hem.

"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And
half an hour to get out of town."

Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.

"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have
mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be
so kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we
shall feel greatly indebted to you."

The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their
unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:

"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and
that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out--and if you
show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."

He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his
scratching.

"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts,
"I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge
before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like
'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm
busted."

"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.

"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a
feller wrote up:

"A Texas boy in a Northern clime,
With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime.
The southeast side of his overalls out--
_Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death_!"

"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could
think of the rest of it."

"Don't overtax your brain--I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley
and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in
sudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a
telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed
in Canby's roadster.

"Did she see me?"

"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."

Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident,
declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool of
himself.

"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey,
sympathetically. "It's nothin' to worry about, for I doubt if you ever
had any show anyhow."

Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on the
sidewalk.

"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," he
commented.

"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any of
them