papers. Then he enveloped a meagre result. Parker had watched
him in silence.

The Senor looked up to catch his speculative eye. His own eye twinkled
a little, but the twinkle was determined and sinister, with only an
alloy of humour.

"Senor," ventured Parker slowly, "this event sure knocks me hell-west
and crooked. If the loco you have culled hasn't paralysed your
speaking parts, would you mind telling me what in the name of heaven,
hell, and high-water is up?"

"I am going to get married," announced the Senor calmly.

"What!" shouted Parker; "who to?"

"To a lady," replied the Senor, "an intelligent and refined lady--of
pleasing appearance."

CHAPTER FOUR

DREAMS

Although the paper was a year old, Senor Johnson in due time received
an answer from Kansas. A correspondence ensued. Senor Johnson
enshrined above the big fireplace the photograph of a woman. Before
this he used to stand for hours at a time slowly constructing in his
mind what he had hitherto lacked--an ideal of woman and of home. This
ideal he used sometimes to express to himself and to the ironical Jed.

"It must sure be nice to have a little woman waitin' for you when you
come in off'n the desert."

Or: "Now, a woman would have them windows just blooming with flowers
and white curtains and such truck."

Or: "I bet that Sang would get a wiggle on him with his little old
cleaning duds if he had a woman ahold of his jerk line."

Slowly he reconstructed his life, the life of the ranch, in terms of
this hypothesised feminine influence. Then matters came to an
understanding, Senor Johnson had sent his own portrait. