought it home to me.  When I spoke to
+Ag about paying the driver, he says, 'That's so,' then he takes a
+quick look around.  'We can pay him in full, too, old horse!' he
+hollers, and there was a most joyful smile on his face.
+
+"'Red,' say he, 'do you know this is the only ford on the river
+for--I don't know how many miles--perhaps the whole length of her?'
+
+"'Well?' says I.
+
+"'Our little placer claim,' says Aggy slowly, rubbing his hands
+together, 'covers that ford; and by a judicious taking up of claims
+for various uncles and brothers and friends of ours along the creek
+on the lowlands, we can fix it so they can't even bridge it.'
+
+"'Do you mean they can't cross our claim if we say they can't?'
+
+"'Sure thing!' says Aggy.  'There's you and me and the law to say
+"no" to that--I wish I had a gun.'
+
+"'You don't need any gun for that skunk of a driver.'
+
+"'Of course not, but there'll be passengers, and there's no telling
+how excited them passengers will be when they find they've got to
+go over the hills ford-hunting.'
+
+"'Are you going to send 'em all around, Ag?'
+
+"'The whole bunch.  Anybody coming back from the diggings has gold
+in his clothes, so it won't hurt 'em none, and I propose to give
+that stage line an advertising that won't do it a bit of good.
+Come along, Red; let's see that lad that has the shack up the
+river.  We need something to eat, and maybe he's got a gun.  If
+he's a decent feller, we'll let him in on a claim.  Never mind
+about the hole!--it won't run away, and there's nobody to touch
+anything--come on.'
+
+"So we went up the river.  The man's name was White, and he was a
+white man by nature, too.  He fed us well, and was just as hot as
+us when we told him about the stage driver's trick.  Then we told
+him about the find and let him in.
+
+"'Now,' says Aggy, 'have you got a gun?'
+
+"'I have _that_,' says the man.  'My dad used to be a duck-hunter
+on Chesapeake bay.  When you say "gun," _I'll_ show you a gun.' He
+dove in under his bunk and fetched out what I should say was a
+number one bore shot gun, with barrels six foot long.
+
+"'Gentlemen,' says he, holding the gun up and patting it lovingly,
+'if you ram a quarter-pound of powder in each one of them barrels,
+and a handful of buck-shot on top of that, you've got an argument
+that couldn't be upset by the Supreme Court.  I'll guarantee that
+when you point her anywheres within ten feet of a man not over a
+hundred yards away, and let her do her duty, all the talent that
+that man's fambly could employ couldn't gather enough of him to
+recognise him by, and you won't be in bed more'n long enough to
+heal a busted shoulder.'
+
+"'I hope it ain't going to be my painful line of performance to
+pull the trigger,' says Aggy.  'I think the sight of her would have
+weight with most people.  When's the stage due back?'
+
+"'Day after to-morrow, about noon.'
+
+"'That gives us lots of time to stake, and to salt claims that
+can't show cause their own selves,' says Aggy.  'I think we're all
+right.'
+
+"The next day we worked like the Old Harry.  We had everything
+fixed up right by nightfall, and there was nothing to do but dig
+and wait.
+
+"Curious folks we all are, ain't we?  I should have said my own
+self that if I'd found gold by the bucketful, I'd be more
+interested in that, than I would be in getting even with a mut that
+had done me dirt, but it wasn't so.  Perhaps it was because I
+hadn't paid much attention to money all my life, and I had paid the
+strictest attention to the way other people used me.  Living where
+there's so few folks accounts for that, I suppose.
+
+"Getting even on our esteemed friend the stage driver was right in
+your Uncle Reddy's line, and Aggy and our new pard White seemed to
+take kindly to it, also.
+
+"If ever you saw three faces filled with innocent glee, it was when
+we heard the wheels of that stage coming--why, the night before I
+was woke up by somebody laughing.  There was Aggy sound asleep,
+sitting up hugging himself in the moonlight.
+
+"'Oh, my! Oh, MY!' says he.  'It's the only ford for four thousand
+miles!'
+
+"We planted a sign in the middle of the road with this wording on
+it in big letters, made with the black end of a stick.
+
+
+    NOTICE!!
+
+  THIS AND ADJOINING CLAIMS ARE THE
+  PROPERTY OF AGAMEMNON G. JONES,
+  RED SAUNDERS, JOHN HENRY WHITE,
+  ET AL.
+
+  TRESPASSING DONE AT YOUR OWN
+  RISK.  OWNERS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE
+  FOR THE REMAINS.
+
+
+"There was a stretch of about a mile on the level before us.  When
+the stage come in plain sight Aggy proceeds to load up 'Old Moral
+Suasion,' as he called her, so that the folks could see there was
+no attempt at deception.  They come pretty fairly slow after that.
+At fifty yards, Ag hollers 'Halt!'  The team sat right down on
+their tails.
+
+"'Now, Mr. Snick'umfritz,' says Aggy, 'you that drives, I mean,
+come here and read this little sign.'
+
+"'Suppose I don't?' says the feller, trying to be smart before the
+passengers.
+
+"'It's a horrible supposition,' says Aggy, and the innocent will
+have to suffer with the guilty.'  Then he cocks the gun.
+
+"'God sakes!  Don't shoot!' yells one of the passengers.  'Man, you
+ought to have more sense than to try and pick him out of a crowd
+with a shot-gun!  Get down there, you fool, and make it quick!'
+
+"So the driver walked our way, and read.  He never said a word.  I
+reckon he realized it was the only ford for four thousand miles,
+more or less, just as Aggy had remarked.  There he stood, with his
+mouth and eyes wide open.
+
+"'I'd like to have you other gentlemen come up and see our first
+clean up, so you won't think we're running in a windy,' says Aggy.
+They wanted to see bad, as you can imagine, and when they did see
+about fifteen pound of gold in the bottom of my old hat, they
+talked like people that hadn't had a Christian bringing up.
+
+"'Oh Lord!' groans one man.  'Brigham Young and all the prophets of
+the Mormon religion!  This is my tenth trip over this line, and me
+and Pete Hendricks played a game of seven-up right on the spot
+where that gent hit her, not over a month ago, when the stage broke
+down!  Somebody just make a guess at the way I feel and give me one
+small drink.' And he put his hand to his head.  'Say, boys!' he
+goes on, 'you don't want the whole blamed creek, do you?  Let _us_
+in!'
+
+"'How's that, fellers?' says Ag to me and White.  We said we was
+agreeable.
+
+"'All right, in you come!' says Aggy.  'There ain't no hog about
+our firm--but as for you,' says he, walking on his tip-toes up to
+the driver, 'as for you, you cock-eyed whelp, around you go!
+Around you go!' he hollers, jamming the end of Moral Suasion into
+the driver's trap.  'Oh, and WON'T you go 'round, though!' says he.
+'Listen to me, now: if any one of your ancestors for twenty-four
+generations back had ever done anything as decent as robbing a
+hen-coop, it would have conferred a kind of degree of nobility upon
+him.  It wouldn't be possible to find an ornerier cuss than you, if
+a man raked all hell with a fine-toothed comb.  Now, you
+stare-coated, mangey, bandy-legged, misbegotten, out-law coyote,
+fly!--fly!' whoops Aggy, jumping four foot in the air, 'before I
+squirt enough lead into your system to make it a paying job to melt
+you down!'
+
+"The stage driver acted according to orders.  Three wide steps and
+he was in the waggon, and with one screech like a p'izened bob-cat,
+he fairly lifted the cayuses over the first ridge.  Nobody never
+saw him any more, and nobody wanted to.
+
+"So that's the way I hit my stake, son, just as I'd always
+expected--by not knowing what I was doing any part of the time--and
+now, there comes my iron-horse coughing up the track!  I'll write
+you sure, boy, and you let old Reddy know what's going on--and on
+your life, don't forget to give it to the lads straight why I
+sneaked off on the quiet!  I've got ten years older in the last six
+months.  Well, here we go quite fresh, and damned if I altogether
+want to, neither--too late to argue though--by-bye, son!"
+
+
+
+
+When the Chinook Struck Fairfield
+
+I
+
+Miss Mattie sat on her little front porch,  facing the setting sun.
+Across the road, now ankle deep in June dust, was the wreck of the
+Peters place: back-broken roof, crumbling chimneys, shutters
+hanging down like broken wings, the old house had the pathetic
+appeal of ship-wrecked gentility.  A house without people in it,
+even when it is in repair, is as forlorn as a dog who has lost his
+master.
+
+Up the road were more houses of the nondescript village pattern,
+made neither for comfort nor looks.  God knows why they built such
+houses--perhaps it was in accordance with the old Puritan idea that
+any kind of physical perfection is blasphemy.  Some of these were
+kept in paint and window glass, but there were enough poor
+relations to spoil the effect.
+
+Down the road, between the arches of the weeping willows, came
+first the brook, with the stone bridge--this broken as to coping
+and threadbare in general--then on the hither side of the way some
+three or four neighbour's houses, and opposite, the blacksmith's
+shop and post-office, the latter, of course, in a store, where you
+could buy anything from stale groceries to shingles.
+
+In short, Fairfield was an Eastern village whose cause had
+departed.  A community drained of the male principle, leaving only
+a few queer men, the blacksmith, and some halfling boys, to give
+tone to the background of dozens of old maids.
+
+An unsympathetic stranger would have felt that nothing was left to
+the Fairfieldians but memory, and the sooner they lost that, the
+better.
+
+Take a wineglassful of raspberry vinegar, two tablespoonsful of
+sugar, half a cup each of boneset and rhubarb, a good full cup of
+the milk of human kindness, dilute in a gallon of water, and you
+have the flavor of Fairfield.  There was just enough of each
+ingredient to spoil the taste of all the rest.
+
+Miss Mattie rested her elbow on the railing, her chin in her hand,
+and gazed thoughtfully about her.  As a matter of fact, she was the
+most inspiring thing in view.  At a distance of fifty yards she was
+still a tall, slender girl.  Her body retained the habit, as well
+as the lines of youth; a trick of gliding into unexpected, pleasing
+attitudes, which would have been awkward but for the suppleness of
+limb to which they testified, and the unconsciousness and ease of
+their irregularity.
+
+Her face was a child's face in the ennobling sense of the word.
+The record of the years written upon it seemed a masquerade--the
+face of a clear-eyed girl of fourteen made up to represent her own
+aunt at a fancy dress party.  A face drawn a trifle fine, a little
+ascetic, but balanced by the humour of the large, shapely mouth,
+and really beautiful in bone and contour.  The beauty of
+mignonette, and doves, and gentle things.
+
+You could see that she was thirty-five, in the blatant candor of
+noon, but now, blushed with the pink of the setting sun, she was
+still in the days of the fairy prince.
+
+Miss Mattie's revery idled over the year upon year of respectable
+stupidity that represented life in Fairfield, while her eyes and
+soul were in the boiling gold of the sky-glory.  She sighed.
+
+A panorama of life minced before Miss Mattie's mind about as vivid
+and full of red corpuscles as a Greek frieze.  Her affectionate
+nature was starved.  They visited each other, the ladies of
+Fairfield--these women who had rolled on the floor together as
+babies--in their best black, or green or whatever it might be, and
+gloves!  This, though the summer sun might be hammering down with
+all his might.  And then they sat in a closed room and talked in a
+reserved fashion which was entirely the property of the call.  Of
+course, one could have a moment's real talk by chance meeting, and
+there were the natural griefs of life to break the corsets of this
+etiquette, although in general, the griefs seemed to be long drawn
+out and conventional affairs, as if nature herself at last yielded
+to the system, conquered by the invincible conventionality and
+stubbornness of the ladies of Fairfield.  It was the unspoken but
+firm belief of each of these women, that a person of their circle
+who had no more idea of respectability than to drop dead on the
+public road would never go to Heaven.
+
+Poor Miss Mattie!  Small wonder she dropped her hands, sat back and
+wondered, with another sigh, if it were for this she was born?  She
+did not rebel--there was no violence in her--but she regretted
+exceedingly.  In spite of her slenderness, it was a wide,
+mother-lap in which her hands rested, an obvious cradle for little
+children.  And instinctively it would come to you as you looked at
+her, that there could be no more comfortable place for a tired man
+to come home to, than a household presided over by this
+slow-moving, gentle woman.  There was nothing old-maidish about
+Miss Mattie but the tale of her years.  She had had offers, such as
+Fairfield and vicinity could boast, and declined them with tact,
+and the utmost gratitude to the suitor for the compliment; but her
+"no" though mild was firm, for there lay within her a certain quiet
+valiant spirit, which would rather endure the fatigue and
+loneliness of old age in her little house, than to take a larger
+life from any but the man who was all.  A commonplace in fiction;
+in real life sometimes quite a strain.
+
+The sun distorted himself into a Rugby football, and hurried down
+as though to be through with Fairfield as soon as possible.  It was
+a most magnificent sun-set; flaming, gorgeous, wild--beyond the
+management of the women of Fairfield--and Miss Mattie stared into
+the heart of it with a longing for something to happen.  Then the
+thought came, "What could happen?" she sighed again, and, with eyes
+blinded by Heaven-shine, glanced down the village street.
+
+She thought she saw--she rubbed her eyes and looked again--she did
+see, and surely never a stranger sight was beheld on Fairfield's
+street!  Had a Royal Bengal tiger come slouching through the dust
+it could not have been more unusual.  The spectacle was a man; a
+very large and mighty shouldered man, who looked about him with a
+bold, imperious, keep-the-change regard.  There was something in
+the swing of him that suggested the Bengal tiger.  He wore
+high-heeled boots outside of his trousers, a flannel shirt with a
+yellow silk kerchief around his neck, and on his head sat a white
+hat which seemed to Miss Mattie to be at least a yard in diameter.
+Under the hat was a remarkable head of hair.  It hung below the
+man's shoulders in a silky mass of dark scarlet, flecked with brown
+gold.  Miss Mattie had seen red hair, but she remembered no such
+color as this, nor could she recall ever having seen hair a
+foot-and-a-half long on a man.  That hair would have made a fortune
+on the head of an actress, but Miss Mattie was ignorant of the
+possibilities of the profession.
+
+The face of the man was a fine tan, against which eyes, teeth, and
+moustache came out in brisk relief.  The moustache avoided the
+tropical tint of the upper hair and was content with a modest
+brown.  The owner came right along, walking with a stiff, strong,
+straddling gait, like a man not used to that way of travelling.
+
+Miss Mattie eyed him in some fear.  He would be by her house
+directly, and it was hardly modest to sit aggressively on one's
+front porch, while a strange man went by--particularly, such a very
+strange man as this!  Yet a thrill of curiosity held her for the
+moment, and then it was too late, for the man stopped and asked
+little Eddie Newell, who was playing placidly in the dust--all the
+children played placidly in Fairfield--asked Eddie, in a voice
+which reached Miss Mattie plainly, although the owner evidently
+made no attempt to raise it, if he knew where Miss Mattie Saunders
+lived?
+
+Eddie had not noticed the large man's approach, and nearly fell
+over in a fright; but seeing, with a child's intuition, that there
+was no danger in this fierce-looking person, he piped up instantly.
+
+"Y-y-yessir!--I kin tell yer where she lives--Yessir!  She lives
+right down there in that little house--I kin go down with you jes'
+swell 's not!  Why, there she is now, on the stoop!"
+
+"Thankee sonny," said the big voice.  "Here's for miggles," and
+Miss Mattie caught the sparkle of a coin as it flew into the grimy
+fists of Eddie.
+
+"Much obliged!" yelled Eddie and vanished up the street.
+
+Miss Mattie sat transfixed.  Her breath came in swallows and her
+heart beat irregularly.  Here was novelty with a vengeance!  The
+big man turned and fastened his eyes upon her.  There was no
+retreat.  She noticed with some reassurance that his eyes were
+grave and kindly.
+
+As he advanced Miss Mattie rose in agitation, unconsciously putting
+her hand on her throat--what could it mean?
+
+The gate was opened and the stranger strode up the cinder walk to
+the porch.  He stopped a whole minute and looked at her.  At last.
+
+"Well, Mattie!" he said, "don't you know me?"
+
+A flood of the wildest hypotheses flashed through Miss Mattie's
+mind without enlightening her.  Who was this picturesque giant who
+stepped out of the past with so familiar a salutation?  Although
+the porch was a foot high, and Miss Mattie a fairly tall woman,
+their eyes were almost on a level, as she looked at him in wonder.
+
+Then he laughed and showed his white teeth.  "No use to bother and
+worry you, Mattie," said he, "you couldn't call it in ten years.
+Well, I'm your half-uncle Fred's boy Bill--and I hope you're a
+quarter as glad to see me as I am to see you."
+
+"What!" she cried.  "Not little Willy who ran away!"
+
+"The same little Willy," he replied in a tone that made Miss Mattie
+laugh a little, nervously, "and what I want to know is, are you
+glad to see me?"
+
+"Why, of course!  But, Will--I suppose I should call you Will?  I
+am so flustered--not expecting you--and it's been so warm to-day.
+Won't you come in and take a chair?" wound up Miss Mattie in
+desperation, and fury at herself for saying things so different
+from what she meant to say.
+
+There was a twinkle in the man's eye as he replied in an injured
+tone:
+
+"Why, good Lord, Mattie! I've come two thousand miles or more to
+see you, and you ask me to take a chair.  Just as if I'd stepped in
+from across the way!  Can't you give a man a little warmer welcome
+than that?"
+
+"What shall I do?" asked poor Miss Mattie.
+
+"Well, you might kiss me, for a start," said he.
+
+Miss Mattie was all abroad--still one's half-cousin, who has come
+such a distance, and been received so very oddly, is entitled to
+consideration.  She raised her agitated face, and for the first
+time in her life realised the pleasure of wearing a moustache.
+
+Then Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seeche Ranch, North Dakota,
+sat him down.
+
+"I'm obliged to you, Mattie," he said in all seriousness.  "To tell
+you the truth, I felt in need of a little comforting--here I've
+come all this distance--and, of course, I _heard_ about father and
+mother--but I couldn't believe it was true.  Seemed as if they
+_must_ be waiting at the old place for me to come back, and when I
+saw it all gone to ruin--Well, then I set out to find somebody, and
+do you know, of all the family, there's only you and me left?
+That's all, Mattie, just us two!--whilst I was growing up out West,
+I kind of expected things to be standing still back here, and be
+just the same as I left them--hum--Well, how are you anyhow?"
+
+"I'm well, Will, and"--laying her hand upon his, "_don't_ think I'm
+not glad to see you--_please_ don't.  I'm so glad, Will, I can't
+tell you--but I'm all confused--so little happens here."
+
+"I shouldn't guess it was the liveliest place in the world, by the
+look of it," said Red.  "And as far as that's concerned, I kinder
+don't know what to say myself.  There's such a heap to talk about
+it's hard to tell where to begin--but we've got to be friends
+though, Mattie--we've just _got_ to be friends.  Good Lord!  We're
+all there's left!  Funny, I never thought of such a thing!  Well,
+blast it!  That's enough of such talk!  I've brought you a present,
+Mattie."  He stretched out a leg that reached beyond the limits of
+the front porch, and dove into his trousers pocket, bringing out a
+buck-skin sack.  He fumbled at the knot a minute and then passed it
+over saying, "You untie it--your fingers are soopler than mine,"
+Miss Mattie's fingers were shaking, but the knots finally came
+undone, and from the sack she brought forth a chain of rich, dull
+yellow lumps, fashioned into a necklace.  It weighed a pound.  She
+spread it out and looked at it astounded.  "Gracious, Will!  Is
+that _gold_?" she asked.
+
+"That's what," he replied.  "The real article, just as it came out
+of the ground: I dug it myself.  That's the reason I'm here.  I'd
+never got money enough to go anywheres further than a horse could
+carry me if I hadn't taken a fly at placer mining and hit her to
+beat h--er--the very mischief."
+
+Miss Mattie looked first at the barbaric, splendid necklace and
+then at the barbaric, splendid man.  Things grew confused before
+her in trying to realise that it was real.  What two planets so
+separated in their orbits as her world and his?  She had the
+imagination that is usually lacking in small communities, and the
+feeling of a fairy story come true, possessed her.
+
+"And now, Mattie," said he, "I don't know what's manners in this
+part of the country, but I'll make free enough on the cousin part
+of it to tell you that I could look at some supper without
+flinching.  I've walked a heap to-day, and I ain't used to walking."
+
+Miss Mattie sprang up, herself again at the chance to offer
+hospitality.
+
+"Why, you poor man!" said she.  "Of course you're starved!  It must
+be nearly eight o'clock!  I almost forget about eating, living here
+alone.  You shall have supper directly.  Will you come in or sit a
+spell outside?"
+
+"Reckon I'll come in," said Red.  "Don't want to lose sight of you
+now that I've found you."
+
+It was some time since Miss Mattie had felt that anyone had cared
+enough for her not to want to lose sight of her, and a delicate
+warm bloom went over her cheeks.  She hurried into the little
+kitchen.
+
+"Mattie!" called Red.
+
+"What is it, Will?" she answered, coming to the door.
+
+"Can I smoke in this little house?"
+
+"Cer--tainly! Sit right down and make yourself comfortable.  Don't
+you remember what a smoker father was?"
+
+Red tried the different chairs with his hand.  They were not a
+stalwart lot.  Finally he spied the home-made rocker in the corner.
+"There's the lad for me," he said, drawing it out.  "Got to be
+kinder careful how you throw two-hundred-fifty pounds around."
+
+"Mercy!" cried Miss Mattie, pan in hand.  "Do you weigh as much as
+that, Will?"
+
+"I do," returned Red, with much satisfaction.  "And there isn't
+over two pounds of it fat at that."
+
+"What a great man you have grown up to be, Will!"
+
+Red took in a deep draught of tobacco and sent the vapor clear
+across the little room.
+
+"On the hay-scales, yes," he answered, with a sort of joking
+earnestness--"but otherwise, I don't know."
+
+The return to the old home had touched the big man deeply, and as
+he leaned back in his chair there was a shade of melancholy on his
+face that became it well.
+
+Miss Mattie took in the mass of him stretched out at his ease, his
+legs crossed, and the patrician cut of his face, to which the
+upturned moustache gave a cavalier touch.  They were good stock,
+the Saunders, and the breed had not declined in the only two extant.
+
+"He's my own cousin!" she whispered to herself, in the safety of
+the kitchen.  "And such a splendid looking man!"  She felt a pride
+of possession she had never known before.  Nobody in Fairfield or
+vicinity had such a cousin as that.  And Miss Mattie went on
+joyfully fulfilling an inherited instinct to minister to the wants
+of some man.  She said to herself there was some satisfaction in
+cooking for somebody else.  But alack-a-day, Miss Mattie's ideas of
+the wants of somebody else had suffered a Fairfield change.
+Nothing was done on a large scale in Fairfield.  But she sat the
+little cakes--lucky that she had made them yesterday--and the fried
+mush, and the small pitcher of milk, and the cold ham, and the cold
+biscuit on the table with a pride in the appearance of the feast.
+
+"Supper's ready, Will," said she.
+
+Red responded instanter.  Took a look at the board and understood.
+He ate the little cakes and biscuit, and said they were the durned
+best he ever tasted.  He also took some pot-cheese under a
+misapprehension; swallowed it, and said to himself that he had been
+through worse things than that.  Then, when his appetite had just
+begun to develop, the inroads on the provisions warned him that it
+was time to stop.  Meanwhile they had ranged the fields of old
+times at random, and as Red took in Miss Mattie, pink with
+excitement and sparkling as to eyes, he thought, "Blast the supper!
+It's a square meal just to look at her.  If she ain't pretty good
+people, I miss my guess."
+
+It was a merry meal.  He had such a way of telling things!  Miss
+Mattie hadn't laughed so much for years, and she felt that there
+was no one that she had known so long and so well as Cousin Will.
+There was only one jarring note.  Red spoke of the vigorous
+celebration that had been followed by the finding of gold.  It was
+certainly well told, but Miss Mattie asked in soft horror when he
+had finished, "You didn't get--_intoxicated_--Will?"
+
+"DID I?" said he, lost in memory, and not noticing the tone.
+"Well, I put my hand down the throat of that man's town, and turned
+her inside out!  It was like as if Christmas and Fourth of July had
+happened on the same day."
+
+"Oh, Will!" cried Miss Mattie, "I can't think of you like
+that--rolling in the gutter." Her voice shook and broke off.  Her
+knowledge of the effect of stimulants was limited to Fairfield's
+one drunkard--old Tommy McKee, a disreputable old Irishman--but
+drunkenness was the worst vice in her world.
+
+"Rolling in the gutter!" cried Red, in astonishment.  "Why girl!
+What for would I roll in the gutter?  What's the fun in that?
+Jiminy Christmas!  I wanted to walk on the telegraph wires--there
+wasn't anything in that town high enough for me--what put gutters
+into your head?"
+
+"I--I supposed people did that when they were--like that."
+
+"I wouldn't waste my money on whisky, if that's all the inspiration
+I got out of it," replied Red.
+
+"Well, of course I don't know about those things, but I wish you'd
+promise me one thing."
+
+"Done!" cried Red.  "What is it?"
+
+"I wish you'd promise me not to touch whisky again!"
+
+"Phew!  That's a pretty big order!"  He stopped and thought a
+minute.  "If you'll make that 'never touch it when it ain't
+needed,' leaving when it's needed to what's my idea of the square
+thing on a promise, I'll go you, Mattie--there's my hand."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't have said anything at all, Will!  I have no right.
+But it seemed such a pity such a splendid man--I mean--I think--.
+You mustn't promise me anything, Will," stammered Miss Mattie,
+shocked at her own daring.
+
+"Here!" he cried, "I'm no little kid!  When I promise I mean it!
+As for your not having any right, ain't we all there is?  You've
+got to be mother and sister and aunt and everything to me.  I ain't
+as young as I have been, Mattie, and I miss she-ways terrible at
+times.  Now put out your fin like a good pardner, and here goes for
+no more rhinecaboos for Chantay Seeche Red--time I quit drinking,
+anyhow," he slipped a ring off his little finger.  "Here, hold out
+your hand," said he, "I'll put this on for luck, and the sake of
+the promise--by the same token, I've got a noose on you now, and
+you're my property."
+
+This, of course, was only Cousin Will's joking, but Miss Mattie
+noticed with a sudden hot flush, that he had chosen the engagement
+finger--in all ignorance, she felt sure.  The last thing she could
+do would be to call his attention to the fact, or run the risk of
+hurting his feelings by transferring the ring; besides, it was a
+pretty ring--a rough ruby in a plain gold band--and looked very
+well where it was.
+
+Then they settled down for what Red called a good medicine talk.
+Miss Mattie found herself boldly speaking of little fancies and
+notions that had remained in the inner shrine of her soul for
+years, shrinking from the matter-of-fact eye of Fairfield; yet this
+big, ferocious looking Cousin Will seemed to find them both sane
+and interesting, and as her self-respect went up in the
+arithmetical, her admiration for Cousin Will went up in the
+geometrical ratio.  He frankly admitted weaknesses and fears that
+the males of Fairfield would have rejected scornfully.
+
+Miss Mattie spoke of sleeping upstairs, because she could not rid
+herself of the fear of somebody coming in.
+
+"I know just how you feel about that," said Red.  "My hair used to
+be on its feet most of the time when we were in the hay camp at the
+lake beds.  Gee whizz!  The rattlers!  We put hair ropes
+around--but them rattlers liked to squirm over hair ropes for
+exercise.  One morning I woke up and there was a crawler on my
+chest.  'For God's sake, Pete!' says I to Antelope Pete, who was
+rolled up next me, 'come take my friend away!' and I didn't holler
+very loud, neither.  Pete was chain lightning in pants, and he
+grabs Mr. Rattler by the tail and snaps his neck, but I felt
+lonesome in my inside till dinner time.  You bet!  I know just how
+you feel, exactly.  I didn't have a man's sized night's rest whilst
+we was in that part of the country."
+
+It struck Miss Mattie that the cases were hardly parallel.  "A
+rattlesnake on your chest, Will!" she cried, with her hands clasped
+in terror.
+
+"Oh! it wasn't as bad as it sounds--he was asleep--coiled up there
+to get warm--sharpish nights on the prairie in August--but darn it!
+Mattie!" wrinkling up his nose in disgust, "I hate the sight of the
+brutes!"
+
+"But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!"
+
+"Well, no," admitted he.  "I've never been troubled much that way.
+You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them.
+Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs
+of legs.  I pass right out when I see one of them things.  They
+give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted."
+
+"Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?" asked Miss Mattie.
+"I'm sure they must have been."
+
+"Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right," said Red.  "Not
+that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it," he added
+hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, "but I
+never had but one real argument, man to man.  Black Wolf and I come
+together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we
+backed off and got to shooting.  He raked me from knee to hip, as I
+was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting
+ammunition because I was in a hurry.  Still, I did bust his ankle.
+In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head
+and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools
+miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about!  You could have
+fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to
+get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old
+Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my
+canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water.  He was
+agreeable and we hunched up to each other.  It ain't to my credit
+to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him.
+He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus,
+while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled
+to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun
+wouldn't feel was a compliment."  Red leaned back and roared.  "I
+can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back
+every once in awhile to cuss me.  Turned out that it was his
+cayuse, too.  Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him.  I
+oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I
+think how I did that Injun."
+
+Generally speaking, Miss Mattie had a lively sense of humour, but
+the joke of this was lost on her.  Her education had been that
+getting shot was far from funny.
+
+"Why, I should have thought you would have died, Will!"
+
+"What!  For a little crack in the leg!" cried Red, with some
+impatience.  "You people must quit easy in this country.  Die
+nothin'.  One of our boys came along and took us to camp, and we
+was up and doing again in no time.  'Course, Black Wolf has a game
+leg for good, but the worst that's stuck to me is a yank or two of
+rheumatism in the rainy season.  I paid Wolf for his cayuse," he
+finished shamefacedly.  "I had the laugh on him anyhow."
+
+Miss Mattie told him she thought that was noble of him, which
+tribute Red took as medicine, and shifted the subject with speed,
+to practical affairs.  He asked Miss Mattie how much money she had
+and how she managed to make out.  Now, it was one of the canons of
+good manners in Fairfield not to speak of material matters--perhaps
+because there was so little material matter in the community, but
+Miss Mattie, doomed to a thousand irksome petty economies, had
+often longed for a sympathetic ear, to pour into it a good honest
+complaint of hating to do this and that.  She could not exactly go
+this far with Cousin Will, but she could say that it was pretty
+hard to get along, and give some details.  She felt that she knew
+him so very well, in those few hours!  Red heard with nods of
+assent.  He had scented the conditions at once.
+
+"It ain't any fun, skidding on the thin ice," said he, when they
+had concluded the talk.  "I've had to count the beans I put in the
+pot, and it made me hate arithmetic worse than when I went over
+yonder to school.  Well, them days have gone by for you, Mattie."
+He reached down and pulling out a green roll, slapped it on the
+centre table.  "Blow that in, and limber up, and remember that
+there's more behind it."
+
+Miss Mattie's pride rose at a leap.
+
+"Will!" she said, "I hope you don't think I've told you this to get
+money from you?"
+
+He leaned forward, put his hand on her shoulder and held her eyes
+with a sudden access of sternness and authority.
+
+"And I hope, Mattie," said he, "that you don't think that I think
+anything of the kind?"
+
+The cousins stared into each other's eyes for a full minute.  Then
+Miss Mattie spoke.  "No, Will," said she, "I don't believe you do."
+
+"I shouldn't think I did," retorted Red.  "What in thunder would I
+do with all that money?  Why, good Lord, girl, I could paper your
+house with ten-dollar bills--now you try to fly them green kites,
+like I tell you."
+
+Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen
+years had made itself felt when the cord snapped.  "I don't know
+how to thank you.  I don't know what to say.  Oh, William! it seems
+too good to be true."
+
+"What you crying about, Mattie?" said he in sore distress.  "Now
+hold on!  Listen to me a minute!  There's something I want you to
+do for me."
+
+"What is it?" she asked, drying her eyes.  "For dinner to-morrow,"
+he replied, "let's have a roast of beef about that size,"
+indicating a wash-tub.
+
+The diversion was complete.
+
+"Why, Will!  What would we ever do with it?" said she.
+
+"Do with it?  Why, eat it!"
+
+"But we couldn't eat all that!"
+
+"Then throw what's left to the cats.  You ain't going to fall down
+on me the first favour I ask?" with mock seriousness.
+
+"You shall have the roast of beef.  'Pears to me that you're fond
+of your stomach, Will," said Miss Mattie, with a recovering smile.
+
+"I have a good stomach, that's always done the right thing by me,
+when I've done the right thing by _it_," said Red.  "And moreover,
+just look at the constitution I have to support.  But say, old
+lady, look at that!" pointing to the clock.  "Eleven-thirty; time
+decent people were putting up for the night."
+
+The words brought to an acute stage a wandering fear which had
+passed through Miss Mattie's mind at intervals during the evening.
+Where was she to look for sleeping accommodations for a man?  She
+revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as
+the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the
+purpose.  Long habit of thought had made these niceties
+constitutional.  It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say
+"I'll fix up your bed right there on the sofa" as it would have
+been for Red to pick a man's pocket, yet, when she thought of his
+instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it
+would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have
+no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the
+winds, and speak.
+
+But the difficulty was cut in another fashion.
+
+"There's a little barn in the back-yard that caught my eye," said
+Red, "and if you'll lend me a blanket I'll roll it out there."
+
+"Sleep in the barn!  You'll not do any such thing!" cried Miss
+Mattie.  "You'll sleep right here on the sofa, or upstairs in my
+bed, just as you choose."
+
+"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not.  So help me Bob!  I'd
+smother in here.  Had the darnedest time coming on that ever
+was--hotels.  Little white rooms with the walls coming in on you.
+Worse than rattlesnakes for keeping a man awake.  Reminds me of the
+hospital.  Horse fell on me once and smashed me up so that I had to
+be sent to get puttied up again, and I never struck such a month as
+that since I was born.  The doc. told me I mustn't move, but I told
+him I'd chuck him out of the window if he tried to stop me, and up
+I got.  I'd have gone dead sure if they'd held me a week more.  I
+speak for the barn, Mattie, and I speak real loud; that is, I mean
+to say I'm going to sleep in the barn, unless there's somebody a
+heap larger than you on the premises.  Now, there's no use for you
+to talk--I'm going to do just as I say."
+
+"Well, I think that's just dreadful!" said Miss Mattie.  "I'd like
+to know what folks will think of me to hear I turned my own cousin
+out in the barn."  Her voice trailed off a little at the end as the
+gist of what they might say if he stayed in the house, occurred to
+her.  "Well," she continued, "if you're set, I suppose I can't
+object."  Miss Mattie was not a good hand at playing a part.
+
+"I'm set," said Red.  "Get me a blanket." As she came in with this,
+he added, "Say, Mattie, could you let me have a loaf of bread?
+I've got a habit of wanting something to eat in the middle of the
+night."
+
+"Certainly!  Don't you want some butter with it?  Here, I'll fix it
+for you on a plate."
+
+"No, don't waste dish-washing--I'll show you how to fix it."  He
+cut the loaf of bread in half, pulled out a portion of the soft
+part and filled the hole with butter.  "There we are, and nothing
+to bother with afterwards."
+
+"That's a right smart notion, Will--but you'll want a knife."
+
+In answer he drew out a leather case from his breast pocket and
+opened it.  Within was knife, fork, spoon and two flat boxes for
+salt and pepper.  "You see I'm fixed," said he.
+
+"Isn't that a cute trick!" she cried admiringly.  "You're ready for
+most anything."
+
+"Sure," said Red.  "Now, good night, old lady!"  He bent down in so
+natural a fashion that Miss Mattie had kissed him before she knew
+what she was going to do.
+
+Down to the barn, through the soft June evening, went Red,
+whistling a Mexican love song most melodiously.
+
+Miss Mattie stood in the half-opened door and listened.  Without
+was balm and starlight and the spirit of flowers, breathed out in
+odours.  The quaint and pretty tune rose and fell, quavered, lilted
+along as it listed without regard for law and order.  It struck
+Miss Mattie to the heart.  Her girlhood, with its misty dreams of
+happiness, came back to her on the wings of music.
+
+"Isn't that a sweet tune," she said, with a lump in her throat.
+
+She went up into her room and sat down a moment in confusion,
+trying to grasp the reality of all that had happened.  In the
+middle of the belief that these things were not so, came the regret
+of a sensitive mind for errors committed.  She remembered with a
+sudden sinking, that she had not thanked him for the necklace--and
+the money lay even now on the parlor table, where he had cast it!
+This added the physical fear of thieves.  Down she went and got the
+money, counted out, to her unmitigated astonishment, five hundred
+dollars and thrust it beneath her pillow with a shiver.  She wished
+she had thought to tell him to take care of it--but suppose the
+thieves were to fall on him as he slept?  Red's friends would have
+spent their sympathy on the thieves.  She rejoiced that the money
+was where it was.  Then she tried to remember what she had said
+throughout the evening.
+
+"Well, I suppose I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded.
+"But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face,
+with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted.
+"I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how
+excited I was," said she.  "He seems to understand those things,
+for all he's such a large man.  Well, it doesn't seem as if it
+could be true."  With a half sigh Miss Mattie knelt and sent up her
+modest petition to her Maker and got into her little white bed.
+
+In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion.  He
+hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and
+rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the
+inhabitants, the hens.
+
+"One, two, three, four," he counted.  "Reckon I can last out till
+morning on that.  Mattie, she's white people--just the nicest I
+ever saw, but she ain't used to providing for a full-grown man."
+
+He stepped to the back of the barn and looked about him.  "Nobody
+can see me from here," he said, in satisfaction.  Then he scraped
+together a pile of chips and sticks and built a fire, filled the
+tin can at the brook, sat it on two stones over the fire, rolled
+himself a cigarette and waited.  A large, yellow tom-cat came out
+of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing
+tentatively.
+
+"Hello, pussy!" said Red.  "You hungry too?  Well, just wait a
+minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, pussy?"  The cat
+gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more.  The
+tin can boiled over.  Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette
+to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light.  "Gee! Ten
+minutes more, now!" said he.  "Hardly seems to me as if I could
+wait."  He pulled the watch out several times.  "What's the matter
+with the damn thing?  I believe it's stopped," he growled.  But at
+last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered
+up its treasures in his handkerchief.
+
+"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he.  "Just
+sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by
+Jinks!"  Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in
+generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.
+
+"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep."  He
+swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still
+fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.
+
+"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused.  "If I have got
+only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice.
+She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."
+
+The cat came up, purring and "making bread."  He sniffed feline
+fashion at Red's face.
+
+"Foo!  Shoo!  Go 'way, pussy!  Settle yourself down and we'll pound
+our ear for another forty miles.  I like you first rate when you
+don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously.  "Yes
+sir! Mattie's all right," said he.  "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay
+Seeche Red was in the land of dreams.  Here, back in God's country,
+within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer
+laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and
+poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all,
+sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous,
+devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The next morning when Red awoke,
+arrows of gold were shooting through
+the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird
+life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent
+whistle and the warble, the cackle and the
+pompous crow, were in full chorus.
+
+"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as
+he took in the view.  "Oh, I remember!" and
+his heart leapt.  "I'm in my own home, by
+the Lord!"
+
+He went down to the brook and washed,
+drying hands and face on the silk neckerchief,
+which is meant for use as well as for decoration.
+
+In the meantime, Miss Mattie had
+awakened, with a sense of something delightful at
+hand, the meaning of which escaped her for
+the time.  And then she remembered, and
+sprang out of bed like a girl.  She went to
+the window, threw open the shutters and let
+the stirring morning air flow in.  This had
+been her habit for a long time.  The window
+faced away from the road, and no one could
+see who was not on Miss Mattie's own premises.
+
+But this morning Red had wandered
+around.  Stopping at the rose bushes he
+picked a bud.
+
+"That has the real old-time smell," he said,
+as he held it to his nose.  "Sweetbriars are
+good, and I don't go back on 'em, but they
+ain't got the fram these fellers have."
+
+Bud in hand he walked beneath Miss
+Mattie's windows, and he was the first thing her
+eye fell upon.
+
+Her startled exclamation made him look up
+before she had time to withdraw.
+
+"Hello there!" he called joyfully.  "How
+do you open up this day?  You look pretty
+well!" he added with a note of admiration.
+Miss Mattie had the wavy hair which is never
+in better order than when left to its own
+devices.  Her idea of coiffure was not the most
+becoming that could have been selected, as
+she felt that a "young" style of hair dressing
+was foolish for a single woman of her years.
+Now, with the pretty soft hair flying, her
+eyes still humid with sleep, and a touch of
+color in her face from the surprise, relieved
+against the fleecy shawl she had thrown about
+her shoulders, she was incontestably both a
+discreet and pretty picture.  Yet Miss Mattie
+could not forget the bare feet and night-gown,
+although they were hidden from masculine
+eyes by wood and plaster, and she was
+embarrassed.  Still, with all the super-sensitive
+fancies, Miss Mattie had a strong back-bone
+of New England common-sense.   She
+answered that she felt very well indeed, and, to
+cover any awkwardness, inquired what he had
+in his hand.
+
+"Good old rose," replied Red.  "Old-time
+smeller--better suited to you than to me--ketch!"
+
+At the word he tossed it, and Miss Mattie
+caught it dexterously.  Red had an
+exceedingly keen eye for some things, and he noticed
+the certainty of the action.  He hated
+fumblers.  "A person can do things right if they've
+got minds that work," was one of his pet
+sayings.  "'Taint the muscles at all--it's in the
+head, and I like the kind of head that's in use
+all the time."  Therefore this small affair made
+an impression on him.
+
+"Why, you could be a baseball player," said he.
+
+"I used to play with Joe, when I was a
+girl," said Miss Mattie, smiling.  "I always
+liked boy's play better than I did girl's.  Joe
+taught me how to throw a ball, too.  He said
+he wouldn't play with me unless I learned not
+to 'scoop it,' girl fashion.  I suppose you will
+be wanting breakfast?"  There was a hint of
+sarcasm in the doubt of the inquiry.
+
+"That's what I do!" said Red.  "You
+must just hustle down and get things to
+boiling, or I'll throw bricks through the windows.
+I've been up for the last two hours."
+
+"Why!  I don't believe it!" said Miss Mattie.
+
+"No more do I, but it seems like it,"
+replied Red.  "Don't you want the fire started?
+Come down and open up the house."
+
+When Miss Mattie appeared at the door, in
+he strode with an armful of wood, dropping
+it man-fashion, crash! on the floor.
+
+"Skip out of the way!" said he.  "I'll show
+you how to build a fire!"
+
+The early morning had been the most
+desolate time to Miss Mattie.  As the day warmed
+up the feeling of loneliness vanished, perhaps
+to return at evening, but not then with the
+same absoluteness as when she walked about
+the kitchen to the echo of her own footsteps
+in the morning.
+
+Now the slamming and the banging which
+accompanied Red's energetic actions rang in
+her ears most cheerily.  She even found a
+relish in the smothered oath that heralded
+the thrust of a splinter in his finger.  It
+was very wicked, but it was also very much
+alive.
+
+Red arose and dusted off his knees.  "Now
+we're off!" he said as the fire began to roar.
+"What's next?"
+
+"If you'd grind the coffee, Will?" she suggested.
+
+"Sure! Where's the hand organ?"
+
+He put the mill between his knees, and
+converted the beans to powder, to the tune of
+"Old dog Tray" through his nose, which Miss
+Mattie found very amusing.
+
+She measured out the coffee, one spoonful
+for each cup, and one for the pot.  Red
+watched her patiently, and when she had
+finished, he threw in the rest of the contents of
+the mill-drawer.  "I like it fairly strong," said
+he in explanation.
+
+"Now, Will!" protested Miss Mattie.
+"Look at you!  That will be as bitter as boneset!"
+
+"Thin her up with milk and she'll be all
+right," replied Red.
+
+"Well, such wasteful ways I never did see.
+Nobody'd think you were a day over fifteen."
+
+"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and,"
+catching her chin in his hand and turning her face
+up toward him--"Nobody'd put your score
+much higher than that neither, if they trusted
+to their eyes this morning."
+
+The compliment hit so tender a place that
+Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it
+out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded
+much less like a compliment than a plain
+statement of fact.  She bent hastily over the fire.
+"I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.
+
+"So'm I!" he assented heartily.  "What's
+the sense in being old, anyhow?  I'm as
+limber and good for myself as ever I was, in spite
+of my forty years."
+
+"You're not _forty_ years old!" exclaimed
+Miss Mattie.  "You're joking!"
+
+"Nary joke--forty round trips from flying
+snow to roses since I hit land, Mattie--why,
+you were only a little girl when I left
+here--don't you remember?  You and your folks
+came to see us the week before I left.  I got
+a thrashing for taking you and Joe to the
+millpond, and helping you to get good and wet.
+The thrashing was one of the things that gave
+me a hankering for the West.  Very liberal
+man with the hickory, father.  Spare the
+clothes and spoil the skin was his motto.  He
+used to make me strip to the waist--phee-hew!
+Even a light breeze rested heavy on my back
+when dad got through with me--say, Mattie,
+perhaps I oughtn't to say so, now that he's
+gone, but I don't think that's the proper way
+to use a boy, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Miss Mattie.  "Your
+father meant well, but his way was useless and
+cruel."
+
+"I've forgiven him the whole sweep," said
+Red.  "But damn me!  If I had a boy I
+wouldn't club the life out of him--I'd try to
+reason with him first, anyhow.  Makes a boy
+as ugly as anybody else to get the hide whaled
+off his back for nothing--once in a while he
+needs it.  Boy that's got any life in him gets
+to be too much occasionally and then a
+warming is healthful and nourishing.  Lord!
+You'd think I was the father of my country
+to hear me talk, wouldn't you? If somebody'd
+write a book, 'What Red Saunders don't
+know about raising children' it would be full
+of valuable information--how's that breakfast
+coming on?"
+
+"All ready--sit right down, Will."
+
+"Go you!" cried Red, and incautiously
+flung himself upon one of the kitchen chairs,
+which collapsed instantly and dropped him to
+the floor.
+
+"Mercy on us!  Are you hurt?" cried Miss
+Mattie, rushing forward.
+
+"Hurt?" said Red.  "Try it!--Just jump
+up in the air and sit on the floor where you
+are now, and see if you get hurt!  Oh, no!
+I'm not hurt, but I'm astonished beyond
+measure, like the man that tickled the mule.
+I'll take my breakfast right here--shouldn't
+wonder a bit if the floor went back on me and
+landed me in the cellar--no sir!  I won't get
+up!  Hand me the supplies, I know when I'm
+well off.  If you want to eat breakfast with
+me come sit on the floor.  I'm not going to
+have my spine pushed through the top of my
+head twice in the same day."
+
+"Will!  You are the most ridiculous
+person I ever did see!" said Miss Mattie, and
+she laughed till she cried in sheer
+light-heartedness.  "But there's a chair you can
+trust--come on now."
+
+"Well, if you'll take your solemn oath that
+this one has no moustache to deceive me,"
+said Red doubtfully.  "It looks husky--well,
+I'll try it--Hooray!  She didn't give an inch.
+This kind of reminds me of the time Jimmy
+Hendricks came back from town and walked
+off the edge of the bluff in the dark.  It just
+happened that Old Scotty Ferguson's cabin
+was underneath him.  Jim took most of the
+roof off with him as he went in.  He sat
+awhile to figure out what was trumps, having
+come a hundred and fifty feet too fast to do
+much thinking.  Then, 'Hello!' he yells.
+Old Scotty was a sleeper from 'way back, but
+this woke him up.
+
+"'Hello!' says he.  'Was'er matter?'
+
+"Jim saw he wasn't more than half awake
+yet, so he says, 'Why, I was up on the bluff
+there, Scotty, and seeing it was such a short
+distance I thought I'd drop in!'
+
+"'Aw ri',' grunted Scotty.  'Make y'self t'
+home,' and with that he rolls over.
+
+"Jim couldn't wait for morning, and though
+his leg was pretty badly sprained, he made the
+trip all the way round the trail and woke us
+up to tell us how he'd gone through
+Ferguson's roof and the old man asked him to make
+himself at home.  Next morning there was
+Scotty out in front of his cabin, his thumbs in
+his vest holes, looking up.
+
+"'What's the matter, Scotty?' says I.
+
+"'Well, I wisht you'd tell me what in the
+name of God went through that roof!' says he.
+
+"I swallered a laugh cross-ways and put on
+a serious face.  'Must have been a rock,' says I.
+
+"'Rock nothin'!' says he.  'If it had been
+a rock 'twould have stayed in the cabin,
+wouldn't it!  Well, there ain't the first blasted
+thing of any shape nor description in there but
+the hole--you can go in and look for yourself.'
+
+"It cost Scotty one case of rye to make us
+forget those circumstances."
+
+"I should have thought the man would be
+killed, striking on the roof that way," said
+Miss Mattie.
+
+"Oh, no!  Roof was made of quaking-asp
+saplings, just about strong enough to break
+his fall.  Scotty was the sleeper, though!  It
+wasn't hardly natural the way that man could
+pound his ear through thick and thin.  He
+had quite a surprising time of it once.  He'd
+been prospecting 'round the Ruby refractory
+ore district and he came out at Hank Cutter's
+saw-mill, just at sun-down.  Hank's place was
+full of gold rushers, so Old Scotty thought
+he'd sleep out-doors in peace and quiet.  He
+discovered some big boxes, that Hank was
+making for ore bins for the new mill, and as
+the ground was kind of damp from a
+thunder-shower they had that day, he spreads his
+blanket inside the box and goes to sleep; ore
+bins have to be smooth and dust tight, so it
+wasn't a bad shanty.
+
+"Well, there came a jar and waked him up.
+The box was rolling a little, and going along,
+going along forty mile an hour.  Scotty lit a
+match and found he was in a kind of big
+tunnel but the wall was flying by so fast, he
+couldn't make out just what kind of a tunnel
+it was.  Now, he'd gone to sleep in peace and
+quiet on a side hill, and to wake up and find
+himself boat-riding in a tunnel was enough
+to surprise anybody.  First he pinched
+himself to see if it was Hank's pie, or a cold fact,
+found it was a fact, then he lit another match
+and leaned over and looked at the black water
+underneath, but this made the box tip so it
+scart him and he settled down in the bottom
+again.  He didn't try to think--what was the
+use?  No man living could have figured things
+out with the few facts Scotty had before him.
+All of a sudden the box made a rush and shot
+out into the air, and Scotty felt they were
+falling.   'God sakes!' he says to himself.
+'What's next, I wonder?'  Then they hit the
+water below with a ker-flap that nearly
+telescoped Scotty and sent the spray flying.  After
+that they went along smooth again.  'Well,'
+says Scotty, 'I don't know where I am, nor
+who I am, nor what's happened, nor who's it,
+nor nothing about this game.  So far I ain't
+been hurt, though, and I might just as well
+lie down and get a little more rest.'
+
+"It was broad daylight when he woke up
+again, and a man was looking into the box.
+'Hello, pardner!' he says.  'I hope you've
+had a pleasant journey--do you always travel
+this way?'
+
+"Scotty raised up and found his craft was
+aground--high and dry--no water within a
+hundred feet of it.  On one side was quite a
+little town.
+
+"'Say,' says he, 'could I trouble you to tell
+me where I am, friend?'
+
+"'You're at Placerville,' answers the other.
+
+"'Placerville!' yells Scotty, 'and I went to
+sleep at Cutter's Mill, sixty-five miles from
+here!--what are you giving us, man?'
+
+"'I'm putting it to you straight,' says the
+stranger.  'Take a look around you.'
+
+"Scotty looked and there was all kinds of
+wreckage, from a dead beef critter to a wheel
+barrow.
+
+"'What in nation's all this?' says he.
+
+"'Washout,' says the man.  'Cloud burst
+up on the divide--worst we've ever
+had--your box is about high water mark--you see
+there was water enough for awhile--I reckon
+you're about the only thing that came through
+alive.'
+
+"'Well, wouldn't that knock you?' says Scotty.
+
+--"Whilst the rest of the folk at the mill
+was taking to the high ground for their lives,
+with the water roaring and tearing through
+the gulch, Scotty had peacefully gone off in
+his little boat, down the creek, and instead of
+going over the rapids, where he'd have been
+done, for all his luck, the box ambles through
+the flume they was building for the new mill.
+Of course there was the jounce over the tail
+race, but that hadn't hurt him much, and after,
+he rocked in the cradle of the deep, until he
+got beached at Placerville.
+
+"'Come along, friend,' says Scotty to the
+feller, 'you and me are going to have a little
+drink on this, if it is the last act.'  And I
+reckon probably they made it two, for when
+Scotty got back again he was in a condition
+that made everybody believe that he'd only
+guessed at the story he told.  But they found
+out afterward it was a solemn fact.  Mattie,
+give us some more coffee."
+
+Thus abruptly recalled to Fairfield, Miss
+Mattie started up.
+
+"Well, Will, it does seem as if that was a
+dangerous country to live in," said she.
+
+"Oh, not so awful!" said Red.  "Just as
+many people die here as they do there--this
+world's a dangerous place to live in, wherever
+you strike it, Mattie."
+
+"That's so," said she, thoughtfully.
+
+"And now," said Red, pushing back his
+chair, "it's time I got to work and left you to
+do the housework undisturbed."
+
+"What are you going to do, Will?"
+
+"First place, there's fences and things to
+be tinkered up, I see.  I suppose a millionaire
+like me ought to hire those things done, but
+I'd have measles of the mind if I sat around
+doing nothing."
+
+"I have been wanting to get the place in
+good order for some time," said Miss Mattie,
+"but what with the money I had to spend for
+this and that, and not being able to get
+Mr. Joyce to come in for a day's work when I
+wanted him, it's gone on, until there is a good
+deal of wrack to it."
+
+"We'll wrack it t'other way round in no
+time--got any tools here?"
+
+"Out in the barn is what's left of father's
+tools--people have borrowed 'em and forgot
+to return 'em, and they've rusted or been
+lost until I'm afraid there ain't many of 'em
+left."
+
+"Well, I'll get along to-day somehow, and
+later on we'll stock up--want any help around
+the house?"
+
+"Thank you, no, Will."
+
+"Then I'm off."
+
+It was almost with a feeling of terror that
+Miss Mattie beheld him root up the fence.
+Her idea of repairing was to put in a picket
+here and there where it was most needed;
+Red's was to knock it all flat first, and set it
+up in A1 condition afterward.  So, in two
+hours' time he straightened up and snapped
+the sweat from his brow, beholding the slain
+pickets prone on the grass with thorough
+satisfaction.  Yet he felt tired, for the day was
+already hot with a moist and soaking
+sea-coast heat, to which the plainsman was
+unaccustomed.  A three-quarter-grown boy passed
+by, lounging on the seat of a farm waggon.
+
+"Hey!" hailed Red.  The boy stopped and
+turned slowly around.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered courteously enough.
+
+"Want a job?" said Red.
+
+"Well, I dunno," replied the boy.  He was
+much astonished at the appearance of his
+interrogator, and he was a cautious New
+England boy to boot.
+
+"_You_ don't know?" retorted Red.  "Well,"
+with some sarcasm, "d'ye suppose I could
+find out at the post-office?"
+
+The boy looked at Red with a twinkle in his
+eye, and a comical drawing of his long mouth.
+
+"I calc'late if you cud fin' out anyweres,
+'twould be there," said he.
+
+Red laughed.  He had noticed the busy
+post-mistress rushing out of her store to
+waylay anyone likely to have information on any
+subject, a stream of questions proceeding from
+her through the door.
+
+"Say, you got anything particular to do?"
+
+"No, sir--leastways th'ain't no hurry about it."
+
+"Can I buy stuff to make a fence with,
+around here?"
+
+"Yes, sir--Mister Pettigrew's got all kinds
+of buildin' material at his store--two mile over
+yonder," pointing with the whip.
+
+"You drive over there for me, and get
+some--just like this here--pickets and posts
+and whatever you call them long pieces, and
+I'll make it right with you."
+
+"Yes, sir--how much will I get?"
+
+"Oh, tell him to fill the waggon up with
+it, and I'll send back what I don't
+want--hustle, now, like a good boy; I want to get
+shut of this job; I liked it better before I begun."
+
+When his Mercury had speeded on the
+journey at a faster gait than Red would have
+given him credit for, the architect strode
+down to the blacksmith's shop.  There was a
+larger crowd than usual around the forge, as
+the advent of the stranger had gotten into
+the wind, and the village Vulcan was a person
+who not only looked the whole world in the
+face, but no one of the maiden ladies of
+Fairfield could have excelled his interest in
+looking the whole world as much in the inside
+pocket as possible.  The blacksmith was
+emphatically a gossip, as well as a hardworking,
+God-fearing man.
+
+"Say, there he comes now, Mr. Tuttle!"
+cried one of the loungers, and nudged the
+smith to look.
+
+"Well, let him come!" retorted the smith,
+testily, jamming a shoe in the fire with
+unnecessary force; as a matter of fact, he was
+embarrassed.  The loungers huddled together
+for moral support, as the big cow-man loomed
+through the doorway.
+
+"Good morning, friends!" said he.
+
+"Good morning, sir!" replied the
+blacksmith, rubbing his hands on his apron.  "Nice
+day, sir?"
+
+"For the sake of good fellowship, I'll say
+'yes' to that," responded Red.  "But if you
+want my honest opinion on the subject, it's
+damn hot."
+
+"'Tis that," assented the smith, and a
+silence followed.
+
+"Say, who's your crack fence-builder
+around here?" asked Red.  "The man that
+can make two pickets grow where only one
+grew before and do it so easy that it's a
+pleasure to sit and look at him?"
+
+"Hey?" inquired the smith, not precisely
+getting the meaning of the address.
+
+"Why, I've got a fence to build," exclaimed
+Red.  "And now I want some help--want it
+so bad, I'll produce to the extent of three a
+day and call it a day from now 'till six
+o'clock--any takers here?  Make your bets while the
+little ball rolls."
+
+The loungers understood the general drift
+of this and pricked up their ears, as did the
+blacksmith.  "Guess one of the boys will help
+you," said the latter.
+
+"Well, who's it?" asked Red, glancing at
+the circle of faces.  Three dollars a day was
+enormous wages in that part of the country.
+Nobody knew just what to say.
+
+"Oh, well!" cried Red, "let's everybody
+run--I reckon I can find something to do for
+the five of you--are you with me?"
+
+"Yes, sir," they said promptly.
+
+"Can I borrow a hammer or so off you, old
+man?" questioned Red of the smith.
+
+"Certainly, sir," returned the latter heartily.
+"Take what you want."
+
+"Much obliged--and the gate hinges are
+out of whack--Miss Saunders' place, you
+know--come over and take a squint at 'em
+in the near by-and-by, will you?  May as well
+fix it up all at once--come on, boys!"
+
+It was thus that the greatest enterprise that
+Fairfield had seen in many a day was
+undertaken.  Miss Mattie was simply astounded as
+the army bore down upon the house.
+
+"Whatever in the world is Cousin Will
+doing?" said she; but resting strong in the faith
+that it was necessarily all right, she was
+content to wait for dinner and an explanation.
+Not so the post-mistress.  The agonies of
+unrequited curiosity the worthy woman
+suffered that morning until she at last summoned
+up her resolution and asked the smith plump
+out and out what it all meant, would have to
+be experienced to be appreciated.  And the
+smith kept her hanging for a while, too,
+saying to himself in justification, that it wasn't
+right the way that old gal had to get into
+everybody's business.  The smith was like
+some of the rest of us; he could see through
+a beam if it was in his own eye.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+There was a great din of whacking and hammering that morning.  Red
+worked like a horse, now that he had company.  A sudden thought
+struck him and he went into the house.
+
+"Mattie," said he.
+
+"Well, Will?"
+
+"I see a use for the rest of that nice big roast of beef I smell in
+the oven--let's have all these fellers stay to dinner, and give 'em
+one good feed--what do you say?"
+
+"Why, I'd like to.  Will--but I don't know--where'll I set them?"
+
+"Couple of boards outside for a table--let them sit on boxes or
+something--got plates and things enough?"
+
+"My, yes! Plenty of such things, Will."
+
+"Then if it ain't too much trouble for you, we'll let it go."
+
+"No trouble at all, Will--it will be a regular picnic."
+
+"Boys, you'll eat with me this day," said Red.
+
+They spread the board table beneath an old apple tree, and cleaned
+up for the repast in the kitchen storm-shed with an apologetic,
+"Sorry to trouble you, Miss Saunders," or such a matter as each
+went in.
+
+Just as Miss Mattie was withdrawing the meat from the oven, there
+came a knock at the door.
+
+"Goodness, gracious!" she exclaimed.  "Who can that be now?  Will,
+will you see who that is?  I can't go."
+
+"Sure!" said Red, and went to the door.  There stood two women of
+that indefinite period between forty and sixty, very decently
+dressed and with some agitation visible in the way they fussily
+adjusted various parts of their attire.
+
+They started at the sudden spectacle of the huge man who said
+pleasantly, "Howderdo, ladies!"
+
+"Why, how do you do?" replied the taller instantly, and in a voice
+she had never heard before.  "I hope you're well, sir?"  A remark
+which filled her with surprise.
+
+"Thanks--I'm able to assume the perpendicular, as you can see,"
+responded Red with a handsome smile of welcome.  "How do you find
+yourself?"
+
+"I'm pretty well," said the flustered lady.  "How do you do?"
+
+"Durned if we ain't right back where we started from," mourned Red
+to himself.  "If it's one of the customs of this country saying
+'howderdo' an hour at a stretch, I pass it up." Aloud, he said,
+"Coming along fine--how's your father?"  "Cuss me if I don't shift
+the cut a little, anyhow," he added mentally.
+
+"Why, he's very well indeed!" exclaimed the lady with fervor.
+"How--"  She got no further on the query, for the other woman
+interrupted in a tone of scandal.  "Mary Ann Demilt!  How can you
+talk like that!  Your father's been dead this five year last
+August!"
+
+The horror of the moment was broken by the appearance of Miss
+Mattie, crying hospitably on seeing the visitors, "Why, Mary and
+Pauline!  How do you do?"
+
+The shorter one--Pauline--looked up and said sharply, "We're well
+enough, Mattie." She was weary of the form.
+
+"Come right in," said Miss Mattie.  "You're just in time for
+dinner."
+
+There was a great protest at this.  They "hadn't a moment to
+spare," they were "just going down to the corner, and had stopped
+to say," etc., etc.
+
+"You've got to help me," said Miss Mattie.  "Will here has invited
+the boys who are working for him to stay to dinner, and it won't be
+any more than Christian for you to help me out."
+
+"Ladies!" said Red.  "If you don't want to starve a man who's
+deserving of a better fate, take off your fixings and come out to
+dinner.  No," he continued to their protests, which he observed
+were growing weaker.  "It's no trouble at all: there's plenty for
+everybody--come one, come all, this house shall fly, clean off its
+base as soon as I--Now for Heaven's sake, ladies, it's all
+settled--come on."
+
+Whereat they laughed nervously, and took off their hats.
+
+It was a jolly dinner party.  The young fellows Red had picked up
+in the blacksmith's shop were not the ordinary quality of loungers.
+They were boys of good country parentage, with a common school
+education, who, unfortunately, could find nothing to do but the
+occasional odd job.  Of course it would not take long to transform
+them into common n'er-do-wells, but now they were merely
+thoughtless boys.
+
+The whole affair had an _al fresco_ flavor which stoppered
+convention.  The two women visitors pitched in and had as good a
+time as anybody.
+
+In the middle of the festivities a young man walked past the front
+fence; a stranger evidently, for-his clothes wore the cut of a
+city, and a cosmopolitan, up-to-date city at that.  He stopped and
+looked at the house, hesitated a moment and then walked in, back to
+where the folk were eating.
+
+"Excuse me," said he, as they looked up at him, "but isn't this Mr.
+Demilt's house?"
+
+A momentary silence followed, as it was not clear whose turn it was
+to answer.  Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye on
+her, replied, "No sir--Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile further
+up the road."
+
+"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully.  He was a spic-and-span,
+intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than the
+air of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the proper
+trim, and become quite used to it.  Nevertheless the sweat stood
+out in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street"
+savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broiling
+summer day.
+
+The young man sighed frankly and wiped his head.  "Well, that's too
+bad," he said.  "I'm a stranger here--would you kindly tell me
+where I could get some dinner?"
+
+"What's the matter with that?" inquired Red, pointing to the roast,
+which still preserved an air of fallen greatness.  He had liked the
+look of the other instantly.
+
+The stranger looked first at Red and then at the roast.  "The only
+thing I can see the matter with that," he answered, "is that it is
+a slice too thick."
+
+"Keno!" cried Red, "you get it.  Mattie, another plate and weapons
+to fit.  Sit down, sir, and rest your fevered feet.  It you don't
+like walking any better than I do, you've probably strewn fragments
+of one of the commandments all the way from where the stage dropped
+you to this apple tree."
+
+"It seems to me that I did make some remarks that I never learned
+at my mother's knee," returned the other laughing.  "And I'm
+exceedingly obliged for the invitation, as there doesn't seem to be
+a hotel here, and I am but a degree south of starvation."
+
+"Red or black?" asked the host, with a quick glance at his guest.
+
+The other caught the allusion.  "I haven't followed the deal," he
+replied, "but I'll chance it on the red."
+
+Somehow he felt instantly at home and at ease; it was a quality
+that Red Saunders dispersed wherever he went.
+
+"There you are, sir," said Red, forwarding a plate full of juicy
+meat.  "The ladies will supply the decorations."
+
+"Do you like rice as a vegetable, sir?" inquired Miss Mattie.
+
+"No--he doesn't," interrupted Red.  "He likes it as an
+animal--never saw anyone who looked less like a vegetable than our
+friend," The young man's laugh rang out above the others.
+
+Poor Miss Mattie was confused.  "It's too bad of you, Will, to put
+such a meaning on my words," she said.
+
+"The strange part of it is," spoke the young man, seeing an
+opportunity for a joke, and to deal courteously with his
+entertainers at the same time.  "The peculiar fact is, that my name
+is Lettis."
+
+"Lettuce?" cried Red.  "Mattie, I apologise--he is a vegetable."
+
+At which they all laughed again.
+
+"And now," said Red, "I'm Red Saunders, late of the Chantay Seeche
+Ranch, Territory of Dakota--State of North Dakota, I mean, can't
+get used to the State business; there's a Bill and a Dick on this
+side of me and two Johns and a Sammy on the other.  Foot of the
+table is Miss Mattie Saunders, next to her--just as they run--Miss
+Pauline Doolittle and Miss Mary Ann Demilt, who may be kin to the
+gentleman you're seeking."
+
+"Mr. Thomas F. Demilt?" asked the stranger.
+
+"He's my sister," responded Miss Mary Ann.  Whereat the youths
+buried their faces in the plates, as Mr. Thomas F., in spite of
+many excellent qualities, bore a pathetic resemblance to the title.
+
+"I mean," continued the lady hurriedly, "that I'm his brother."
+
+"By Jimmy, ma'am!" exclaimed Red.  "But yours is a strange family!"
+
+"What Miss Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with some
+asperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenstone Demilt is her brother."
+She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I have
+some hope--remote, alas! but there--of becoming sister to Miss
+Demilt myself."
+
+"Thank you!" said Lettis.  "Shall I be able to see him this
+afternoon?"
+
+"Oh, mercy, yes!" said Miss Mary Ann.  "Tom is home all day."
+
+"I can thank the kind fates for that," said Lettis.  "I had begun
+to think he was a myth," and he fell in upon the tender meat with
+the vigorous appetite of youth and a good digestion.
+
+Nathaniel Lettis was by no means a fool, and he had experience in
+business, but the mainspring of the young fellow was frankness, and
+in the course of the dinner he told his errand.  Mr. Demilt had
+written to his firm explaining the advantages of starting a
+straw-board factory in Fairfield.  It was too small a thing for the
+firm to be interested in, but Lettis had a small capital which he
+wished to invest in an enterprise of his own handling, and it had
+struck him that there might be a chance for independence; therefore
+he had come to find out the lay of the land.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as he
+told of his business.  The cowman did not blame people who took
+devious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in the
+world, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craft
+was a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not for
+those who used it.
+
+In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving a
+false impression of his financial standing to alter his position in
+one's regard, than he would wear corsets.  Money was of small
+consequence; its sequelae of less.  Men spoke openly of how much
+they made; how they liked the job; how their claims were paying;
+such matters were neutral ground of chance conversation, as the
+weather is in the East.  The rapid and unpredictable changes of
+fortune gave a tendency to make light of one's present condition.
+A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he would
+say "I have a cold."  Now, in Fairfield, that is not likely
+lonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life was
+to conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gaunt
+elbows through the cloth of words spread over it.  Red asked
+straight-forward questions--shrewd ones, too--seeing that the other
+was one of his own kind and would not resent it.
+
+Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on the
+subject.  It was close to his heart.  He had been a subordinate
+about as long as a proud and masterful young fellow ought to be.
+Now he was quivering to try his own strength, and seeing, for his
+part, that his host was inspired with a genuine interest and not
+curiosity, he gave him all the information in his power.
+
+"But a plant like that is going to cost some money, ain't it?"
+asked Red.
+
+"Too much for me, I'm afraid," replied Lettis.  "I have five
+thousand to put in, and I suppose I could borrow the rest, but
+that's saddling the business with too heavy charges right in the
+beginning.  Still, it may not be as bad as I fancy."
+
+Red drummed on the table, thinking.  "I wouldn't mind getting into
+a business of some kind, as long as it was making things," he said.
+"I don't hanker to keep store much--suppose I go along with you,
+when you look up how much straw is raised and the rest of it?"
+
+"Would you?" cried the young fellow, eagerly.  "By George, sir, I
+wish you could see your way clear to take hold of it.  Could you
+stand ten thousand, for instance?  Excuse the question, but I'm so
+anxious over this----"
+
+"Lord! What's the harm of asking facts?" said Red.  Then with a
+gleam of genial pride, "Ten thousand wouldn't break me by a durn
+sight".
+
+Lettis' boyish face fairly glowed.  "It was my good angel made me
+stop in front of your fence," he said.  "I saw you all eating in
+here and you looked so jolly, that I thought I'd stop, on the
+chance you might be the man I was looking for; now I'll go right on
+and see Mr. Demilt and find out what he wants to do in the matter."
+
+"Wait for the waggon and you can ride," said Red.  "Boy's gone home
+to see his dad about working for me this afternoon; in the
+meantime, it you're not too proud to take hold and help us with
+this dod-ratted fence, I'll be obliged to you."
+
+"Bring on your fence! I'm ready," said Lettis.
+
+"Come on, boys!" said Red, and the party rose from the table.
+Later the waggon came up.
+
+"Well, good day, Lettis," said Red.  "If you can't get quarters
+anywhere else, come on and help me hold the barn down."
+
+"Do you sleep in the barn?  Then I'll come back sure.  Tell you how
+it is, Mr. Saunders.  I've been stuck up in a three-by-nine office
+for four years--nose held to 'A to M, Western branch,' and if I'm
+not sick of it there's no such thing as sickness; to get out and
+breathe the fresh air, to see the country, to be my own master!
+Well, sir, it just makes me tremble to think of it.  I hope you
+find the straw-board what you want to take up."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if it would be," answered Red.  "We'll make a
+corking team to do business, Lettis, I can see that--so cautious
+and full of tricks, and all that."
+
+The young man laughed and then sobered down.  "Of course, I know
+the whole thing would look insane to most people," he said
+sturdily, "but I've been in business long enough to see sharp
+gentlemen come to grief in spite of their funny work.  I don't
+believe a man'll come to any more harm by believing people mean
+well by him than he would by working on the other tack."
+
+"Good boy!" said Red, slapping him on the back.  "You stick to that
+and you'll get a satisfaction out of it that money couldn't buy
+you.  Another thing, you'd never get a cent out of me in this world
+it you were one of these smooth young men.  My eye teeth are cut,
+son, for all I may seem easy.  The man that does me a trick has a
+chance for bad luck, and you can bet on that."
+
+"Lord!  I believe you!" replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions of
+his new friend.  "Well, good-bye for the present, Mr.
+Saunders--thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart you
+have put into me."
+
+At six o'clock the fence was not quite finished.
+
+"If you'll stay with me until the thing's done, I'll stand another
+dollar all around," said Red.  "I don't want it to stare me in the
+face to-morrow."
+
+The eldest spoke up.  "We'll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but we
+don't want any money for it, do we, fellers?"
+
+"No," they replied in chorus, well meaning what they said.
+
+"Why, you're perfectly welcome to the cash!" said Red.
+
+"And you're welcome to the work," retorted the boy.  "We're paid
+plenty as it is."
+
+"If that's the way you look at it, I'm much obliged to you," said
+Red, who would not have discouraged such a feeling for anything.
+He said to himself, "This don't seem much like the kind of people
+I've heard inhabited these parts.  Those boys are all right.
+Reckon it you use people decent they'll play up to your lead, no
+matter what country it is."
+
+At seven thirty the fence was done, gorgeous in a coat of fresh red
+paint, and the hands departed, each with a slice of Miss Mattie's
+chocolate cake, a thing to make the heathen gods feel contemptuous
+of ambrosia.
+
+They went straight to the blacksmith's shop, where they were
+anxiously expected.
+
+"Good Lord!" he said a little later, "it you fellers will talk one
+at a time, p'r'aps I can make out what's happened.  Now, Sammy,
+sp'ose you do the speaking?"
+
+Whereupon Sammy faithfully chronicled the events of the day.  The
+boys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of the
+common happening while they were with Red, being held up by a sense
+of pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, his
+picturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money around
+and the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day's hard
+work, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very much
+excited.
+
+"I'd like to know how many Injuns that feller's killed!" piped up
+the youngest.  "My!  he could grab hold of a man and wring his neck
+like a chicken."
+
+"Aw, tst!" remonstrated the blacksmith.  But the elders stood by
+the younker this time.
+
+"Yes, he could, Mr. Farrel!" said they.  "You ought to seen him
+when he rolled up his sleeves!  He's got an arm on him like the
+hind leg of a horse, and he uses an ax like a tack-hammer.  He got
+mad once when he pounded his thumb, and busted the post square in
+two with one crack."
