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 head, even giving her a race round the enclosure that had in it a promise of surprise. The bony creature's unexpected nimbleness provoked laughter and cheers, and genuine expressions of admiration when he checked himself in full career, swerving and dodging like a dog.

It would have passed off very creditably for Miss Goodnight if she had been wise enough to know exactly when to put a stop to this play. But she worked the poor old steer at his tricks so long that she uncovered her hand.

"He's trained for it! I'll bet money she's been puttin' him through them tricks for the last six months, gettin' ready for it," said Winch.

"It looks like it," Texas admitted, more ashamed that a woman would stoop to such sharp practice than concerned over what now seemed the certain loss of the money that he had staked on Sallie McCoy.

A cowboy who had been perched on the fence near by came hurrying over to where Texas stood, pegging along in halting short steps on his ridiculous high heels. He was full of protest against this imposition, and mad to the backbone. But before he could express himself in words an irruption of cheers submerged him. Miss Goodnight had rounded her steer to the most conspicuous point

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 of the arena, thrown her rope, brought him to the earth.

There the steer lay stretched as pacifically as if he had arranged himself for his afternoon nap, legs extended, head on the ground, the slack barely taken out of the rope. No dust was raised by struggling legs to cut off the view of Miss Goodnight's operations with her hobble. The steer allowed her to bind him with no more resistance than a pet dog.

There were cheers from a certain section of the grand stand where the young lady's partizans appeared to be gathered in force, laughter breaking against the hoarse masculine shouting in rising waves. Texas and Winch stood with watches out, Sallie McCoy on her horse near them so indignant over this dishonest trick that she looked as if she would fight a sack of wildcats.

Miss Goodnight stepped back from her conquest of the steer; the vociferous section of the grand stand lifted a louder cheer, with waving hats. But there was a significant silence in other parts of the crowd, a questioning quietude.

"You beat her anyhow—you beat her to a fare-you-well!" said Winch.

"By seventeen seconds," said Texas, looking up at her openly and boldly for the first time.

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 "Wait a minute—the judges—"

"Miss McCoy! I congratulate you! It was a magnificent victory, magnificently won!"

The speaker was a minister, beyond any mistake, short, round, half-bald, wholly jolly to see in spite of his somber coat. He came up hat in one hand, the other reaching out toward Sallie McCoy while still ten feet away, as if his heart went before him with the warm radiation of his sleek little body.

"The judges—" Sallie began once more, doubtfully.

The judges were approaching the grand stand. The young man who had ridden his horse at Hartwell took the megaphone from the announcer, rode forward from the others a little way.

"The judges—have the pleasure—of announcing—to you"—he spoke in a jerky, ringside delivery that told at once of his apprenticeship, no matter what his present trade—"the winner—of the ladies'—roping—contest. Miss Fannie Goodnight—wins the purse—and the honors—by two seconds—over—her nearest—competitor. I have the pleasure—of introducing—to you—Miss Fannie Goodnight—of Wichita—winner—of this event."

Cheers again from that conspicuous section of the grand stand. Miss Fannie Goodnight was on her horse, nodding her pretty head at her fervent

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 friends. Now they came pouring down into the arena, while other people who had put money on the local favorite, perhaps, or perhaps out of a spirit of fairness, stood protesting to each other, comparing Records, facing angrily toward the judges. In this part of the spectators were many cowboys. These now began to draw together and move down into the arena.

At the announcement of the judges' decision, Hartwell saw Sallie McCoy's face grow white. He looked into the eyes of Winch and the cowboy, and saw there what they in turn read in his. As if given a command to march, they turned and bore down on the judges.

Already these smiling tricksters were receiving the congratulations and thanks of the clique of gamesters with whom they had arranged the plot for a big clean-up. Led by Texas, the three champions of Sallie McCoy pushed through the crowd. Texas stood before the young man who had made the announcement and laid hold of his bridle.

"I know it ain't goin' to do a bit of good to pro-test to this decision you've made—"

"Then shut your fly trap!" the young man advised.

"But I want to ex-press my sentiments to your faces," Texas continued, holding back his wrath

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 as a just man does the drawing of his weapon. "I've been among thieves on the highways and byways of the world before to-day, but I never run into a gang that was as low to the ground as you!"

The fellow jerked his reins to throw off Hartwell's hand.

"That's about all you need to say, pardner!" he warned.

"It does about cover the case," said Winch.

"You robbed that girl, and I want to tell you a set of crows that'd do a trick like that'd rob a church!"

Texas flung the bridle reins from him with disdain, making the horse shy and rear. The rider leaned toward him, his face black with rage.

"A bunch of tin-horns like you—"

Words were too weak for him; he cast them aside, spurred his horse forward in a sudden bound, plainly determined to ride his accuser down and trample him.

The crowd fell back with sharp cries. Texas sprang to meet the plunging horse, caught it by the bit, held it while it reared and struck at him in the agony of its rowelled sides. The rider swung his quirt, bringing the heavy, leather-braided handle down on Hartwell's head.

Then followed, as quick as a man could sling a gun and fire, a thing such as no man in that crowd

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 ever had seen before. The lean cowman threw a hand to the distracted horse's poll, while with the other he held the bit; forced the animal back to its haunches, its fore feet striking; twisted its neck and threw it, as neatly as if he had a rope on its leg.

The rider flung himself from the saddle as the horse fell, and struck the ground with his gun in his hand. There was only the length of the horse between them, and for a moment the bulk of the animal interposed as it struggled to its feet and galloped off. People cleared away from Hartwell like smoke before a wind, leaving him standing alone.

In the old gun-slinging days on the Arkansas Valley range there was but one thing to do when you drew your weapon, and that was to shoot. A draw for a bluff, a moment's hesitation—even the hairsbreadth shading of a moment—was a thing generally fatal to your future calculations. That was where the unhorsed judge fell into error. He stood for a heart-beat with the gun in his hand, as if he did not know the code.

Texas covered the ground between them in a leap. The revolver went off as the humiliated judge fell before the stranger's rush, adding to the confusion of the mixup that the dust and smoke made for a moment indistinct. When things cleared a little Texas had the gun. He threw it

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 down and set his big foot on it, and met his opponent hand to hand as he scrambled from the ground.

The danger over, the crowd closed around the struggling men again, with cries of derision and encouragement, curses, offers to bet on the outcome. Hartwell had hold of the quirt which the fellow had managed, somehow, to sling to his wrist by its stout leather thong. With a wrench he broke the leather and stepped back with the short rawhide whip in his hand.

There was blood on the judge's face, his hat was trampled under foot, his garments were covered with dust. He stood panting and winded, so heavily overmatched that he seemed to realize the uselessness of renewing the squabble, and to be waiting for some way to open that would let him out of it.

Texas was pulling the slack up out of his sleeve, swinging his long arm like a man getting ready to put a shot. Before many had guessed his intention he had the judge by the neck, and began whipping him as one might beat a vicious dog.

Protests rose as the dust flew out of the fellow's shirt, as he struggled and squirmed and struck wild blows, some of which fell on the man who chastised him, more of which missed. Men who would have held off in an unequal fight with a gun on one side

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 and none on the other, pressed in and reached out to put an end to the castigation.

That was the point, in the height of the confusion, the heat of the crowd's partizanship, the face of the threat against the stranger, that Winch, the bow-legged man, came to the front. He pushed himself into the little space that Texas kept clear by his whirlwind operations, his coat open, his hands on his guns. His elbows stuck out at a sharp angle, suggestive of steel springs holding them ready to flash those guns before a man could half bat an eye. He leaned forward a little, a peculiar eagerness in his thin face, an electric brightness in his eyes.

"Stand back, gentlemen, and let the law take its course!" said Winch, speaking very mildly, but in a voice that carried far even above the growl of the disgraced man's friends who were running to his support.

The crowd pressed back, the color dropping out of men's faces, whispers running from lip to lip like the ripple of wind over water. Nobody questioned the bow-legged man's authority, nobody put hand to a gun to defend the issue. Texas released his grip on the man's throat, gave him a parting blow in the face with his open hand, broke the whip and threw the pieces after him as he staggered away.

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 "Here," he called, picking up the gun, breaking it and ejecting the cartridges, "take this thing with you, you ornery houn'!"

In the confusion attending the fight the other two judges rode off and, it appeared also, the bookmakers who had profited by their crooked award had vanished as well. A clamoring crowd of cowboys and cattlemen was sweeping across the field looking for them, and others were hastily fetching their horses and loosening their ropes with unmistakable signs of hostility.

In the whirl of it Texas lost sight of Winch. Although he looked for him with the intention of thanking him for his timely support, the little bow-legged man could not be found. Turning to leave the field, he saw Sallie McCoy, who had ridden up near the place where he had lashed the dishonest judge with his own rawhide. There was something of gratitude and admiration in her face that thrilled him, and an elusive message in her clear brown eyes that warmed him to the marrow and made him proud. He touched his hat as he looked up into her face.

She bent her head a little in acknowledgment of the salute. A rich flood of color rushed over her face, and Texas was not sure, but he believed that she smiled just a little as she wheeled her horse and

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 galloped away. It was as if she had waited there for that exchange of courtesies, as one who is incapable of smallness in either thought or deed stands by to give a word to another of the same spirit whom he never may meet on the world's long road again. It was an obligation of one brave spirit to another, and, being paid, there was no more to linger for.

Texas watched her as she rode away, and was standing gazing like a man in a dream at the dust that hung after she had passed from his sight beyond the corral gate, when Uncle Boley found him. The old man offered his hand, his blue eyes sparkling with satisfaction.

