as still thinking about him when some
one touched my arm the next morning, while I was waiting for the
train, and I turned around and found him standing there beside me.

"Flash, have you noticed how grave he is--kind of sober-quiet? Have
you? That comes from living too much alone. And he's only a kid, after
all--that's all, just a kid. He startled me for a moment, but the
minute I looked at him that morning I knew he had something on his
mind, and after I'd tried to make it a little easier for him I gave
him a chance to talk.

"He had a big raw welt across one cheek--a wicked thing to look at!
You've noticed it, I see. Well, he stood there fingering it a little,
trying to think of a way to begin gracefully. Then he got out the
paper with the account of Jed The Red's last go in it and jumped right
into the middle of all that was bothering him. He hunted out the
statement of Conway's share of the purse and asked me if it was true.
I told him it was--that I'd written it myself. And then he asked me,
point blank, how _he_ could get a chance at Conway. He--he said Conway
had never been able to whip him, Flash--said he didn't believe he ever
could!

"Now, I'm sentimental--I know that. But I manage to keep my feet on
the ground now and then just the same. And so I want to say right
here that it wasn't his words that counted with me. Why, I'd have
laughed in his face only for the way he said them! As it was, I said
too much. But I thought of you then--I couldn't help it, could I? It
hit me smash between the eyes! His face had been reminding me of
something--something I couldn't place until that minute. Flash, do
you know what he made me think of? Do you? Well, he looked like a
halftone print of the Pilgrim Fathers--the kind that they hang on the
walls in the district schools. And it got me--got me!--maybe you
know why. I don't. But I wrote it on this card, under your address,
and gave it to him.

"I would have laughed at him only he was so mighty grave and quiet.
One doesn't make a practice of laughing at men who are as big as he
is--not when they carry themselves like that. I kept my funny feelings
to myself, if I had any, while I spent a minute or two sizing him up.
And that brought me back to his chin--back to that big, oozing cut. I
had been waiting for an opportunity to ask him about it, and didn't
know myself how to go about it. Just from that you can realize how he
had me guessing, for it takes quite some jolt to m