+
+"Well, he looks like a husky man," admitted the blacksmith.  "But
+why didn't you boys take the extry dollar when he made the offer?
+He 'pears to know what he was about and looks kind of foolish to
+say 'no' to it."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  "We wanted to show him we were just
+as good as the folks he knew," explained the eldest, somewhat
+shame-facedly.
+
+The  blacksmith  straightened  himself.  "Quite right, too," said
+he.  "We _air_, when you come to that."  A little pride is a
+wonderful tonic.  Each unit of that gathering felt himself the
+better for the display of it.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+In the meantime, Red was repairing the ravages of the day opposite
+Miss Mattie at a supper table which was bountifully spread.  Miss
+Mattie put two and two together, and found they meant a larger sum
+of eatables than she had hitherto felt sufficient, and with a
+little pang at the thought of the inadequacy of her first offering
+to her cousin, provided such fatness as the land of Fairfield
+boasted.
+
+They discussed the events of the day with satisfaction.
+
+"My!" said Miss Mattie.  "You do things wholesale while you are
+about it, Will, don't you?"
+
+Red smiled in pleased acknowledgment.  "I'm no peanut stand, old
+lady," said he.  "I like to see things move."
+
+Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering around
+ever since her guests had taken their leave.
+
+"Do you think you'll really go into business with that young man
+who was here to dinner?" she asked.
+
+"Why, I think it's kinder likely," said Red.
+
+"But you don't know anything about him, Will," she continued,
+putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest more
+securely if that stood the test.
+
+"No, I don't," agreed Red.  "But here's the way I feel about that:
+I want to be doing something according to my size; besides that, it
+would be a good thing for this place if some kind of a live doings
+was to start here.  All right, that's my side of it.  Now, as far
+as not knowing that young feller's concerned, I might think I knew
+him from cyclone-cellar to roof-tree, and he might do me to a
+crowded house.  My idea is that life's a good deal like faro--you
+know how that is."
+
+"I remember about his not letting the people go, but I'm afraid I
+don't know my Bible as well as I ought to, Will," apologised Miss
+Mattie, rather astonished at his allusion.
+
+"Let the people go?  Bible?" cried Red, laying down his knife and
+fork, still more astonished at her allusion.  "Will you kindly tell
+me what that has to do with faro-bank?  Girl, one of us is full of
+ghost songs, and far, far off the reservation.  What in the name of
+Brigham Young's off-ox are you talking about?"
+
+"Why, you spoke of Pharaoh, Will, and I can remember about his
+holding the children of Israel captive, and the plagues, but I
+really don't see just how it applies."
+
+"Oh!" said Red, as a great light broke upon him.  "Oh, I see what
+you're thinking about.  The old boy who corralled the Jews, and
+made 'em work for the first and last time in their history, and
+they filled him full of fleas, and darkness, and all kinds of
+unpleasant experiences to break even?  Well, I was not talking
+about him at all.  My faro is a game played with a lay-out and a
+pack of cards and a little tin box that you ought to look at
+carefully before you put any money on the board, to see that it
+ain't arranged for dealing seconds; and there's a lookout and a
+case keeper and--well, I don't believe I could tell you just how it
+works, but some day I'll make a layout and we'll have some fun.
+It's a bully game, but I say, it's a great deal like life--the
+splits go to the dealer; that is to say, that if the king comes out
+to win and lose at the same time, you lose anyhow, see?"
+
+"No," said Miss Mattie, truthfully.
+
+Red thrust his fingers through his hair and sighed.  "I'm afraid I
+know too much about it to explain it clearly," he replied.   "But
+what I mean is this: some people try to play system at faro, and
+they last about as quick as those that don't.  I always put the
+limit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me a
+cent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear a
+pained expression when they saw me coming across the room.  I've
+split 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used a
+copper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time.  Now," and
+he brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play that
+young man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.
+He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind of
+nice.  I might just as well try him on the fly, as to go
+lunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactory
+addition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."
+
+Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but the
+ring of the voice and the little she understood made the tenor
+plain.  A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You're
+too good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that's
+what I think, Will."
+
+"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in an
+injured voice.  "It ain't hardly respectable."
+
+After which there was a silence for a short time.  Then said Miss
+Mattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, after
+all the things you've seen?"
+
+Red brightened at the change of topic.  "I'll tell you how that is:
+if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, I
+don't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother;
+but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securely
+planted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thusly
+being able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I like
+the country.  It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that's
+only held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real live
+man's town out of it."
+
+Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief.  "You came like the hero
+in a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"
+she said.
+
+He reached across the table and patted her hand.  "You'd have had
+to gone, too," said he.  "The family'll stick together."
+
+She thanked him in a soft little voice.  "Dear me!" she murmured.
+"It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."
+
+"Never was told that I was such slow company before."
+
+"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."
+
+"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am;
+insomuch as I'm to be a manufacturer and the Lord knows what.  Then
+some day I'm going to have an awful hankering for the land where
+the breeze blows, and then we'll take a shute for open prairie.
+It's cruelty to animals for me to straddle a horse now, yet there's
+where I'm at home, and I'm going to buy me a cayuse of some
+kind--say, I ought to get at that; if I'm going around with Lettis
+I want to ride a horse--know anybody that's got a real live horse
+for sale, Mattie?  No?  Well, I'll stop in and see the lady that
+deals the mail--I'll bet you what that woman doesn't know about
+what's going on in this camp will never get into history--be back
+right away."
+
+Said he to the post-mistress, "My name's Saunders, ma'am--cousin to
+Miss Mattie.  I just stopped in to find out if you knew anyone that
+had a riding horse for sale; horse with four good legs that'll
+carry me all day, and about the rest I don't care a frolicsome
+cuss."
+
+The post-mistress replied at such length, and with such velocity
+that Red was amazed.  He gathered from her remarks that a certain
+Mr. Upton had an animal, purchased of a chance horse dealer, which
+it was altogether likely he would dispose of, as the first time he
+had tried the brute it went up into the air all sorts of ways, and
+caused the owner to perform such tricks before high Heaven as made
+the angels weep.
+
+"Where does this man live?" asked Red, with a kindling eye.
+
+"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's in
+town to-night visitin' Miss Alders--Johnny!" to a small boy who had
+been following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red,
+and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight in
+vigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's a
+gentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse."
+
+"Don't disturb him if he's visiting," remonstrated Red.
+
+"He won't call that disturbing him," replied the post-mistress,
+with a shrill laugh.  "He'll be here in no time."
+
+She was a true prophet.  It seemed as if the boy had barely left
+the store when he returned with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-faced
+man, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower part
+of his face.  After greetings and the explanation of the errand,
+Mr. Upton stroked his chin-whisker regretfully.  "Young man," said
+he, "I'm in a pecooliar and onpleasant position; there's mighty
+feyew things I wouldn't do in a hawse trade, but I draw the line on
+murder.  That there hawse'll kill you, just's sure as you're fool
+enough to put yerself on his back.  I'll sell you a real hawse
+mighty reasonable--"
+
+"I'll risk him," cut in Red.  "Could you lead him down here in the
+morning?"
+
+"Yes, indeedy--he's a perfect lady of a horse to lead---you can
+pick up airy foot--climb all over him in fac', s'long's you don't
+try to ride him or hitch him up.  If you do that--well, young man,
+you'll get a pretty fair idee of what is meant by one of the demons
+of hell."
+
+"What kind of saddle have you got?"
+
+"One of them outlandish Western affairs that the scamp threw in
+with the animal--you see, I thought I'd take up horse-back riding
+for my health; I was in bed three weeks after my fust try."
+
+"I'll go you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you got
+it--chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front of
+my house at nine o'clock to-morrow."
+
+"All right, young man--all right sir--now don't blame me if you air
+took home shoes fust."
+
+"Nary," said Red.  "Come and see the fun."
+
+"I shorely will," replied the old gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+At nine the next morning there was a crowd in front of the house.
+
+"What have you been doing now, Will?" asked Miss Mattie with
+prescience.
+
+"Only buying a horse, Mattie," returned Red soberly.  "Seems to be
+quite an event here."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all, so help me Bob!" Red had a suspicion that there would
+be objections if she knew what kind of a horse it was.
+
+Lettis, who had roomed with Red overnight, was in the secret.
+
+The horse arrived, leading very quietly, as Mr. Upton had said.  It
+was a buckskin, fat and hearty from long resting.  Nothing could be
+more docile than the pensive lower lip, and the meek curve of the
+neck; nothing could be more contradictory than the light of its
+eye; a brooding, baleful fire, quietly biding its time.
+
+"Scatter, friends!" cried Red, as he put his foot in the stirrup.
+"Don't be too proud to take to timber!"
+
+He swung over as lightly as a trapeze performer, deftly catching
+his other stirrup.  The horse groaned and shivered.
+
+"Don't let him get his head down!  Gol-ding it!  Don't you!"
+screamed Mr.   Upton in wild excitement.
+
+Red threw the bridle over the horn of the saddle.  "Go it, you
+devil!" cried he.  And they went.  Six feet straight in the air,
+first pass.  The crowd scattered, as requested.  They hurried at
+that.  Red gave the brute the benefit of his two hundred and a half
+as they touched earth, and his opponent grunted when he felt the
+jar of it.  They rocketted and ricochetted; they were here, they
+were there, they were everywhere, the buckskin squealing like a
+pig, and fighting with every ounce of the strength that lay in his
+steel strung legs; the dust rose in clouds; Red's hat flew in no
+time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like
+more maniacs.  Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be
+caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would
+roll up and hide everything.  No one was more pleased at the
+spectacle than the blacksmith.  He was capering in the middle of
+the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him _down_!  Hold
+him DOWN!  Why do you let him jump up like that?  If _I_ was on
+that horse I'd show you!  Aw, there it is again--Stop him!  _Stop_
+him!"
+
+At this point the buckskin made three enormous leaps for the
+blacksmith, as though he had understood.  The smith cast dignity to
+the winds and went over the nearest fence in the style that little
+boys, when coasting, call "stomach-whopper"--or words to that
+effect--and took his next breath two minutes later.  He might have
+saved the labour, as the horse wheeled on one foot, and pulled
+fairly for the picket fence opposite.  Red regretted the absence of
+herders as the sharp pickets loomed near.  It was no time for
+regrets.  The horse was over with but little damage--a slight
+scratch, enough to rouse his temper, however, for he whaled away
+with both hind feet, and parts of the fence landed a hundred feet
+off.  Then a dash through an ancient grape arbor, and they were
+lost to view of the road.  Some reckless small boys scampered
+after, but the majority preferred to trace the progress of the
+conflict by the aboriginal "Yerwhoops" that came from somewhere in
+behind the old houses.
+
+"There they go!" piped up a shrill voice of the small-boy brigade.
+"Right through Mis' Davisses hen coops!--you _ought_ to see them
+hens FLY!" The triumphant glee is beyond the reach of words.
+Simultaneous squawking verified the remark, as well as a feminine
+voice, urging a violent protest, cut short by a scream of terror,
+and the slam of a door.  The inhabitants of "Mis' Davisses" house
+instantly appeared through the front door, seeking the street.
+
+To show the erraticalness of fate, no sooner had they reached the
+road, than Red's mount cleared the parapet of the bridge in a
+single leap--a beautiful leap--and came down upon them in the road.
+
+All got out of the way but a three-year-old, forgotten in the
+excitement.  Upon this small lad, fallen flat in the road, bore the
+powerful man and horse.  Then there were frantic cries of warning.
+Fifty feet between the youngster and those mangling
+hoofs--twenty--five! the crowd gasped--they were blotted together!
+Not so.  A mighty hand had snatched the boy away in that instant of
+time.  He was safe and very indignant in a howling, huddled heap in
+the ditch by the roadside, but alas, for horse and rider!  The
+buckskin was not used to such feats, and when Red's weight was
+thrown to the side for the reach he missed his stride, struck his
+feet together, and down they went, while the foot-deep dust sprang
+into the air like an explosion.
+
+Miss Mattie rushed to the scene of the accident, followed by
+everybody.  Young Lettis, equally frightened, was close beside her.
+
+"Oh, Will! Are you killed?" she cried.
+
+And then a voice devoid of any signs of weakness, but loaded to the
+breaking point with wrath, told in such language as had never been
+heard in Fairfield that the owner was still much alive.
+
+"Run away, Mattie!  Run away and let me cuss!" shrieked Red.  Miss
+Mattie collapsed into the arms of Lettis.
+
+The dust settled enough so that the anxious villagers could see
+horse and man; the former resting easily, as if he had had enough
+athletics for one day, and the latter sitting in the road.  Neither
+showed any intention of rising.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Saunders, are you hurt?" inquired the fussy
+post-mistress.
+
+"Please go 'way, ma'am," said Red, waving his arm.
+
+"I'm sure you're hurt--I'm perfectly sure you're hurt," she
+persisted, holding her ground.  "Now, do tell us what can possibly
+be the matter with you?"
+
+"Very well," returned the exasperated cow-puncher, "I will.  My
+pants, ma'am, have suffered in this turn-up, and they're now in a
+condition to make my appearance in polite society difficult, if not
+impossible; now please go 'way and somebody fetch me a horse
+blanket."
+
+It is regrettable that the discomfiture of the post-mistress was
+received with undisguised hilarity.  The blanket was produced, and
+Red stalked off in Indian dignity, marred by a limp in his left
+leg, for he had come upon Mother Earth with a force which made
+itself felt through all that foot of soft dust.
+
+"Bring that durn-fool horse along," he called over his shoulder.
+Buckskin rose and followed his owner.  There was no light in his
+eye now; he looked thoughtful.  He, too, limped, and there was a
+trickle of blood down his nose.  Verily it had been a hard fought
+field.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+As both men were anxious to see the lay of the land as soon as
+possible.  Red took his place in the waggon that day, after the
+damages were repaired, content to wait until his leg was less sore
+for horseback riding.
+
+There followed a busy two weeks for them.  Mr. Demilt had some
+money he wished to put into the enterprise, but his most valuable
+assistance was, of course, his thorough knowledge of the resources
+of the country.
+
+They found an admirable site for the mill, in an old stone barn,
+which had stood the ravages of desolation almost unimpaired.  Red's
+mining experience told him that the creek could easily be flumed to
+the barn, and as that was the only objection of the others to this
+location, they wrote the owner of the property for a price.  They
+were astonished when they received the figures.  It had come by
+inheritance to a man to whom it was a white elephant of the most
+exasperating sort, and he was glad to get rid of it for almost a
+song.  They were a jubilant three at the news.  It saved the cost
+of building a mill, and including that, the price was as low per
+acre as any land they could have obtained.  Red closed the bargain
+instantly.
+
+Lettis' part of the business was chiefly to arrange for the
+disposal of their product, and when he explained to his partners
+what he could reasonably hope to do in that line, the affair lost
+its last tint of unreality, and became a good proposition, for
+Lettis had an excellent business acquaintance, who would be glad to
+deal with the straightforward young fellow.
+
+The night after the signing of the deeds, Red said to Miss Mattie,
+"We ought to have a stockholders' dinner to-morrow night, Mattie.
