had a
mean eye, a German name, and a sort of patronizing manner, but still I
helped around to get him atmosphere, me and Eph."

"Who's Eph?"

"Oh, he's just a silver-tip, what scientific parties calls _ursus
horribilis ord_. You just cast your eye where the trickle stream falls
below my cabin. D'ye see them sarvis berry bushes down below the spray?"

"Where the bushes are waving? Oh, look, there's a gigantic grizzly
standing up, and pulling the branches!"

"Yes, that's Eph.

"Wall, as I was telling you, Eph and me is helping this scientific
person to get the atmosphere of them ancient times."

"But the poor man would die of fright!"

"Too busy running. When he reached Vancouver, he was surely a cripple
though, and no more use to science."

"Crippled?"

"Yes, lost his truthfulness, and a professor without truth is like a
woman with no tongue, plumb disabled. His talk in the Vancouver papers
beat Ananias, besides exciting a sort of prejudice. The neighbors shies
at me, and I'm no more popular. Shall I call Eph?"

"I think not to-day," said I, hurriedly rising, "for indeed I should be
getting home at once."

Without ever touching the wound, he had given me the courage to live,
had made my behavior of the morning seem that of a silly schoolgirl; but
still I did not feel quite up to a social introduction. I said I was
sure that Eph and I would have no interests in common.

"So you'll go home and face the music?" said Jesse's wise old eyes.

"My husband," said I, "will be getting quite anxious about me."

Without a word he brought my horse and saddled him.

And I, with a sinking heart, contrasted the loneliness and the horror
which was called my "home" with all the glamour of this man's happy
solitude.

While Jesse buckled on the head-stall, some evil spirit prompted me to
use the word "romantic." In swift resentment he seized and rent the
word.

"Romantic? Snakes! Thar's nothen romantic about me. What I can't earn
ain't worth stealing, and I most surely despise all shiftless people."

"Forgive me. I did not mean romantic in that sense."

"Lady, what did you mean?"

"May I say picturesque?"

He spat. "Thank Gawd I ain't that, either. I'd shoot myself if I thought
I was showing off, or dressing operatic, or playing at bein' more than I
am."

Seeing him really hurt, I made one last wriggle.

"May I say what I mean by romance?"

He held the stirrup for me to mount, offered his hand.

"Do you ne