"You dusted that feller's hide, and you dusted it right!" he said. "It was worth all that gang crooked out of me to see that, and I ain't got no regrets, only that I roped you into it, Texas, and made you drop that roll you won."

"I'm richer a sight, sir, than I was two hours ago," Texas said. "I've got fifty dollars left. It's at your disposal, sir, to the last cent, if you can use it."

"You ain't under no obligations to me that moneycan pay, Texas."

"Thank you, sir; you're most generous. I was lookin' around for that little man that squared in

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 here and held that crowd off while I was larrupin' that hide-bound houn'-dog. He seemed to get clean away. Do you know who he was?"

"Yes, that was Dee Winch, one of the nicest little fellers in this town. But I wouldn't thank Dee for what he done, if I was you. He's like me, he don't want anybody to thank him. When you meet him just shake hands with him and look him in the eyes and don't say nothin' at all. Dee he'll understand."

"Yes, sir. He seems to be a powerful nice little man."

"Dee is a nice little man, the nicest man, big or little, you'll meet in many a day. Yes, sir, Dee he's killed nineteen men around here in the past four years!"

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O you and your pa put your money in real estate up there in Kansas City when you sold your ranch, and them sharks cleaned you out, eh?"

"They scraped our bones, sir. But I paid out; I don't owe any man, livin' or dead, a cent—in anything that money will pay."

"No, I bet you don't, Texas. Well, I'm glad you give me the inside and straight of your history, for I'm more'n a little petic'lar who I interduce to Sallie McCoy."

"I'm glad to hear you say it, grandpa."

"Don't you 'grandpa' me, gol dern you! I ain't no man's grandpa!"

"No, sir, of course you're not, sir."

"But I may be before I die. I ain't so danged used up as some men of forty-seven I could name."

"Nor some of thirty-five, I bet you a purty, sir."

Well,"Well, [sic] I can hold up my end of the log along with most of 'em. They all call me Uncle Boley around here, but I ain't nobody's uncle, neither. I don't mind that; I've known boys of ten that was

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 uncles. You can set in young bein' a uncle, and keep it up as long as you live."

"Yes, sir; you sure enough can, sir."

They were back in Uncle Boley's shop, and the old man was smoking his pipe, the day's work being done. Uncle Boley had insisted that Texas accept the boots from him as an appreciation of the pleasure the afternoon's adventures had given him. The old man said he didn't think it was quite decent for a gentleman to go around in shoes, for a person couldn't tell where his body ended and his legs began in that.

Texas had accepted the gift gratefully, and now he sat with his feet crossed, with something in his eyes that looked like pride to Uncle Boley, as he regarded the neat insteps and handsomely quilted tops.

"Have you got a gun, Texas?" The old man turned a shrewd eye on him, his pipestem stayed two inches from his mouth.

"No, sir, I haven't got a gun right now."

The old man smoked a little while, a look of wise contemplation in his benevolent face.

"Yes, I'd git one right away to-night if I was you. Mebbe two."

"Do you suppose I'll have any urgent need for a gun, sir?"

"Well, Texas, I wouldn't be surprised if you did.

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 Do you know who that feller you larruped was?"

"No, sir, I didn't stop to inquire his name."

"He was Johnnie Mackey, mayor of this town, and owner of the biggest gamblin' house and dance-house-saloon here."

Texas received the information with unmoved countenance. He sat staring out into the street, his legs stretched comfortably in his new boots, as if what he had heard was the lightest of incidental gossip. Uncle Boley watched him covertly, turning his sly old eyes. He liked the way Texas took it; that was a mighty good sign of a man.

"Well, sir, I reckon I had better buy me a gun," Texas said at last, very softly.

Uncle Boley nodded, and smoked on. It was past sunset, and with the cool of the day a freshness had come that invigorated man and beast, and stiffened the drooping leaves of plantain and burdock like a shower.

People were beginning to stir about in numbers surprising compared to the somnolence that had prevailed over Cottonwood when Texas arrived. Some went by with a look of drowsiness about them, as if they had just roused from sleep and were out foraging supper, and these Texas knew by their marks for gamblers and game-tenders, saloon employees and the dusty butterflies wihch flitted under the dance-hall lamps.

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 Cowboys were trooping in from long rides, others were setting out for their distant ranches. All was astir with a picturesque life that transformed the poor streets, and turned the plank "palaces" and "casinos" into places of romance and mystery.

"Yes, sir, this was a purty decent town till about two weeks ago, a place where every man got a square deal and a show for his money, but it ain't that way any more."

"What happened to change it, sir, if I may ask?"

"Oh, we had a 'lection."

"Sure enough you did; I just bet you did!"

"We put that feller—well, I didn't have no hand in it—Mackey in for mayor, and a wall-eyed lightheel in for marshal, turned Dee Winch out to give him the job, and them two they've shut up everything in town they ain't got a hand in or a rakeoff on of some kind."

"You could expect it of Mackey, sir. He's a houn'-dog from the rattlesnake hills by the look he wears in his face."

"It's all cow trade in this place, for Cottonwood's a cow town, and you know what it takes to draw cowboys and that kind. It takes noise and show and fiddlin' and singin'. Up to a week ago we had two big dance halls, Jud Springer's and Mackey's. Both of 'em had bands fiddlin' till the mayor up and ordered the aldermen to pass a law forbiddin'

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 music in places where liquor was sold. The marshal he went right down and stopped Jud's music, and the fiddlers and tooters all got a job playin' for the mayor. Of course he wouldn't put the law to his own place."

"So the business all went there, followin' after the music, which is very natural," Texas said.

"Yes, mostly. But Jud he got three or four musicians together and went ahead, and then the mayor sent a gang of gun-slingers down there and pitched everybody out and locked the door with a padlock and chain. They took Jud to the depot and told him to light out of here on the first train that stopped, and Jud he went. I don't know what he's goin' to do about it, but I know he ain't through. Jud ain't that kind of a man."

"I would hope not, sir."

"So you see what kind of a feller Mackey is. You was kind of takin' chances when you laid that rawhide to that scamp, but I glory in what you done. Yes, if I was in your place, Texas, I believe I'd git me a couple of guns."

"Yes, sir, I don't know but what I will, sir."

Uncle Boley went into the back room, which was his parlor, kitchen and bedroom all together, and came back with a revolver and belt. He sat with the belt over his knee, the big weapon in its chafed holster resting on the floor, saying nothing at all

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 about it for a good many minutes. He seemed to be considering something, his hand on the leather in a touch like a caress.

"Here's a gun, Texas, that a friend of mine used to pack, the best man I ever knew, and the best friend I ever had. He died with it on him, and his widder give it to me. Just feel the weight of that gun, will you?"

"It is a man's gun, sir," said Texas, drawing it from the holster with hand that told it was no stranger to such an operation.

"That gun belonged to Ed McCoy, Sallie McCoy's father. He died with it on him; the man that killed him never give him a show to use it."

"Miss Sallie is an orphan, then?"

"Half orphant; her mother's livin'. They've got the best house in Cottonwood, and the purtiest place, but that's all they have got. Yes, sir, Sallie she needed the money them fellers beat her out of to-day; it'd 'a' been like a rain in a drouth to them. I don't suppose anything else but the need of it'd 'a' drove Sallie to go out there in public and take a hand in that ropin'. She's a lady, that girl, is, from the heels up."

"It's a scan'lous shame that she was beaten out of it! Do you suppose she'd accept—"

"I s'pose she'd claw a mile of hide off of your

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 skelp if you was to mention acceptin' money to her!"

"As payment for the use of her horse, sir," Texas explained, his homely face burning from the old man's vehement correction.

"She'll git on till school opens. She's got a job for then, the first she ever was obliged to take. When Ed was alive they wallered in money, and they'd 'a' had plenty to last 'em all their lives if they'd 'a' got a square deal. They was beat out of a lot of money; I'll tell you how it was.

"Ed McCoy was the man that started this town. He was the first man that ever drove a herd of cattle up from Texas to load here, and he done it when other cowmen said it couldn't be done and come out on it. He made a pile of money at it the first few years, but when them Texas cattle begun to spread the fever up here, and the cowmen on this range got to kickin', Ed he quit drivin' and started up the cattle business with a man name of Henry Stott, a kind of a half-breed Dutchman with eyes in his head like a hog.

"Well, sir, a drouth hit us here about three years ago and nearly cleaned up this range, and McCoy and Stott they bought at their own price right and left. All the money Ed had went into stock. They must 'a' had five or six thousand head that fall when the rains set in and the grass popped up. It

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 looked like the biggest thing Ed ever had done, for he was the brains of it; Stott wasn't nothing but the guts.

"Well, sir, they found Ed McCoy dead out there on the prairie one day that fall, shot through the back of the head. Stott was away in Kansas City with a shipment, and it never has been found out who done that low-down job. Anyhow, to cut it off short, when it come to arrangin' and settlin' up what Ed left, by golly it come to pass he didn't leave nothin' but the house here in Cottonwood. No, sir, Henry Stott he brought out a note showin' Ed owed him sixty thousand dollars, borrowed money.

"All signed up by Ed, and all as straight as a die, the lawyers said. But the widder and Sallie they didn't have no track of that money, didn't know anything about the deal. What did Ed do with it if he got it? Gambled it off, some said. Well, I know better; Ed never set foot in a gamblin' house as long as I knew him, and that was back in Mezoury twenty years before I come out here."

"But the money was gone, sir?"

"It was gone if it ever was paid in, son. I tell you, as I've told many a man face to face, and as I've told that hog-eyed Henry Stott face to face, it never was paid. That note was either a forgery, or else it was signed by Ed for something else and

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 filled in after he was dead. Sallie and her ma brought suit, but the court upheld Stott, and that ended it, I guess, till the judgment day. But Ed like to see Henry Stott's face when he stands up before the throne! My-y-y Lord, I'd like to see that dam' Dutchman's face!"