+If you could hire that scow-built girl, who wears her hair
+scrambled, to come in and give you a lift, would you feel equal to
+it?"
+
+"You always put it that I'm doing you a great favour in such
+things, Will, but you know perfectly well there's nothing I'd
+rather do," replied Miss Mattie, with a dimpling smile.  "However,
+it adds to the pleasure of it to have it put in that way, so I
+won't complain.  I'll just have my supper first, and then you men
+can talk over your business undisturbed."
+
+"You _will_ not--you'll eat with the rest of us."
+
+"Yes, but you stockholders--"  The word had an import to Miss
+Mattie; a something, if not regal, at least a kinship to the king.
+Under her democracy lay a respect for the founded institution;
+impersonal; an integral part of the law of the State; in fact, a
+minor sovereignty within an empire.
+
+"Stockholder yourself!" retorted Red.  "Don't you call me names."
+
+"What do you mean, Will?" asked Miss Mattie, with wide-opened eyes.
+
+"I mean you're a stockholder as good as anybody--you've got half my
+stack.  Now, hold on!  Just listen!  This is a queer run, Mattie,
+from the regulation point of view, this company of ours; I know
+enough about fillin' and backin' to know that--you ought to have
+seen the pryin', and pokin', and nosin' around them Boston men did
+before they took holt of the Chantay Seeche and made it a stock
+company!  One feller was the ablest durn fool I ever come acrosst.
+I used to let on I didn't savvey anything about it.  'Now, explain
+to me,' says I to him.  'You say you have so many shares of them
+stock,' waving my hand to a bunch of critters in the distance.
+'What part do you take?  I mean, what's your share of each animal,
+and does the last man get the hoofs and the tail?' 'Oh! you don't
+understand,' says he.  'I'll explain it to you.'  So he starts in
+to tell me that 'stock didn't necessarily mean beef critters,' and
+a lot more things, whilst old man Ferguson, who was putting the
+deal through, stood listening and chewing his teeth, thinking I was
+going to give our friend the frolicsome hee-hee at the wind-up.
+But I stood solemn, and never even drew a smile, for fear of
+queering Ferguson.  Well.  That's the proper way to start a
+company; make it as dreary and long-winded as possible.  We ain't
+done that, and perhaps we'll go broke for breaking the rules, and
+then your stock won't be worth a cuss; so don't you get excited
+about it.  I wanted the Saunders family to be represented.  Pretty
+soon the old lad with the nose will be around, and you'll have a
+chance to read about the 'parties of the first part,' and 'second
+parts of the party' and 'aforesaids' and 'behindsaids' and the rest
+of the yappi them lawyers swing so that honest men won't know what
+the devil they're up to."
+
+"Oh, Will! How can I ever thank you!" cried Miss Mattie, her eyes
+filling.  It seemed a great and responsible position to the gentle
+lady to be a stockholder in the corporation.  It wasn't the
+monetary value of the thing; it was the pride of place.
+
+"If you don't know how, don't try," returned Red.  "You give the
+other three stockholders a good feed to-morrow and the thanks will
+be up to you.  Hello!  There's the old lad now!" as a trumpet blast
+rang out from the front porch.  "It must take some practise to blow
+your nose like that.  I've heard Jackasses that could not bray in
+the same class with that little old gent--come in.  Come in!  You
+needn't sound the rally again."
+
+Thus adjured the lawyer made his entrance, and Miss Mattie became
+in due and involved course of law a stockholder in the Fairfield
+Strawboard Mfg. Co.
+
+Fairfield rose to activity like a very small giant refreshed.
+Teams and their heavy loads kept the respectable dust in constant
+commotion.  A grist mill was added to the intended plant, thus
+offering an inducement to the farmer to raise grain, and
+incidentally straw, "So we can ketch 'em on both ends, too," as Red
+put it.
+
+The time seemed like enchantment to Miss Mattie.  As a bringer of
+the tidings, and a stockholder in the company, she had risen to be
+a person of importance, with the result that she was even more
+modestly shy than before, although in her heart she liked it; but
+more delightful yet was the spirit of holiday activity which
+inspired and pervaded the place.
+
+Red had insisted on operating on the lines that are laid down with
+railroad spikes in the Western communities; to patronise home
+industries as much as possible.  Therefore the machinery orders
+went through Mr. Farrel, the blacksmith, initiating that worthy man
+into the mysteries of making money without doing anything for it,
+which seemed little less than a miracle to him.  Everything that
+could be bought through local people was obtained in that way.  It
+cost a trifle more, but it brought more money into the place, and
+enabled the villagers to partake of the enlivenment, without the
+feeling that it was a Barmecide feast.  The post-mistress furnished
+the paint, and it is painful to add that she tried to furnish a
+number three paint for a number one price, arguing that she was a
+poor, lone woman, struggling through an uncharitable world and that
+the increased profit would do her considerable good--a view which
+Red did not share.  He would willingly have made her a present of
+the difference, but he did not in the least intend to be choused
+out of it by man nor woman.  They had a very funny debate in
+private, wherein the feminine tried to dominate the masculine
+principle by sheer volubility and found to its disgust that the
+method didn't work.  Red listened most respectfully and always
+replied, "Yes ma'am, but we don't want that paint.  Get us some
+good paint--bully old paint with stick'um in it--this stuff is like
+whitewash, only feebler.  We're going to put on a swell front up at
+the mill, and we've got to have the right thing." And at last the
+post-mistress said that she would, her respect for the
+ex-cowpuncher having risen noticeably in the meantime.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+The work on the mill was pushed, and in spite of the usual amount
+of unforeseen delays, it was ready for work by the latter part of
+September.  The official opening was set for the
+twenty-seventh--Miss Mattie's birthday--and the village of
+Fairfield was invited to a picnic to be held at the mill in honor
+of the occasion.  It is needless to say that the Fairfield
+Strawboard Mfg. Co.  did the thing up in shape.  Waggons loaded
+with straw, and drawn by four-horse teams, went the rounds of the
+village, collecting the guests.  It is doubtful if Fairfield was
+ever more surprised than at the realisation of how much there was
+of her--using the pronoun out of respect to the majority--"when she
+was bunched," as Red said.  You would not have believed that
+straggling, lonesome-looking place held so many people.  As Red
+could discover no means in the town's resources to provide a meal
+for three hundred people it was necessarily a basket party, which
+struck Mr. Saunders as being grievously like a Swede treat.  He
+made up for it in a measure by having barrels of lemonade and cider
+on tap at the grounds--stronger beverages being barred--and by
+hiring a quartette of strings "clear from town."
+
+At half-past two on a resplendent but hot September afternoon the
+caravan started for the mill grounds, the women dressed in the most
+un-picnicky costumes imaginable, and the men ostentatiously at ease
+in their store clothes.  Everyone was in the best of spirits, keen
+for the excitement and pleasure that was sure to mark the occasion.
+
+Red rode old Buckskin, who had succumbed to the inevitable, and
+only "jumped around a little," as Red put it, on being mounted.  It
+was pretty lively "jumping around," but perhaps Mr. Saunders found
+some satisfaction in sitting perfectly at his ease, smoking his
+cigarette, while Buck jumped and Fairfield admired.  And, at any
+rate, Buck had legs of iron, and the wind of a locomotive, carrying
+Red all day, and willing to kick at anything which bothered him
+when night came.  He was a splendid beast through and through, from
+forelock to tail-tip, but he had learned who was his master and
+obeyed him accordingly.
+
+It was a five mile ride, mostly under the shade of fine old trees.
+The road wound around the hills; here and there a break in the
+arboreal border showed views of rolling country, well-shaped and
+pleasing, winding up grassy slopes in groves of verdure.  Of course
+most of the freshness of leaf was past, yet the modest gray-green
+gave a silvery sheen to the landscape that brought it into unity.
+
+One member of the party felt that his heart was very full as he
+looked at it.  That was Lettis.  "Blast the old office!" he kept
+saying to himself.  "Blast its six dingy windows, and the clock at
+the end!  Doesn't this look good, and doesn't it smell good, dust
+and all?" and then he'd howl at the horses in sheer exuberance of
+good feeling, making the mild old brutes put a better foot of it to
+the front.
+
+Red cantered up beside his waggon.  "Well, Lettis," he said, "here
+we go for the opening overture, with the full strength of the
+company--we're great people this day, ain't we?"  And the big man
+smiled like a pleased big boy.
+
+"Oh, what a bully old fellow you are!" thought Lettis as he looked
+at him.  Lettis was thinking of other qualities than flesh, but the
+physical Red Saunders on horseback was deserving of a glance from
+anybody; the massive figure so well poised; the clear cut, proud
+profile; the shapely head with its crown of red-gold hair; the easy
+grace of him by virtue of his strength--it would be a remarkable
+crowd in which Chanta Seechee Red couldn't pass for a man.  He was
+every inch of that from the ground up.
+
+Lettis had come to bow down to him in adoration, with all an
+affectionate boy's worship.  To those eyes Red was just right, in
+every particular.  Likewise to Miss Mattie, who even now was
+filling her eyes with him, from behind the vantage of a
+broad-brimmed straw hat.
+
+At last the whole party disembarked at the flat before the mill,
+and made ready for the official starting of the machinery.  The big
+doors were thrown open, so that the company could see within while
+resting outside in the shade, and under the cooling influence of
+what breeze there was.  The mill was officially started.  Red
+climbed the bank to the flume, and raised the gate.  The crowd
+cheered as the imprisoned waters leapt to freedom with a hollow
+roar, raising in pitch as the penstock filled and the wheels began
+to go round.  Speech was called for, and the vigorously protesting
+Red forced to the front by his former friends, Demilt and Lettis.
+Thus betrayed by those he trusted, Red made the best of it.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens!" said he.  "The mill is now
+open to all comers.  We hope to make this thing a success; we hope
+to see every horny-handed, hump-backed farmer in the country rosin
+the soles of his moccasins, and shove his plough through twice as
+much ground as he ever did before, and if he comes here with his
+plunder, we'll give him a square shake.  We'll pay him as much as
+we dast, and not let him in on the ground floor, so he can crawl
+out through the coal-hole, as is sometimes done.  Now, everybody
+run away and have a good time, for I don't like to talk this yappi
+any more than you like to hear it.  Kola geus!  By-bye!"
+
+It was a very successful picnic.  They spent the afternoon in
+wandering around in the usual picnic fashion, developing appetites,
+until it occurred to Red to liven the performance by showing them
+the art of roping, as practiced upon an old cow found in the woods.
+As a spectacle it was a failure.  The combined efforts of all the
+hooting small boys could not make that cow run; she even stretched
+her neck toward Red, as though saying, "Hurry up with your
+foolishness.  I have a cud to chew and can't stand here idle all
+day."  So Red galloped by and threw the noose over her head as an
+exhibition of how the thing was done, rather than how it ought to
+be done.  Nevertheless, picnic parties are not hypercritical in the
+matter of amusement, and the feat received three encores.  The last
+time he missed his cast through overconfidence.  Whereat the old
+cow tossed her head and tail in the air, and tore off at an
+elephantine gallop, with a bawl that sounded to Red mightily like
+derision.
+
+"Durned if she ain't laughing at me!" he cried.  But as a matter of
+fact, it was a hornet and its unmistakable sting that injected this
+activity into her system.
+
+It was all very pleasant to Miss Mattie, as one's first picnic in
+many years should be.  She enjoyed the crisp green sod, the great
+trees standing around, park-like, with the sunlight falling between
+their shade like brilliant tatters of cloth-of-gold; while from the
+near distance came the tiny shouting of cool waters.  They had a
+camp-fire at night, making the moonlight still more mysterious and
+remote by contrast.  The quartette of strings played for the ears
+of those who cared to listen and for the legs of those who chose to
+take chances on tripping their light fantastic toes over tree roots
+in the grass.
+
+Red loved music, and he loved the night.  The poetic side of his
+memories of watching the Dipper swing around Polaris, while he sung
+the cows to sleep, came back to him.  In his mind he saw the vast
+prairie roll on to infinity; saw the mountains stand out, a world
+of white peaks, rising from a sea of darkness.  Again he heard the
+plaintive shrilling of an Indian whistle, or the song of the lad
+down creek made tuneful and airy by the charm of distance.
+
+"Having a good time, Mattie?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"The best I ever had, Will," she answered, smiling back unsteadily.
+Poor lady!  The size of an occasion is so many standards, whether
+the standard be inches or feet, or miles.  Miss Mattie's events had
+been measured in hundredths of an inch, and it took a good many of
+them to cover so small an action as a successful picnic on a
+beautiful night.  Her eyes were humid; her mouth smiled and drooped
+at the corners alternately.  Red felt her happiness with a keen
+sympathy, and as he looked at her, suddenly she changed in his
+eyes.  Just what the difference was he could not have told; nor
+whether it was in her or in him.  A sudden access of feeling,
+undefinable, unplaceable, but strong, possessed him.  There is a
+critical temperature in the life of a man, when no amount of
+pressure can ever make the more expansive emotions assume the
+calmer form of friendship.  There was something in Miss Mattie's
+eye which had warmed Red to that degree, but he didn't know it.  He
+only knew that he wanted to sit rather unnecessarily close beside
+her, and that he would be sorry when it came time to go home.  And
+he was very silent.
+
+During the drive back to the house he spoke in monosyllables; he
+went straight to the barn with Lettis afterward, and made no
+attempt to take the usual frank and hearty good-night kiss.
+
+"You're as glum as an oyster!" said Lettis, when they reached their
+quarters.  "What's the matter, old man?"
+
+"I don't know, Let; I feel kind of quiet, somehow."
+
+"Sick?  Or something go wrong?"
+
+"No; nothing of the kind; it's just sort of an attack of stillness,
+but I feel durn good."
+
+Lettis laughed.  "If it wasn't you, Red, I'd say you were in love,"
+he said.
+
+It was well the barn was dark; or he would have seen a change
+wonderful to behold come over the ex-puncher's face.  "The lad has
+hit it," he said to himself in astonishment; aloud he grunted
+"hunh" scornfully, and aroused himself for an unnecessary joke or
+two.
+
+Miss Mattie had noticed the "attack of stillness" and immediately
+tried to fasten the blame upon herself.  What had she done?  She
+couldn't recall anything.  She remembered she had said something
+about the way his hair looked with the moon shining on it; perhaps
+he had taken offence at that; the remark was entirely
+complimentary, but sometimes people are touchy about such things;
+still that was not the least like Cousin Will.  She must have said
+or done something though--what could it be?  Oh what a pitiful
+memory that could not recollect an injury done to one's best
+friend!  She tossed and wondered over it for a long time before at
+length she tell asleep.
+
+Red also looked up at the roof, and took account of stock.  His
+face was radiant in the dark.  "If I could only pull that off!" he
+thought.  "I must seem an awful rough cuss to her, though; all
+right for a cousin, but it's different when you come to the other
+proposition.  My Jiminy!  I'll take a chance in the morning and
+find out anyhow!" said he, and, eased in mind by the decision of
+action, he too shook hands with Morpheus and was presently dreaming.
