o strolled back
down the gulch talking earnestly, their heads close together.

Why should he care? "Mary, Mary, Mary!" he cried within himself as he
hurried home. And in remote burial grounds the ancient de Laneys on
both sides turned over in their lead-lined coffins.

CHAPTER VI

BENNINGTON AS A MAN OF BUSINESS

That evening Old Mizzou returned from town with a watery eye and a mind
that ran to horses.

"He is shore a fine cayuse," he asserted with extreme impressiveness.
"He is one of them broncs you jest _loves_. An' he's jes 's cheap! I
likes you a lot, sonny; I deems you as a face-card shore, an' ef any
one ever tries fer to climb yore hump, you jest calls on pore Old
Mizzou an' he mingles in them troubles immediate. You must have that
cayuse an' go scoutin' in th' hills, yo' shore must! Ol' man
Davidson'll do th' work fer ye, but ye shore must scout. 'Taint healthy
not t' git exercise on a cayuse. It shorely ain't! An' you must git t'
know these yar hills, you must. They is beautiful an' picturesque, and
is full of scenery. When you goes back East, you wants to know all
about 'em. I wouldn't hev you go back East without knowin' all about
'em for anythin' in the worl', I likes ye thet much!"

Old Mizzou paused to wipe away a sympathetic tear with a rather
uncertain hand.

"Y' wants to start right off too, thet's th' worst of it, so's t' see
'em all afore you goes, 'cause they is lots of hills and I'm 'feared
you won't stay long, sonny; I am that! I has my ideas these yar claims
is no good, I has fer a fact, and they won't need no one here long, and
then we'll lose ye, sonny, so you mus' shore hev that cayuse."

Old Mizzou rambled on in like fashion most of the evening, to
Bennington's great amusement, and, though next morning he was quite
himself again, he still clung to the idea that Bennington should
examine the pony.

"He is a fine bronc, fer shore," he claimed, "an' you'd better git
arter him afore some one else gits him."

As Bennington had for some time tentatively revolved in his mind the
desirability of something to ride, this struck him as being a good
idea. All Westerners had horses--in the books. So he abandoned
_Aliris: A Romance of all Time_, for the morning, and drove down to
Spanish Gulch with Old Mizzou.

He was mentally braced for devilment, but his arch-enemy, Fay, was not
in sight. To his surprise, he got to the post office quite without
molestation. There he was handed two