less he happens to
be a Mexican--then he spends it on his hat, too.

So the dream of Whitey's life, the pinnacle of his ambition, the idea of
the tip-top of ecstatic happiness that lived in his brain
was--Boots. And now he had them. And they were beauties; with
tops of soft leather with fancy stitching, inlaid with white enameled
leather, and high heels, that a fellow could dig into the ground when he
was roping a horse. In short, they were regular boots, that any one
might be proud of. And they had been made to order for Whitey!

It would be useless to attempt a description of how Whitey felt about
those boots. Shakespeare would have to come back to life to do that, and
I doubt if he could have done it. I _know_ that Bacon could not.
Whitey's first impulse was to put the boots on, and go out and show them
to all the men in the bunk house. His next impulse was to save the
surprise till morning, when the decorations on the boots would show
better.

But he put them on. And after his father had finished unpacking, Whitey
sat in the living-room with him, and it is to be feared that he listened
rather absent-mindedly to his father's talk. He would stretch out his
legs and admire the boots. Then he would twist his feet about so that he
could get a good view of the high heels. Then he would double up his
knees, and fairly hug the boots. And if Mr. Sherwood noticed all this he
gave no sign. Probably he remembered the day he had his first pair of
boots. And that night, though Whitey did not sleep in the boots, he took
them to bed with him.

In the morning Whitey restrained his impatience until breakfast-time,
then strolled down to the bunk house, wearing the boots. Several of the
men were there, just finishing the meal, and rolling their
after-breakfast cigarettes. Whitey sat down, sort of offhand and
careless-like, and to his pained surprise, no one noticed the boots.
Then he crossed his legs and leaned back, with his hands clasped behind
his head--and Buck Higgins noticed them.

And Whitey certainly was gratified, for they attracted a great deal of
admiration and praise, and there was much discussion about them, and
feeling of the leather, and estimating how much they cost. After a while
Injun arrived. Now, Injun did not care about boots, though he might have
liked a pair had they been made of pink leather. But even Injun was
moved to admiration by these boots.

Then Whitey strutted around the ranch buildings and corral