+
+It had never occurred to Red Saunders that he was afraid of
+anybody.  He even chuckled, when he got Lettis out of the way with
+a plausible excuse the next morning.  Then he strode briskly into
+the house, his question on his lips in a plump out-and-out form.
+
+Miss Mattie looked at him with her slow smile.  "What is it?" she
+asked.
+
+Red swallowed his question whole.  "I--I wanted a little hot water
+to shave with," said he.  Then a fury took hold of him.  "What the
+devil am I lying like this for?" he thought.  He exhorted himself
+to go on and say what he had to say like a man; but the other Red
+Saunders refused to do anything of the sort.  He took the cup of
+hot water most abjectly and fled from the house.  He had to shave
+then, and in his hurry and indignation he turned the operation into
+a clinic.  "Oh Jiminy!  Look at that!" he cried, as the razor
+opened up another part of the subject.  "There's a slit an inch
+long!  If I keep on at this gait, I won't have face enough to say
+good morning, let alone what I want to do.  What ails me?  What
+ails me?  Why should I be scart of the nicest woman God ever built?
+Now by all the Mormon Gods!  I'll post right into the house and say
+my little say as soon as these cuts stop bleeding!"
+
+Cob-webs stopped the cuts, and other cob-webs stopped Red Saunders,
+late of the Chanta Seechee ranch; two hundred and fifty pounds of
+the very finest bone and muscle.  And the cob-webs held him,
+foaming and boiling with rage and disgust, calling himself all the
+yaller pups he could think of, but staying strictly within the safe
+limits of the barn.  It was a revelation to the big man, and not a
+pleasant one.  How was he to know that the most salient point of
+his apparent cowardice was nothing less worthy than respect for the
+woman's purity?  That if he would stop swearing long enough to get
+at the springs of his action, he would find that he hesitated
+because the new light on the matter made huge shadows of the slips
+in the career of a strong, lawless, untrained but sorely tempted
+man?  He knew nothing of the sort, and the funniest of comedies
+took place in the barn.  He would reach the sensible stage.  "Pah!
+All foolishness.  Go?  Of course he'd go, and this very minute, and
+have the thing done with, good or bad"; he was quite amused at his
+former conduct--until he reached the door.  Then he'd skip nimbly
+back again, with a hot feeling that somebody was watching him,
+although a careful inspection through the crack of the door
+revealed no one.
+
+Red discovered another thing that afternoon, which was that the
+more nervous you are the more nervous you get.  He groaned in
+perfect misery: "Ohoho!  That I should have seen the day when I was
+afraid to ask anybody anything.  What's come over me anyhow?  It's
+this darn country, I believe--'tain't me," then he stopped short.
+"What you saying, Red?" he queried.  "Why don't you own up like a
+man!"  The fact that it had a funny side struck him, and he
+laughed, half forlornly, and half in thorough enjoyment.  He
+suddenly sobered down.  "She's worth it, anyway," said he.  "She's
+the best there is, and I ought to feel kind of leery of the
+outcome--Well--Now, I guess I won't say anything till there's a
+downright good chance.  I see I didn't savvy this kind of business
+like I thought I did.  'Twouldn't be no kind of manners to step up
+to a lady and shout, 'I'd like to have you marry me, if you feel
+you've got the time!'  That don't go no more than a Chinaman on
+roller-skates.  Your work is good, Red, but it's a little lumpy in
+spots; them two left feet bother you; you're good in your place,
+but you'd better build a fence around the place--damn the luck!
+Smotheration!  I think she likes me, all right, but when it comes
+to more'n that--oh, blast it, I'll just have to wait for a real
+good chance; now come, old man, get four feet on the ground and
+don't roll your eyes, take it easy till the chance comes."
+
+Little he knew the chance was coming up the street at that moment.
+He only saw Miss Mattie step out into the bed of flowers, her face
+looking unusually pretty and youthful under the big straw hat, and
+start to reduce the weeds to order.  She glanced around as though
+in search of some one, and Red felt intuitively that the one was
+himself.
+
+"Here's where I ought to act as if I wore long pants," said he;
+"now, what's to hinder me from going out there and get a-talking?"
+And then he sat down hastily, more disgusted than ever, and smote
+the air with his fist.  "You'd think the nicest, quietest woman
+that ever lived was a wild beast, the way I act; yes sir, you
+would!"
+
+Meantime the chance drew nearer.  It was not a pleasant looking
+opportunity.  Its eyes, full of dread and dreadful, peeped out from
+beneath a brush of matted hair; a tough, ropy foam hung from its
+mouth.  If you put as much of that foam as would go on the point of
+a pin in an open cut, you would have an end that your worst enemy
+would shudder at.  For this was the most horrifying of dangerous
+animals--a mad dog.  Poor brute!  As he came shambling down the
+road, he was the grisly mask of tragedy.
+
+It was near noon, intensely hot, and the street of Fairfield was
+deserted.   No one saw the dog, and if his occasional rattling,
+strangling howl reached any ears, they were dead to its meaning.
+He was unheeded until he lurched through the gate which Lettis had
+left open, as usual, and spinning around in a circle gave voice to
+his cry.
+
+It brought Miss Mattie to her feet in an unknown terror; it brought
+Red from the barn in a full cognizance--he had heard that sound
+before, when a mad coyote landed in a cabin-full of fairly strong
+nerved cowmen, and set them screeching like hysterical women before
+a chance shot ended him.
+
+Red saw the brute jump toward Miss Mattie.  Instantly his hand flew
+to his hip, and as instantly he remembered there was nothing there.
+Then with great, uneven leaps he sprang forward.  "Keep your hands
+up, Mattie, and don't move!" he screamed.  "Let him chew the dress!
+For God's sake, don't move!"
+
+She turned her white face toward his, and through the dimness of
+sight from his straining efforts, he saw her try to smile, as she
+obeyed him to the letter, and without a sound.  "O, brave girl!" he
+thought, and threw the ground behind him desperately.
+
+At twenty feet distance he dove like a base-runner, and his hands
+closed around the dog's neck.  Over they went with the shock of the
+onset, and before they were still, the hands had finished their
+work.  A clutch, and a snap, and it was done.
+
+The dog lay quivering.  Red rose to his knees wondering at the
+humming in his head.  His wits came back to him sharply.
+
+"Did he bite you, Mattie?" he cried.  But she had already caught
+his hands and was looking at them, with a savage eagerness one
+would not have believed to be in her.
+
+"There is no mark," she said, suddenly weak, "he didn't touch you?"
+
+"Answer me when I speak to you!" shouted Red, beside himself.  "Did
+he bite you?"
+
+She answered him with a sob "No."  And then his question asked
+itself, and answered itself, although, again, he did not know it.
+He gathered her up in his arms, kissed her like one raised from the
+dead, and swore and prayed and thanked God all in the same breath.
+
+His old imperious nature came back with the relief.  "Here!" said
+he, putting her away for a moment.  "Take off that dress--that
+slime on there's enough to kill a hundred men--take it right off."
+
+Miss Mattie started blindly to obey, then stopped.  "Not here,
+Will--I'll go in the house," she said.
+
+"You'll take it off right here and now," said Red, "and I'll burn
+it up on the spot.  I'd ruther have forty rattlesnakes around than
+that stuff--off with it.  This is no child's play, and I don't care
+a damn what the old lady next door thinks."
+
+Miss Mattie slipped off her outer skirt, and stood a second,
+confused and dainty.  She took flight to the house, running as
+lithely as a greyhound.
+
+"By Jingo!" said Red in admiration.
+
+"Let's see you bring another woman that can run like that!"
+
+He gathered some hay and piled it on the dress, firing the heap.
+
+Then he turned to his antagonist.  "Poor old boy!  Hard luck, eh?
+But I had to do it," he said, and gave him decent interment at the
+end of the garden; washed his hands carefully and went into the
+house on pleasanter duties.
+
+"I'll ask her now, by the great horn spoon!" said he, valiantly.
+
+Miss Mattie was in a curious state of mind.  There was an after
+effect from the fright, which made her tremble, and a remembrance
+of Cousin Will's actions which made her tremble more yet.  When she
+heard him coming she started to fly, although now clothed beyond
+reproach, but her knees deserted her, and she was forced to sink
+back in her chair.  Red came in whistling blithely--vainglorious
+man!
+
+He had _his_ suspicions, generated by the peculiar fervour Miss
+Mattie had shown in regard to his hands.
+
+"Mattie," quoth he, "I'm tired of living out there in the barn--I
+want a respectable house of my own."
+
+"Yes, Will," replied Miss Mattie, astonished that he should choose
+such a subject at such a time.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "and I want a wife, too.  You often said you'd
+like to do something for me, Mattie; suppose you take the job?"
+
+How much of glancing at a thing in one's mind as a beautiful
+improbability will ever make such a cold fact less astonishing?
+Miss Mattie eyed him with eyes that saw not; speech was stricken
+from her.
+
+Red caught fright.  He sprang forward and took her hand.  "Couldn't
+you do it, Mattie?" said he.  There was a world of pleading in the
+tone.  Miss Mattie looked up, her own honest self; all the little
+feminine shrinkings left her immediately.
+
+"Ah, but I _could_, Will!" she said.  Lettis came up on the stoop
+unheard.  He stopped, then gingerly turned and made his way back on
+tip-toe, holding his arms like wings.
+
+"Well, by George!" he murmured, "I'll come back in a little while,
+when I'll be more welcome."
+
+He spoke to Red in strong reproach that night, in the barn.  "You
+never told me a word, you old sinner!" said he.
+
+"Tell you the honest truth, Let," replied Red earnestly, looking up
+from drawing off a boot, "I didn't know it myself till you told me
+about it."
+
+They talked it all over a long time before blowing out the light,
+but then the little window shut its bright eye, and the only life
+the mid-night stars saw in Fairfield was Miss Mattie, her elbow on
+the casement, looking far, far out into the tranquil night, and
+thinking mistily.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+By Stewart Edward White
+
+THE BLAZED TRAIL
+
+Mr. White has intermingled the romance of the forests with the
+romance of a man's heart, making a story that is big and elemental,
+while not lacking in sweetness and tenderness.  It is an epic of
+the life of the lumbermen in the great forests of the Northwest,
+permeated in every line by out-of-door freshness and the glory of
+the labor of the struggle with nature.  It will appeal to everyone
+who cares for trees, the forests or the open air.
+
+"Mr. White has the power to make you feel the woods as the masters
+of salt-water fiction make you feel the sea."--_The Boston Herald_.
+
+"Of the majesty of the falling forests the book is eloquent, and
+its place in the history of our literature is secure."--_The
+Chicago Nevis_.
+
+"He has realized to the full the titanic character of the struggle
+between man and nature in the forest, and has reproduced it in his
+pages with an enthusiasm and strength of insight worthy of his
+theme."--_The St. James Gazette_.
+
+_Eleven Editions in eleven months_          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By George Douglas
+
+THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
+
+A story remarkable for its power, remarkable for its originality,
+and remarkable for its success.  The unique masterpiece of an
+unfortunate young author, who died without knowing the unstinted
+praise his work was to receive.  The book portrays with striking
+realism a phase of Scottish life and character new to most
+novel-readers.  John Gourlay, the chief personage in the drama,
+inhabitant of the "House With the Green Shutters" and master of the
+village destinies, looms up as the personification of the brute
+force that dominates.  He stands apart from all characters in
+fiction.  In the broad treatment and the relentless sweep of its
+tragedy, the book suggests the work of Dumas.
+
+"If a more powerful story than this has been written in recent
+years we have not seen it.  It must take first honors among the
+novels of the day."--_Philadelphia Item_.
+
+"One of the most powerful books we have seen for a long time, and
+it marks the advent of a valuable writer."--_New York Press_.
+
+$1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Seumas McManus
+
+Author of "Through the Turf Smoke"
+
+"A LAD OF THE O'FRIEL'S"
+
+This is a story of Donegal ways and customs; full of the spirit of
+Irish life.  The main character is a dreaming and poetic boy who
+takes joy in all the stories and superstitions of his people, and
+his experience and life are thus made to reflect all the essential
+qualities of the life of his country.  Many characters in the book
+will make warm places for themselves in the heart of the reader.
+
+Cloth, 12mo  $l.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Shan F. Bullock
+
+Author of "The Barrys," "Irish Pastorals"
+
+THE SQUIREEN
+
+Mr. Bullock takes us into the North of Ireland among
+North-of-Ireland people.  His story is dominated by one remarkable
+character, whose progress towards the subjugation of his own
+temperament we cannot help but watch with interest.  He is swept
+from one thing to another, first by his dare-devil, roistering
+spirit, then by his mood of deep repentance, through love and
+marriage, through quarrels and separation from his wife, to a
+reconciliation at the point of death, to a return to health, and
+through the domination of the devil in him, finally to death.  It
+is a strong, convincing novel suggesting, somewhat, "The House with
+the Green Shutters."  What that book did for the Scotland of Ian
+Maclaren and Barrie, "The Squireen" will do for Ireland.
+
+Cloth, 12mo                          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Arthur Morrison
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL
+
+No one knows the lower side of London life so well as Arthur
+Morrison, and this novel is his most masterly presentation of the
+underworld with which he is so familiar.  He has knit mean
+characters, mean passions, mean stage setting into a powerful drama
+of life that thrills as much because of the realism with which it
+is drawn as because of the exciting scenes that come treading
+helter-skelter upon each others heels.  The rough sailors, the
+thugs and criminals that frequent the "Hole in the Wall" Inn lose
+none of their picturesqueness, nor any of their sordidness either,
+from Mr. Morrison's treatment of them.  He handles his material in
+a way that suggests strongly the work of Dickens.  As an intimate
+picture of the lowest life in London, the novel is without an equal.
+
+"It is a section of human life showing true lights and shadows, a
+section cut by an exceedingly sharp blade.  Some of the things that
+Dickens is most praised for are evident in the work of Mr.
+Morrison."--_Springfield Republican_.
+
+"All of Mr. Morrison's work deserves the recognition it has
+attained, but this is undoubtedly the most artistic, the most
+virile, and the most heartrendingly true."--_Baltimore Sun_.
+
+$1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+By Arnold Bennett
+
+Author of "The Great Babylon Hotel"
+
+ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+
+Probably no story of the year is so simply and yet so artistically
+told as this one.  It portrays the development of a sweet and
+natural girl's character, amid a community of strict Wesleyan
+Methodists in a Staffordshire town.  How her upright nature
+progresses with constant rebellions against the hypocrisy and cant
+of the religionists, by whom she is surrounded, is brought out by
+the author faithfully and with great delicacy of insight.  Many
+will love Anna, and not a few will find something in her to suggest
+"Tess of the Durbervilles."  The plot is extremely simple, but the
+reader will find a surprise in the last chapters.
+
+The English letter from W. L. Alden, in the _New York Times Review_
+says:
+
+"It will be promptly recognized by the critics whose opinion is
+worth something _as the most artistic story of the year_."
+
+Cloth.  12mo                          $1.50
+
+McClure, Phillips & Co.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Saunders, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED SAUNDERS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 12196.txt or 12196.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12196/
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/12196.zip b/old/12196.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b19260
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/12196.zip