"Is he still around here?"

"Yes, he's here, as big as a stuffed buzzard. He's got a bank down on the corner of the square, and money to burn. But he don't burn any of it, nor hand any of it out where it belongs, as fur as anybody ever saw. And this here's pore old Ed's gun. It never was drawed except in the right, and it never was put back in the leather without honor. It'd be a credit to any man to pack that gun."

"It sure would be, sir."

"Yes, and I'm keepin' it by me chancin' I may be called on to go out and use it one of these days. I'm the man of that family now, you might say, though I ain't no kin. I can shoot, too, I can sling a gun as quick as any man of forty-seven you can name!"

Texas was looking across the street at four men who had come lounging along the plank sidewalk throwing inquiring glances toward the little shop, talking among themselves in low voices. They were all too cautious and watchful for ordinary

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 business or pleasure, something suppressed and alert about them which told Texas at once that they were looking for him.

At the angle that he was looking through the door Uncle Boley could not see them. He started when Texas drew his feet back and sat up stiffly, seeming to grow several inches as his muscles set to meet the emergency of life or death which he knew he should soon be called upon to face. He believed the gang that had been sent out to hunt him had not seen him yet. He got up and stood aside a little from the open door.

"What's the matter?" Uncle Boley inquired, leaning to see.

Texas motioned silently toward the street, his eyes on Ed McCoy's gun with a flame in them such as burns from a man's soul when he rises to the sublimest heights of courage. He felt that his hour had come, but he was ready.

"It's the mayor's gang—they're after you!" the old man said.

Texas reached out for the revolver. Uncle Boley strapped the belt round the waist of his new-found friend, his hands trembling in the strain of the situation.

"Go out the back door—I'll hold 'em here till you're gone!" he said.

"You mean for me to run, sir?"

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 "Well no, Texas, I don't mean for you to just run. But they's four of them fellers, and ever' one of 'em's—"

"If there were forty of them, sir, you couldn't ask me to run!"

The old man looked at him, a mist coming into his quick blue eyes.

"No, I couldn't even throw a hint, Texas."

Texas tightened the belt, snapped out the gun, changed the cartridges, working so fast that the old man gasped in admiration. He smiled, and held out his hand to Uncle Boley.

"I wish to thank you for your many kindnesses to me, a stranger in your door, sir," he said. His voice was as light and steady, his eyes as eager, as if he was about to mount his horse and ride away on some pleasant adventure.

Uncle Boley pressed the young stranger's hand—a stranger grown suddenly as dear to him as a son returned from his far wanderings—and Texas turned with quick step and passed out into the street.

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HERE were certain precautions to be observed in Cottonwood in killing a man, for no matter how worthless or obscure a man might be in that town, nobody knew what powerful friends or relatives might be uncovered elsewhere by his sudden death. Friends, relatives, money in the family, political influence, sometimes meant the utmost penalty of the law for his slayer. So it was a matter of common prudence to have the plea of self-defense to stand on, with witnesses to maintain it.

For that reason alone the four gun-slingers did not pull out weapons and kill Hartwell the moment that he stepped into the street. A quarrel had to be provoked first, and the victim badgered into putting his hand toward his gun, or making a start as if he intended to do it. Some shadow of justification must be contrived. Many a man had been killed on the cattle-ranges for starting to take his handkerchief out of his pocket. That was the beginning of the cowboy fashion of wearing that article around the neck.

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 Texas stood a moment framed in the open door, in the manner of a man undecided which way he will turn when he has no definite business ahead of him. The four men across the street scattered out of the close formation that they had maintained as they came along, as if they expected hostilities to open immediately. Texas did not betray any evidence that he was even aware of their existence, much less their presence not more than sixty feet distant, where they stood convicted of their intention by their flighty start.

There was a telegraph-pole in the edge of the sidewalk a little way along the street from Uncle Boley's door, the planks trimmed to fit round it. Texas sauntered along to it with the deliberate air of a man who had the night ahead of him, leaned his back against it, and began to roll a cigarette. Two of the mayor's committee started across the street, the other two shifting down to a stand diagonally across from the spot where Texas stood.

Texas ran his eye over them, and kept it on them sharply, for all that he seemed engrossed in the task of contriving his cigarette. They had the appearance of men such as stood lookout over faro games, and worked as bouncers in the rough resorts common to that country and time. Three of them wore white shirts and the little narrow-brimmed derby hats which were popular among the frontier

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 gamblers of that day. The other was a composition of cowboy and sport. Texas recalled having seen him at the show.

The pair approaching Texas crossed over to the sidewalk a little way below him, where they stood waiting for their companions to join them. These latter came over in the cautious manner of men stalking game, walking two yards apart, one a little in advance of the other, watching Texas for the first movement of hostile demonstration.

People in shop doors and on the street knew at once what these preparations portended. Many battles had been fought out in the open on that ground, frequently with more damage to those not engaged than to the principals. It had come to the point where nobody took chances, and with this gathering of the battle-cloud before their doors the storekeepers retreated to the backs of their shops, and put something solid between them and the street; pedestrians dodged behind buildings and into the shelter of open doors. In an emergency like that a sod house was the most popular structure within reach.

One of the men came up within three yards of Texas, watching him at every step as closely as he would have watched a trapped bear.

"Sport, there'll be a train along here in twenty minutes, and you're goin' to take it," he announced.

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 Texas glanced up from the contemplation of a match that had failed to ignite against the telegraph-pole, with a look in his face as if he had been philosophizing on its weakness, and drawing comparisons between it and the failure of a friend in the hour of necessity.

"Were you addressin' me, sir?" he asked.

"I was addressin' you, pardner. You take to the middle of the road and trot ahead of us, and you make a start right now!"

Texas tried the match again, looked at the head of it with a little cloud as of sorrow and disappointment in his face, as if the undoubted discovery of its unworthiness had hurt him deeply. He stood a moment, the unlit cigarette in his lips, his head bent a trifle, as if thinking more of the match than the man.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm not ready to leave this evenin'."

Indifferent, unmoved, as he seemed, Texas was set like a hair-trigger, watching every man of them, the match in his fingers, his hand just a few inches above the butt of his gun.

Heads were put cautiously around corners of buildings and out of doors to investigate this delay and silence in the street. The spokesman of the gunners' committee came half a step nearer.

It was not meant that Texas should take the

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 train out of Cottonwood that evening, or ever again. The command to take the road and trot ahead of them had been given with the accent of insult to make it gall deeper, in the belief that it would be resented by the man of spirit whom they knew Texas to be. His failure to fly up all afire as they had expected, and give them what they would call a justification for their deed was a circumstance upon which they had not counted.

Inside his little shop Uncle Boley felt the strain of waiting. He hoped that Texas had not changed his mind after coming in sight of them and given them the dodge; he hoped it sincerely, for the honor of the gun that he wore. Unable to stand the uncertainty of the situation any longer, he went to the door and stood there boldly, his long beard like a white apron down his vest.

"I'm sorry to refuse," said Texas, and with that word flipped the unburned match from his fingers.

At that little movement the man in front of Texas threw his hand to his weapon. Uncle Boley always said that he lost track of things from that point. But he was certain that the man who started to draw his gun never got any farther with it than just clear enough of the holster to let it fall when Texas nipped him through the wrist-bone.

There was a good deal of smoke and a lot of noise around the telegraph-pole where Texas stood

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 with his back to it, and Uncle Boley was so excited that he found himself out on the sidewalk, right in the middle of things, when he got hold of the swift-running events again.

The man who had started to sling down on Texas was holding his crippled arm, making no effort to pick up his gun with his whole hand. The other three were not in sight, but some shots came from the corner of a building fifty yards down the street, doing no damage.

Texas was loading his gun, his cigarette in his lips, quite calm and undisturbed. There were two little hard hats on the sidewalk where the three men had stood, a hole in each of them that Uncle Boley said he could have shoved his fist through.

The crowd came filling into the street as silently as water, not a word in any man's mouth. The shot hats were picked up, the press swallowed the man with the shattered wrist, and people with white faces and big, wondering eyes stood off a little way in a ring around Texas, with a strained, fearful respect in their attitude, as if ready to burst away and run at his slightest movement.

Uncle Boley pushed his way through to Texas. The young man had put his pistol in the holster, and was standing with his head bent a little, in his thoughtful, contemplative pose, as if bowed with regret for the necessity of the swift adjustment

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 he had made in that unfair attempt to take his life. Uncle Boley said afterward that he knew Texas was not hit, because he didn't stand on his legs like a man with a bullet in him. Uncle Boley had seen too many of them in that fix to make a mistake.

"You got 'em, ever' dern one of 'em!" Uncle Boley said, his old eyes lively with the pride that seemed to lift him and make him young again.

"No, sir, I got mostly hats," Texas replied, his eye-warming smile kindling a glimmer for a moment on his lips.

"Yes, and that crowd'll know who to monkey with next time, I bet you a button!" the old man said, turning to the people round him, giving it off with impressive authority. "Come on in, Texas, gol dern 'em!"

It was a high and mighty moment for Uncle Boley when he opened the crowd on the sidewalk to his little shop door, Texas coming along behind, a hand on the old man's shoulder with something in the touch of unbounded gentleness and affection.

A commotion in the crowd caused them to stop at the door and look back. Texas's right hand hovered over his revolver in that ready, watchful poise that he had held when he stood with his back to the telegraph-pole, the match in his fingers.

But the gun-slingers were not rallying to battle again. It was the mayor and the city marshal.

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 The mayor stopped near the pole, where there was a wide blot of blood on the boards of the sidewalk, a trail running off from it marking the way the crippled man had gone.

"They didn't get him!" said the mayor with a curse.

"He's over there," said somebody. The mayor looked and saw Texas waiting with his old whiskered friend for the outcome of the mayor's miscarried plot.

"Arrest that man!" the mayor ordered, giving it as a general command to the public.

"You let that kid alone, Johnnie," said a soft, calm voice behind Texas.

Texas looked to see who had lifted a word for him in that place, where every face expressed either hate of him or fear. It was the lady in the green velvet dress, her little silver trinkets and ornaments white against the rich cloth in the blur that was coming into the passing day. Texas put his hand to his hat in grateful acknowledgment. She smiled as the wind moved the long hair on his temples.

"I saw it all," she said, speaking to the mayor with a cold, commanding directness. "You let that kid alone!"

A sneer jerked the mayor's face, which grew paler at her word. He was a slender man of medium

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 height, with a clerkly fairness of skin, fair hair cut close to his small head, small ears pressed tight against his skull. But a man with something behind the mask of his commonplace face, something ungrasped at the first look, which grew elusive as one studied it and groped to define it; a something that left a sense of disquietude in the mind, a feeling that this man would come again into the business or the tragedy of one's days, and for no good purpose ever.

He turned his back to her with a quick, uplifting shake of the head, as of defiance, or threat of future adjustment, pushed into the crowd and disappeared. With another smile, and a direct look into his eyes that brought the blood to Hartwell's lean cheeks, the velvet lady followed after the mayor. Uncle Boley touched his young friend's arm; they went in and shut the door.

"You showed them light-heels!" Uncle Boley exulted. "Yes, and I'll bet four bits Johnnie Mackey will have to do some tall lookin' around before he can hire another crowd to tackle that job, by granger!"

"It was uncommonly generous for that young lady to speak up for me," said Texas reflectively, still in that mood of thoughtful depression that seemed to have settled over him like a cloud.

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 "I don't know who that Fannie Goodnight is, but she's got a rope on Johnnie Mackey's leg. Yes, and I'll bet four bits she can flop him quicker'n she did that shadder of a steer any time she wants to. That white-eyed son-of-a-gun's a-scairt of her; he wilted like a frosted turnip when she dressed him down."

"He did seem to act like he'd taken orders from her before. Well, sir, do you reckon I'll be taken up for what I had to do?"

"They can't take a man up in Cottonwood for defendin' his life," said Uncle Boley, a sort of triumphant pride in the immunities of his town. "The thing's settled as fur as any lawin's goin' to come in. I reckon a hundred people could be called up that saw them fellers crowd that fight on you."

"I hope they could," sighed Texas.

"I was standin' right there in that door when that feller made that pass to sling his gun down on you."

Uncle Boley chuckled at the recollection.

"You moved so dang swift I couldn't tell how you done it, but I can swear till the cows come home that he made the first break toward a gun."

"I'm glad to hear you say it, sir. That young lady remarked that she saw it, too. Two reliable

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 witnesses ought to get a man off from a little fuss like that."

Texas unbelted the gun and offered it to the old man.

"That's a good and a true gun, sir. It came up to what was expected of it, like a friend a man can depend on."

"Keep it; buckle it on you and wear it, son. I've been waitin' for a man to come along that was big enough to stand up under Ed McCoy's gun. It's yours now."

A flush of pride came over the good, homely face of the young man as he drew the big gun from the holster and laid its long barrel in his palm. He stood looking at it with such a tenderness in his eyes as might have gladdened a woman's heart.

"I hope I'll never be called on to sling this gun down on any man again," he said, his voice earnest and low, "and I never will draw it except to defend my life or what belongs to me, or the life or property of somebody not able to fight for himself."

It was as if he pronounced the words of a vow, or the spirit of Ed McCoy had come to confront him, demanding a pledge of his worthiness.

"And I'm a goin' to turn my face around, sir, and see if there isn't some justice to be had for those left behind by the man that used to wear this

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 gun. If the day ever comes that I have to draw it in that cause. I'll use it till I drop with it in my hand, so help me God!"

"Amen!" said Uncle Boley, his head bowed as if he had listened to a prayer.

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UTSIDE Uncle Boley's window the crowd had thinned away; traffic was running in the street again as if tragedy had not stood there a little while before and paralyzed its stream. From the heart of the town, two squares away, the sound of music came through the twilight.

"I can take you around and interduce you to Sallie and her mother now," Uncle Boley said. "I tell you, Texas, a feller purty near has to come with his papers in his hand before I'll do that much for him."

"I'll warrant you he does, sir, and I'm mighty proud to have you trust me as worthy of the honor. But I don't feel like I ought to go fresh from a qua'l and a brawl into that little lady's presence, sir, and take her by the hand."

"She'll be glad to see you, and she'll be keen to understand. You done it for her, Texas. If you never had 'a' stood up for her rights to-day this thing never would 'a' happened."

"To-day!" said Texas musingly, reviewing the events which had filled his few hours in Cotton-

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 wood. "Yes, it was to-day, wasn't it? Sir, it seems to me like I have been here a hundred years!"

"I want you to wear Ed's gun when you meet 'em. That's the biggest recommend I can give you—that I thought you fit to pack that gun."

"I'll have to get me a coat, sir, and some other things. I'm not presentable to ladies to-night. I beg you, sir, to put it off another day."

"Well, we can't go to-morrow night, 'cause there's an icercream festibul at the Methodist church, and Sallie and her ma they're head and heels into it. But I tell you what we can do: we can go to the festibul."

"I'll get trimmed up a little for it."

"Trimmed up?" Uncle Boley looked him over with questioning stare. "I don't see what more a man needs when he's got a good pair of boots and his hair combed."

"Customs differ in different places, sir. To-morrow I'll have to see if I can find something to do, Uncle Boley. I can't afford to be idle many days."

Uncle Boley sat thoughtfully silent a while, gathering his beard in his hands like a sheaf of grain.

"The association wants to hire two or three trail-riders, I hear," he said at last.

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 "Trail-riders? You don't mean men to carry mail, sir?"

"No, I mean trail-riders, just plain trail-riders."

"I don't believe we had 'em in Taixas, sir."

"No, I guess you didn't. Trail-ridin' is a new profession—it sprung up in this country in the last two years, since the cattlemen all went into the association to keep the Texas fever out of the Arkansas Valley range. Well, you bein' from Texas, maybe they wouldn't give you a job."

"Has it got something to do with keeping Taixas cattle out of this part of the country, sir?"

"It's got all to do with it. You know them Texas herds drops fever ticks around here sometimes as thick as beans, and the association's been trvin' to git Congress to pass a law settin' a quarantine line ag'in 'em. Congress ain't took no action on it, but the association's set certain trails for them Texas cattle to foiler when they drive 'em up to this country to ship, and the trail-riders is the fellers that sees they take to 'em and keep to 'em."

"I understand it, sir."

"You can't blame the cattlemen on this range if they have laid out trails that takes Texas cattle to hell-and-gone around and nearly wears 'em out before they git to where they're goin'. Texas fever's cost 'em millions on this range in the past five or six years, and it's either go out of business,

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 playing for money in any place shall be instantly suspended from their station.

10. "The police agents are required to give in to their chief of brigade an account of how their time is passed.

11. "The first infringement of the regulations herein laid down will be punished by a mulct of two days' pay: in case of a recurrence of the offence this mulct shall be doubled, besides the addition of a severe punishment should that be judged requisite.

12. "The chief of the brigade is especially charged to watch over the execution of these regulations. This is also particularly recommended to the chiefs of detachments who receive his orders, and should make their reports daily, as to what they have done conformably therewith, as well as of those they may have given to those agents under them.

"Given at the prefecture of police. 1818.

"The Minister of State and Préfet of Police.

(Signed)

"By his Excellency, the Secretary-general of the Prefecture.

(Signed)

Under M. Delaveau, I wished to add a few articles to the above; but the rigid préfet, who filled Paris and the suburbs with his ambulatory roulette tables, refused to give his sanction to a regulation which anathematized gambling. I had also classed amongst the duties of my agents, the right of sending away from the Quai de l’EcoleÉcole [sic], the Champs ElyséesÉlysées [sic], and all public places, those herds of wretches, of all ranks and ages, who abandon and prostitute themselves to a shameful and disgusting purpose, which seems to have in some measure emigrated with the Jesuits. I often begged for the repression of these disorders, but Messrs. Delaveau and Duplessis constantly turned a deaf ear to it; in


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 or turn the range over to the Texas cowmen, or shut 'em out. Well, the association figgers they'll make more money by shuttin' 'em out."

Uncle Boley chuckled. He had many recollections of the clashes which had come between Texas and Kansas cattlemen over the quarantine trails.

"What do the trail-riders do, sir, if the Taixas cowmen refuse to keep to the trails set for them to drive over?"

"They pass the word back to headquarters down on Malcolm Duncan's ranch, and men enough's sent down to turn 'em, by granger! They have some purty sharp argyments sometimes."

"A man would need a good horse for that job," Texas reflected.

"Yes, he would, or for most any job, but some of them triflin' things I asked you about and you said you couldn't do. But I guess that could be fixed up, all right. If Malcolm Duncan gives you a job he'll trust you for a horse. They pay them riders eighty dollars a month and found. A man could mighty soon buy a horse out of that."

So they decided, after talking it over fully, that trail-riding offered the best opening for a man of Texas Hartwell's limited business experience in that country. In the morning Texas was to put in his application with Duncan, president of the Cattle Raisers' Association. In the meantime, for a

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 good clean bed and a welcome like home, Uncle Boley recommended the Woodbine Hotel, kept by Malvina Smith and her mother, Mrs. Goodloe.

"Ollie Noggle, our head-leadin' barber, and several more of our professional men boards there regular, and I take my meals there myself on Sundays," he explained. "It ain't so much of a hotel to look at on the outside, for I don't like the green Malvina had it painted after she got her divorce bill from Zebedee."

"Green's for hope, they say, sir," said Texas, with that queer half-smile of his.

"Yes," said Uncle Boley, wondering what it would take to make him laugh, "and I guess she's goin' to git her hopes fulfilled, all right. Ollie Noggle seems to be leadin' peaceful and quiet. I guess she'll land him before the summer's through. The old lady she'll kind of show off to you a day or two, proud as all git-out over that divorce paper Malvina's got. It's the first one anybody in Cottonwood ever got through a court, and that old lady she shows it off like it was a deed to a ranch."

"It's a queer kind of thing to have a family pride in."

"Yes, I never had much use for divorce bills myself, but it's a curiosity to some folks. The neighbors is as much to blame as the old lady, and more. They used to go there in droves at first to see it.

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 and set around and gab about every other thing in the lands below the firmament. But all the time they was eatchin' to see that dang fool paper, and the old lady was as tickled as if she was takin' snuff."

"You don't tell me!"

"Yes, and she'd let 'em eatch and squirm till she got 'em worked up so they felt like they was settin' over steam, then she'd grin her old yeller teeth as big as a horse's, and say: 'Show 'em your divorce paper, Malvina.

"That sure was a divertin' kind of a game."

"Yes, and she'll try to work your curiosity up to the blisterin' heat that way, too. Well, when she'd say that, Malvina she'd blush and simmer, and git up and go to the press and take that old fool paper out from between the ironed sheets where she kep' it from wrinklin', and hand it around like it was the Declaration of Independence, with John Hancock's name on it you could read forty feet. Huh! derned old fool thing for a passel of women to glommer over, wasn't it?"

"I expect it was because every married lady may have a secret longing to own a document of the same kind herself some day, sir."

"Oh, you git out! I've knowed women you couldn't separate from their old men with a maul and wedge."

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 "They are exceptions, I have no doubt, sir."

"Yes, a notion like that ortn't keep a man from marryin'. He ort to marry young, and stay married, even if he has to do it over a couple of times."

"I'm not skeptical on the subject of marriage, or of the fidelity of the ladies, sir. I was merely remarkin'. What became of Zebedee, or what did he do to occasion the divorce?"

"Zebedee he went down to the Nation about three years ago to look around. He never come back, and he never wrote. Malvina got tired of dependin' on him to let her hear whe'er he was livin' or dead or married to a squaw, and she got her bill. Can't blame Malvina, she always had to make the livin' anyhow, and she's a real purty little chunk of a woman, but I never did agree that her red hair matched that green paint on the hotel."

So, with the history of Malvina Smith like an open book in his hand, Texas left Uncle Boley for the night. His first thought was to seek a store and buy himself a coat, for he was reluctant to appear before even the red-haired holder of the only divorce paper in Cottonwood in his shirt-sleeves. Shirt-sleeves were well enough for business hours, but out of business hours a gentleman ought to have a coat. That was the opinion of Texas, and all the usages in the world to the contrary could not have bent him from it an inch.

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 Texas walked warily through the main street of Cottonwood, where gasoline-lamps on posts made a very good illumination, together with the brightness that radiated from the windows. He kept his hand hovering over his gun, and turned his head this way and that, like a man in the enemy's country where he believes every hand hostile.

He knew himself to be a man marked for destruction. That sentence he had read in the mayor's exclamation of angry disappointment when he found that Hartwell had not been slain, and the look of his eyes the moment that he turned and hid himself in the throng. There would be strain and disquietude, high tension and uncertainty, every hour that he remained in Cottonwood. He considered whether it would not be the best and wisest thing, for his own safety and peace, to leave the town at once.

Then there came flashing back to him the picture of Sallie McCoy as she sat there in her saddle when he stood alone after thrashing the mayor. The warm feeling of pride that had stirred in him then like a heroic resolution expanded over his body again. He felt that the unspoken message that had passed from eye to eye between them in that moment had been a pledge of some undreamed, embryonic thing of the future, still nebulous and misty, still not understood. But of something rest-

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 ful to the buffeted soul and weary body, like the "shadow of a rock in a desert land."

His feet felt planted in that town; it was indeed as if he had been there many years, and had become a figure in the place. He could not go; he could not turn away, at least not so far that he could not ride back in a day or two, like the cowboys from the range around. He felt that he had been directed to Cottonwood, and into the adventures of this day, to become the instrument of a good and noble purpose.

That girl's father had carried this weapon that pressed against his thigh in the assurance of defense, like the hand of a trusted friend in the dark. Surely it was not merely the chance of a day that had put the weapon in his keeping; surely the words which he had spoken when the old man gave him the title of ownership to it had not sprung out of an empty heart or boastful mind. Time had shaped him to a purpose in that land; circumstances had placed in his hand the key to unlock mysteries, the power to adjust wrongs. The events of that day had been written into his life's program a long time in advance.

Texas appeared at the Woodbine Hotel a little while after the soft summer darkness had engulfed Cottonwood, its crudities and its sins, wearing a black coat which gave him a very professional ap-

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 pearance above the middle thigh. This coat he had found in a store called the Racket, kept by a Jew who wore spectacles with thick lenses, and was a very worm of a man in his apparent humility.

The length of this garment—it was of the style called Prince Albert, much favored even to this day in Missouri and Arkansas by country barristers and barbers and negro preachers—seemed to increase Hartwell's height by several inches, and gave him a dignified and decent appearance, indeed. It had the added advantage of a screen for his revolver, thus taking away from him the appearance of challenge that his armament seemed to inspire. Texas was pleased with it, the fit of it in the shoulders, the comfortable feeling of being dressed that it gave him, in spite of the great sweat that it threw him into, for it was a still, warm night.

There was nobody in the office of the Woodbine Hotel, but through the open door leading to the dining-room Texas could see a party gathered at supper around a long table. The cackle and chatter proclaimed a celebration of some kind, which he was reluctant to interrupt. As he waited for somebody to appear and inquire into his wants, he saw a small bell on the show-case, such as teachers once used to call up classes, and pasted inside the glass a card with "Wring" written in ink as weak and inassertive as an old person's voice.

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 Mrs. Goodloe answered the bell. There was no mistaking her after Uncle Boley's mention of her teeth. Texas never had seen teeth to compare with those in any human mouth. They were as broad as thumb-nails, yellow as old, and a shortage in the goods of which her upper lip had been cut had left their owner without means of concealing them save by an effort which brought on a spasmodic convulsion of the face, alarming and distressing to behold.

This operation Mrs. Goodloe seemed to consider a necessary preliminary to speech. It could be effected only by pulling down the short upper lip, and that tension in turn tightened the skin on her large nose and drew it down from her eyes, giving Mrs. Goodloe a most startled and astonished look.

She stood in the door, her face arranged in this manner, saying nothing, but looking Texas over as if in doubt whether he was cura or cowboy. Her face was red, and sweat glistened on it, as if she had put down some violent task to answer his summons. He inquired about accommodations, mentioning Uncle Boley.

At the mention of Uncle Boley Mrs. Goodloe smiled. It came on her so suddenly, and was so vast in extent, that she looked as if she had ripened and burst, like a touch-me-not, and was about to sow a crop of teeth.

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 "Yes, we can put you up, but I'll have to ask you to wait a little while before I can fix you up a room. My daughter's just been married, and we're givin' an infare supper."

"There's no hurry at all, ma'am; don't interrupt the festivities on my account. I'll just sit out here and read the paper, if you don't mind?"

She bustled about a bit, pleased with his appearance and the sound of his voice, so gentle and soft compared to the high, loud key of the usual cowboy, and got him a later paper than the one on the counter.

"We get the Kansas City papers the next day after they're printed now," she told him, with pride in the metropolitan stamp that it gave Cottonwood; "they come through in a hurry since they put on the cannon-ball."

She hurried back to the feast. Texas arranged himself to read the paper, the clash of cutlery on dish, the mingled voices in loud hilarity, attesting to the enjoyment that was under way within.

From where he sat he could see the head of the table, the bride and groom facing him, Malvina unmistakable on account of her red hair. At the corner of the table on the bride's other hand was the little round minister whom Texas had seen at the fair.

There were ten or a dozen other guests, and they

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 were eating boiled ham and mashed potatoes, and fried chicken heaped in a great brown mountain on a tremendous dish. This dish Mrs. Goodloe was carrying up the line. As she passed from guest to guest Texas could hear her say, in unvarying formula, with unvarying accent of generous invitation and urging, her voice as plain as if she stood behind his chair:

"Won't you have some of this here fried chicken? Won't you have some of this here fried chicken?"

She had almost reached the groom, known to Texas at the first glance as the head-leadin' barber whom Uncle Boley had mentioned, by his big black mustache, his narrow face and oiled hair; Mrs. Goodloe was even approaching him, when there came in from the street a man whose demeanor and appearance at once drew the attention of Texas from the wedding banquet.

This was a bristling, big, bony man, sour-faced, red-eyed. His shirt was as red as the grates of inferno, and his mustache was red under his long, ill-favored nose. He had the appearance of one who had come in from a long journey, and there was a sullenness in his small eyes as if he sat up nights to nurse a grudge. He wore a white silk handkerchief around his neck; on his boots Mexican spurs with rowels as big as silver dollars.

"Ain't nobody tendin' to business in this joint?"

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 he inquired, his voice rough in that hoarseness that much raw liquor puts into a man naturally pitched in a low key.

"They're inside there havin' an infare party. If you'll hit that bell—"

"Whose infare party?"

The man turned to Texas with such ferocity that it gave him the appearance of being the traveling opponent of infare parties, a sort of walking delegate for the suppression of infare parties, and the elimination of such light frivolity from the somber business of life.

"Not mine, sir," said Texas, resenting the man's front, and his air of accusation and blame.

"Whose in the hell, then?"

"Smith was her name. She's the lady that runs the ranch."

The stranger stepped back from the counter and looked into the dining-room. Mrs. Goodloe had reached the groom with the platter of fried chicken, to which he was helping himself with great elegance and liberality, spearing deep into the pieces with his fork, pushing them free from the tines with his handy thumb.

There the stranger stood a little while, harsh of outline, the dust of long roads on his red shirt, a big gun dangling at his side.

Mrs. Goodloe had assisted the bride to the deli-

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 cacy, which she bore high on her shoulder like a hod, when the man walked into the dining-room, his spurs clicking on the floor, his hat-brim pushed up flat against the crown as if a strong wind struck him in the face.

And by the hush that fell, like the silence of a broken fiddle-string, Texas Hartwell knew that the stranger was Zebedee Smith, the man who had gone to the Nation to look around.

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EXAS put down the paper and went over to the door to see how the situation was going to untangle. It was a complication such as he never had heard of, and was curious to know what view Zebedee Smith was going to express. Texas did not believe that Mr. Ollie Noggle would rise to any remarkable height in the discussion, basing his judgment entirely on the barber's loud and frequent laughter.

There was no laughter in the groom's face now as Mrs. Goodloe put down the dish of chicken with an exclamation that sounded like somebody taking the lid off a hot kettle. His face was white, and he had hold of the table as if to keep himself from falling under it. Malvina's eyes were big, as if she strained them to convince herself that it was the flesh and bone of Zeb Smith that confronted her, and not his dusty spirit from some dusty realm beyond this world.

"Why, Zeb Smith!" said the minister, rising from his chair. "Where in this world did you come from?"

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 Zeb had stopped a few feet from the end of the table, where he stood looking fiercely at Malvina.

"Couldn't even marry a man!" he said.

His voice was as hoarse as the hot winds, something in it so suggestive of scorching vitals and burning passages that one felt impelled to offer him water.

Mrs. Goodloe recovered herself quickly, resentment of this intrusion clearing her mind of surprise. She went around the table and confronted Zeb, her arms bare to the elbows, the recollection of old indignities hot in her face.

"You git out of here, Zeb Smith!" she commanded. "You don't own a stick in this place and you ain't got no right to set your foot in it! You never was no good and you never will be, you sneakin' old devil!"

"I'll show you who's got a right and who ain't!" Zeb threatened. "A man's home's where his wife lives. That's the law. And here I come home and find my wife settin' at the side of a feller she thinks she's married to, eatin' a infare supper with a passel of people that's aigged her on into bigamy. I'll make you smoke—I'll make ever'one of you smoke!"

The barber had slipped down in his chair until he sat on the middle of his spine. He appeared to have shrunk in upon himself to about half his

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 original size, and he was clinging desperately to the table to keep his head above the water of complete disgrace.

Malvina looked at the preacher, a pathetic appeal in her eyes, and the preacher turned to Smith.

"Why, Smith, she's divorced from you, regularly divorced," he said. "The requirements of the law have been met with; you have no claim on her whatever."

"Ain't I?" Zeb wanted to know, a darker threat than before in his attitude and word. He advanced to the foot of the table. "I'm a goin' to walk up the middle of that table and kick that crock of clabber between the eyes, then I'm a goin' to smash this joint to kindlin' and take that woman by the hair of the head and whip her through this town with a blacksnake! I'll show her how she can disgrace me and drag my name in the dirt!"

He made a move as if to set foot on the table. The guests at that end rose in panic, and retreated to the wall, where they stood looking at Smith, afraid of him, but their curiosity to know what he was going to do holding them there at the risk of his violence. The preacher went to him and tried to reason it out, making mention of the regularity of the proceedings, bearing down on the divorce.

"Divorce nothin'! I don't believe she ever got any divorce!" Zeb swore.

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 Mrs. Goodloe snapped him up on that like a fish taking a fly.

"Show him your divorce paper, Malvina!"

Trembling, but eager to vindicate herself, Malvina left the table. Texas stood in the door watching it all, ashamed for the bridegroom, who sat there and allowed such gross insults to be heaped upon himself, his bride, their guests.

Malvina came back in three jumps, the paper in her trembling hand. The minister passed it on to Smith, and Mrs. Goodloe made a noise of exultation that sounded as if she tried to crow.

Smith ran his red eyes over the document, grunting now and then. When he had made a speedy end of his inspection he looked hard at the bride, who was standing with her hand on her new husband's shoulder as if to assure him that she would die at his feet before harm should come to one hair of that oiled and scented head.

"It ain't worth hell room!" said Smith. He tore the precious paper across, threw the pieces on the floor, set his spurred heel on them with stamp of contempt.

"Sir—" the minister began.

"You can't divorce a man without servin' notice on him," Smith declared, and with such an amount of judicial severity, judicial certainty, in his tone

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 that many of them feared for the reputation of Malvina on the spot.

"It won't stick before no court in the land, and I'm goin' to bust it wide open!" Smith declared, looking about defiantly.

Texas saw at a glance how the matter stood in Smith's intention. He had come back to discover more prosperity than he ever had been on speaking terms with before in his life; he saw ahead of him a season of ease and consequence in Cottonwood as the husband of its foremost business woman, and he believed the wedding was only a form, as far as matters had gone, that could be brushed aside.

"Ye-e-es, you'll bust a hamestring gittin' out of here, you onery, low-lived, suck-aig whelp!"

Mrs. Goodloe drew a little nearer to him as she delivered this, shaking her fist close to his sullen nose. The groom drew himself up in his chaii a little at this hopeful demonstration.

"Git out o' here, you bum!" he said.

But not very forcibly. It was too plainly weak, in fact, as if he had no confidence in it himself, to act as anything more than an enraging barb under the tough skin of Zebedee Smith.

Then followed a spry little game of hop and dodge between Smith and Mrs. Goodloe, that fair lady's teeth bared in front of him like a rampant

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 lion's as he made little starts and snarls toward the groom.

Mrs. Goodloe was the only person in the room who was not afraid of Smith to the roots of the hair, for it was not a gathering of fighting people. Texas judged that they were of the professional class mainly, such as saddle-makers, horseshoers, and grocers.

"Let me to him!" said Smith, his hand on his gun.

"You clear out of here before I scald the hide off o' you!" Mrs. Goodloe warned.

She laid hold of the large coffee-pot that stood like a portly guest at the right hand of her plate, and attempted, earnestly and valiantly, to pour its steaming liquor down Zeb Smith's boots. He jumped back as a stream of the aromatic fluid spouted toward him, and saved his legs, but caught it on the toes.

Mrs. Goodloe pushed her advantage, crowding Smith back toward the door where Texas stood. The groom lifted in his place as Smith retreated, like a turtle putting his head up behind a log. Mrs. Goodloe made a long swing with the pot and caught Smith with a good hot stream across the legs above his boots.

Smith let a roar out of him that made the lemon pies on the table quake, and sent the rising courage

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 of the groom down again with his long body half under the table. Smith drove at the coffee-pot and kicked it high out of Mrs. Goodloe's hand. It fell near the minister, who at once made a jump for the door.

Smith was standing in the steaming confusion, his big gun in his hand, as the minister reached Texas.

"For Heaven's sake, do something—do something!" he appealed.

"Sir, if you wish it," Texas replied.

Texas walked gravely into the room. But under his dignified coat, under the solemn mask of his face, he was not one-tenth as serious as he seemed.

Inwardly, he regretted having to spoil the fun, for it was the best show he had seen in many a day, and he would have liked, above everything, to see how far Smith would go. He laid his hand on Smith's shoulder as he stood there swinging his gun, as if limbering his arm for destruction.

"Sir, you're the man that went off to the Nation one time to look around, I reckon, ain't you?"

Smith glared at him, fixing his mouth in the expression of a man who was in the habit of eating them raw, bending his brows in a most ferocious frown.

"What if I was? Who in the hell're you?"

Texas did not approve of that kind of language

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 before ladies. Something came into his eyes and changed over his face that caused Smith to alter the set of his jaw.

"I don't reckon you got through lookin' around down there, pardner."

Texas said it with a conclusiveness that made it indisputable. Smith backed away from him, watching him as a coward watches one from whom he expects a well-deserved kick. He fumbled for his holster as he put his big gun away. The barber was rising again, stretching his long neck to see, and Smith backed on toward the door.

"I guess you better go on back there and get through with it," Texas suggested.

"Well, I reckon I will," Smith returned.

The barber was out from under the table, quite life-size and natural to behold, when Smith passed out of the door. As the sound of his feet ceased across the office floor, telling that he had gone on his way to resume his unfinished business of looking around down in the Nation, Mr. Noggle laughed. It was a high-keyed, quavering sort of a hen laugh that did not add a thing to the figure he had made of himself throughout the affair.

Mrs. Goodloe was the first to reach Texas. She caught him as he was retreating modestly after Smith, and patted him on the back, and drew him into the room again, and called him "honey." The

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 minister was next, and then the whole crowd came spilling over him, with chicken on their hands, slapping him on his new coat, and confusing him so that his face was as red as if he had been taken sneaking the barber's ring from the finger of the bride.

They wouldn't allow him to go; he had to sit right down there at the table and have some supper, which was going to go so merrily now for his timely interference with the murderous intentions of Zebedee Smith. There was another pot of coffee in the kitchen, Mrs. Goodloe said, and she went off to fetch it, and the preacher's wife took the broom from Malvina when she would have swept up the grounds from the floor, and swept them up herself, and everybody laughed, and the color came back to Malvina's face.

The solemn declaration of Texas that he had dined, and that he could not make room for another bite, was laughed down. The minister's wife made a place for him beside herself, and he was obliged to take it, for he was too timid and gentle, too lacking in the subtleties of polished society to hurt the feelings of anybody, even anybody as unworthy as the groom.

And when Malvina cut the cake, the first piece of it went to Texas, and when he took it she gave him a look that the minister, sitting at her right

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 hand around the corner of the table, read as plainly as he ever read a book in his life. It was a look that said she would give her new husband, and the green hotel, and all that she possessed in this world and once held dear, for a man like the tall, lank stranger, with the straight dark locks of hair on his sun-brown temples.

Mrs. Majors, the preacher's wife, was an athletic young woman who wore no stays. She moved about with a swinging motion to her body above the hips very suggestive of combativeness, and Texas wondered whether the Rev. Mr. Majors might not have a pretty warm time of it now and then. She had scanty light hair, which she twisted up into the Psyche knot, just at that time becoming again popular with the ladies who followed the styles. Her forehead was lofty, and clear of the bangs such as Malvina and the other young ladies wore. Bangs were becoming passe as far west as Topeka. Mrs. Majors had anticipated the arrival of the edict in Cottonwood.

The minister had not recognized Texas in his black coat as the man who had won first prize in the men's roping contest at the fair that afternoon, and nobody at the table connected him with the spectacular bit of gunnery in the street that had set the whole town talking about the new gun-slinger who had come to join Cottonwood's notables

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 in that line. Only Mrs. Goodloe had a possible clue to it, and it had slipped her mind in the excitement of getting rid of Smith. It did not occur to her again that this was Uncle Boley Drumgoole's friend until the minister's wife asked him where he was from, when he arrived, and how long he expected to remain.

Mrs. Goodloe pulled the puckering string to her short upper lip and prepared her face for speech, but Texas had informed the minister's wife that he came from Texas, and that he expected to stay around in that part of the country a right smart spell before she was ready to put in a word.

"Why, you must be the gentleman that won the ropin'?" she said.

Texas admitted that he was, and the minister put down his napkin and leaned over to look round his wife and stare at Texas with his mouth open, amazement in his eyes.

"Why, you're the man that horsewhipped the mayor and shot Budd Dalton through the arm!"

The minister pushed back his chair, came round and shook hands with Texas, very energetically, very warmly. The groom rose in the length of his legs, red to the eyes in the pleasure of such a distinguished guest and champion. The others pressed round to shake hands and look Texas over with new interest and respect, for the bride's cake

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 was eaten down to crumbs, and it was time for the party to leave the table.

So the very reluctant Texas found himself the center of a soirée, with husky professional men—the foreman of the railroad roundhouse was one of them—slamming his shoulder-blades, and smiling young ladies coming up and giving him timid hands, and Mrs. Goodloe showing teeth like a walrus. It was a whirl and a babble, with the dark mark of the coffee on the floor, innocent stain of the conflict with the forces of Smith, routed and dispersed forever from the threshold of the green hotel.

The initiation of Texas into the polite and respectable society of Cottonwood was at this point when a man appeared in the door through which Zebedee Smith had so lately passed to resume his reconnoiter in the Nation. He stood there with his hat in his hand, a strong perfume of violets coming from him, a fluff of white handkerchief showing most elegantly from the breast-pocket of his almost sky-blue coat.

In spite of his elegance, Texas recognized him as Dee Winch, the bow-legged man who had taken such an effective hand in his behalf when the crowd rushed him at the fair. Mrs. Goodloe went beaming over to him, her hand out in welcome.

"Well, you're a purty-lookin' feller, ain't you

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 comin' in after it's all over and everything's gone!"

"I'm very sorry, mom, but I had some business on hand that come up unexpected."

"I know you'd 'a' come, Dee, if you could," she said seriously, as if she knew very well that Dee Winch was a man of his word and was tender on the point of it. And so the others went to shake hands with him, the groom high among them, like a camel, and Malvina came bearing a piece of cake on a plate, smiling like an open fire.

"I saved a piece for you, Dee; I knew you'd come," she said.

Dee Winch took the cake and tasted it, and vowed it was the best he ever had put into his mouth, and said there wasn't a bit of use asking who made it, for it was sweet with a delicacy that only one hand in the world could give it. And the men laughed and whacked Dee on the shoulder-blades, and the ladies said, "Oh, hursh!" and poked Malvina in the side, causing her to turn red and giggle outrageously, for she was a ticklish lady, and couldn't a-bear to be touched under the arms.

Dee Winch shook hands with the bride and groom again, ceremoniously, with gravity, and wished them joy. He told the groom that he was the luckiest man in Cottonwood, and that he'd rather be in his place than the President's. Then the minister brought Texas Hartwell forward and

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 presented him to the late-coming guest formally, and the two of them stood a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other's eyes.

Hartwell saw that Dee Winch's eyes were gray, and that there was a shadow in them as of a sorrow, or the pain of an affliction that he had kept hidden from the knowledge of men. The young man's own dark eyes kindled to express the appreciation of one with so much apparent worth in him as little bow-legged Dee Winch.

"I met you this afternoon, sir, and I'm under great obligation to you," Texas said.

"It's the other way," Winch assured him. "We're all under obligation to you, a stranger, for doing what none of us here ever took in hand to do."

"It wasn't because of a lack of men to do it, sir, but for want of an opportunity," Texas returned.

Mrs. Goodloe cut off further compliments at this point by announcing that the guests would retire to the parlor, where Viney Kelly was going to sing, and Viney Kelly herself took possession of Dee Winch, with the request that he turn her music for her.

Miss Kelly was a lady of sentimental appearance, thin, as the general run of people in that country appeared to be. Her face was long, her cheeks meager, her mouth large and flexible. She took

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 her seat at the organ with much disposing of the skirt and flattening of the music-sheets, making much of her opportunity, flouncing herself into the notice of everybody before she struck a note. Miss Kelly was not of the school that wastes its talents on barren air.

Dee Winch took up his stand at the end of the organ on Miss Kelly's right hand, as vigilant as if he waited to draw his deadly gun on some expected foe. His hand was over the little music-rack—made in representation of the classic lyre—ready to flip the page the second that Viney came to the last word.

It was not a very enlivening melody for a wedding that Viney began to draw from the little brown instrument. When she came to the words it seemed to Texas to be almost tragically inappropriate. It concerned a lady who loved a gentleman, and was present at his nuptials with another, and the chorus of it, which came with depressing frequency, was:

Viney sang it with great feeling, weaving gently from side to side in rhythm with the tune. Texas

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 wondered if her heart had been set on the barber, and if this could be her lament and renunciation. But whatever sentiment might have inspired the selection, she followed it unwaveringly to the end, where:

and her heart—the composer's, not Miss Viney's—broke right on the spot, without being able to put it off until dawn.

They applauded Miss Viney with hearty hands. If anybody besides Texas was struck by the humorous inaptitude of the selection it was not the bridegroom, indeed. He was loudest of the loud in his clamor for more, and he turned to Texas as Miss Viney swung round on the stool and began the prelude to another tune.

"That's what I call music," said he.

Texas nodded. Mr. Noggle leaned over, coming so close to Texas that the perfume on his hair was almost overwhelming.

"Whan she throws that mouth of hern wide open you can see her appetite," he said, "but she can sing to a fare-you-well!"

Texas was tired, for he had taken the road before dawn of that eventful and long-drawn day.

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 Now he saw Mrs. Majors casting eyes at him again, and he feared that she was about to assail him with more questions on his origin and future intentions. While he had nothing to conceal, he did not feel that a man should tell all that he knew at once, so he withdrew to the office while Miss Viney was sighing through the last stanza of "'Tis a Flower from My Angel Mother's Grave."

Dee Winch escaped during the applause, also, and came out on his toes, sweating like he'd undergone an examination for a civil-service job.

"I like music," he said softly, with a cautious look back over his shoulder, "but I like it off a little piece."

"Yes, sir, there's kinds of music that a man ought to pay for, and—other kinds," Texas allowed.

"Yes," said Winch, looking carefully around the office, "it's like the sign of a Mexican dentist I saw in San Antone one time. 'Teeth pulled without pain, one dollar; with pain, fifty cents.' The pleasanter it is, the more a man ought to be willing to pay. I met Uncle Boley Drumgoole as I was comin' over here. He was tellin' me you thought some of trail-ridin'?"

"I've got to find a job of some kind. I thought I'd try for trail-ridin'."

"Well, I've been hirin' myself out to the associa-

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 tion for that same kind of a job—that's what made me late to this blowout. I've just come from a session with old man Duncan."

"I aimed to see him in the morning. Do you reckon it would be any use?"

"I was goin' to say that they've put me in as a sort of a boss rider, and I'll be more than glad to give you a job if you'll take it."

"I sure am obliged to you, sir, and I'd snap it up in a minute if I had a horse."

"I've got that all fixed. Be ready to start in the morning—I'll ride around here after you. Headquarters is at Duncan's ranch, about twenty miles south. I think maybe you'll have to wait around there a day or two till I can line them other fellers out and drop them I don't want."

Winch went back to the parlor and excused himself, and gave the bride and groom a little jocular advice to leave things merry after him.

"Well, so-long till morning, Texas," he said as he came out through the office. He shook hands with a quick and sincere clasp and passed out into the street.

Texas stood in the door looking after him, pondering over the many sides that he had glimpsed in this remarkable little man. One peculiar thing he had noted of Winch, and that was his ceaseless watchfulness. No matter where he stctod, or

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 whether he was serious or gay, he never appeared to be entirely relaxed. Always there was the tension of the man who waits, listens, feels with all his faculties, for something unexpected and unannounced. It was as if he listened for a step behind him, or expected a touch on the shoulder, or a whisper in his ear.

That shadow in his eyes was growing out of his constant strain, Texas knew. It must be a heavy thing to go carrying the responsibility for sending so many men out of this life's activities as Winch had dismissed, he thought. There must be a good many ghosts behind a man who was accountable for the lives of nineteen men, ghosts of accusation, doubt; of speculation, of unrest, and perhaps remorse.

He was glad that matters had turned out so fortunately for him in his encounter before Uncle Boley's door. If that old pistol of Ed McCoy's had been the breadth of a hair less true there might have been human life against his peace that night. The thought of it started a sweat on his forehead. He prayed deep from his soul that he might never become a listening man like Dee Winch, straining and restless, with the unheard step of a feared retribution behind him, the memory of dead men's faces clouding his eyes with shadows.

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UNCAN'S ranch-house was a large T-shaped building, constructed, like nearly all the ranch-houses of that country, of the tenacious prairie sod. It stood on the bank of a weak, shallow stream, and there were cottonwood trees around it, making a cool and pleasant harbor to reach in the middle of a thirsty day, after a ride that grew more desolate and barren as the traveler proceeded southward from Cottonwood.

Texas and Winch had not made a forced ride of it; therefore it was almost noon when they turned their horses into the spacious corral with the little creek cutting across its corner. With the thrift of his Scottish kind Duncan had fenced off land in a little pocket of the creek bottom back of his house, and planted a garden there. Very green and hopeful it looked to the eyes of the two men, and so strange a sight in that land, undisturbed by the plow, that they stood at the fence to admire it.

Mrs. Duncan came to the door and hailed them, the two Misses Duncan showing blonde heads over her shoulders. So the two men turned from the

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 vegetables in Malcolm Duncan's garden to the flowers within his house, where Mrs. Duncan greeted Winch by his first name with the familiarity of an old friend, and shook hands like a man with Texas Hartwell, and presented her daughters.

"Malcolm home?" Winch inquired.

"No. Him and the girls got home about midnight from the fair, and he was in the saddle at daylight this morning to see how things is goin' with the boys."

Mrs. Duncan spoke with the twang of Indiana on her tongue. She was a lady of large girth, with a red wrapper and a red face. Outwardly and inwardly she appeared to be exceedingly hot. Her daughters gave no promise of following the maternal lines. They were straight-backed and tall, rather handsome, and cool as daisies in the field in their white dresses. To Texas they appeared out of place in that island of a home in the great raw sweep of prairie, for they carried themselves as if they had been accustomed to meeting people all their lives.

They recognized Texas as the man who had won first place in the roping contest, and spoke of his work with compliments. Texas felt like a rooster with his tail feathers plucked, he admitted to himself, when it came to sitting down to dinner with those young ladies in his shirt-sleeves. But there

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 was no help for it. The long-tailed coat was in Cottonwood, in the keeping of Mrs. Goodloe at the Woodbine Hotel, and it might be many a long day, he thought, before it would grace his back again.

"We've been lookin' all morning for Sallie McCoy and her mother," Mrs. Duncan said. "They promised the girls they'd come over to-day, but I guess they didn't get an early start."

"They used to be neighbors of ours," the Miss Duncan near Texas explained, nodding her pretty, fair head to indicate the location in a general way. "Their ranch was down* the creek about seven or eight or nine miles."

"Yes, it was ten or 'leven or twelve," said her mother, laughing over the indirect description. "A body never would get anywheres if they had to go by you tellin' 'em the road, Naomi. Them girls"—to Texas—"has been away to school back in Lawrence so long they've plumb got out of the ways of this country."

"They sure speak well for the schools of Lawrence, anyway, ma'am."

Texas spoke with such forceful warmth that the simple compliment seemed something altogether grand.

"Why, mother, we've been coming home for three months every summer," the other one protested, as

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 if hurt by the implication that they were strangers in their own land.

Mrs. Duncan sighed, and said she knew it as well as they did, she guessed, but it didn't seem like they came home oftener than once every five years. Then she went on to tell Texas about her boys, five of them, all big enough to count as men in the work of the range, and that the other girl's name was Ruth, and that she was two years older than Naomi, and that Naomi would be eighteen her next birthday. All of which intimate information—for what can be more intimate among all a lady's secrets than her age—did not appear to disconcert the girls in the least.

Dee Winch did not say much, but there was a sufficiency in what he did say which gave one the feeling that he had said considerable. Texas answered Mrs. Duncan's ramifications from her original subject into an inquiry into his life, adventures, family, and prospects with a shyness of manner and softness in his words that caused the young ladies to lean and listen when he spoke.

He told her as much about himself as he had told the minister's wife, and short cuts and sharp turns could not draw from him anything more. It seemed a simple story for a man who had come to Cottonwood like a whirlwind and made himself a

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 figure in it to such an extent as he had done. Maybe she believed it, maybe she did not.

Winch was off about his new duties immediately after dinner, with a word to Texas that he would return in a day or two and assign him to his post. He took nothing at all to eat but a package of dried beef, and dried beef of the range days was not the tender delicacy of this packing-house age. It was dried, and it required confidence to approach it, teeth to chew it, and a stomach equal to a corn sheller to do the rest. Texas wondered if pulling on dried beef had given Winch's teeth the peculiar outward slant that he had noticed when he saw him first. He believed that it was equal to it, anyhow.

Sallie McCoy came riding to the ranch alone along toward evening. Her mother had not felt equal to making the trip in the sun, Texas heard her explaining from where he sat on a bench under a cottonwood reading the poems of Robert Burns. He closed the book, moved more by the living poetry of Sallie McCoy's eyes than the written word, and went forward to take her horse.

She appeared taller afoot than in the saddle, still not too tall for a man whose heart was the proper distance from the ground. And there was something in her way of putting down her feet when she walked, something in the grace of her body and the

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 soft charm of her voice, that told him she was not of common stock.

Blood may wander far, and lodge like blown seed in strange places, but it will set its mark as unfailingly in the wilderness as in the palace. Blood had set its mark in this girl's face, in the true modeling of her body, slender and strong. Somewhere in the race of McCoys there had been a hero, near or far.

Texas thought her shy when Mrs. Duncan introduced them, yet there was something in her eyes which seemed to be for him alone, a struggling expression, he felt it to be, for what convention could not allow from lips. It was gratitude, with something softer which eluded him like a swift bird, and tingled him to the toes. Texas put his arm round the neck of the little cow pony that had stood him in such friendly service the day before, and stroked its nose.

"I'm under great obligations to you for tendin' this horse to me yesterday, Miss McCoy. I didn't have any chance to thank you then, for I didn't know till after he carried me to victory whose horse he was—Uncle Boley didn't tell me. I want to thank you now, and pay inter-est on it."

"If you ever owed me even thanks, it is paid, Mr. Hartwell," she told him with great seriousness.

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 "The debt and the interest are on the other side."

Hearing them talk so right at the beginning, and knowing the history of the encounter between Texas and the mayor, and the subsequent attempt to kill Hartwell in the street, the Duncans looked on him as Sallie's personal champion. It was doubtless out of this feeling that he belonged peculiarly to Sallie that the Misses Duncan found a great deal to do in the kitchen, although Mrs. Duncan's broad back was left ordinarily to bear such tasks alone, after the ways of daughters the world across.

They were very well acquainted by the time supper was ready, old friends when it was over, and the Misses Duncan were clattering the dishes off. The girls were in a flutter now to have things out of the way, for more company was coming, young men, to be sure, from the ranch above.

A young man was a young man in that country then, no matter what his occupation or whence he came, but these two proved to be exceptions to whom advantages had been given, just as Duncan and his wife, and the Kansas pioneers more than the pioneers of any place in the nation, had made sacrifices to outfit their children for a higher plane. They were the sons of a rancher, and they had been at Lawrence attending the university, also. They were rather boisterous, and unduly familiar in their way of addressing young ladies, Miss McCoy

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 included, by their first names. So it seemed to Texas, at least, his culture being of another kind.

There was a good deal of singing, between the Duncan girls and the young men, with loud accompaniment on the large hoarse piano which, Texas understood, was a historic instrument, and a notable one, in that section. Texas could not see much improvement over Viney Kelly's efforts to entertain in the roistering tunes which the young men shouted, with the bits of sentimental embroidery contributed by Ruth and Naomi. He didn't take a deep interest in it, although he tried to appear greatly entertained, for many things came drifting into his mind calling for serious consideration. Sallie had hung back out of it on the plea that she did not know the new songs. She would not approach the piano, in spite of their entreaties and light banter.

"And you the only one in the crowd that can really sing—unless it's Mr. Hartwell?" Naomi said.

Texas was quick to assure her that he could not lift a note. But his mind leaped back from following the trend of graver things to the pleasant conjecture of what kind of a song Sallie McCoy would select if she should sing. As for her voice, he felt that he knew how it would sound, felt that he had heard it many a time before, indeed. There came over him suddenly a longing for its satisfying

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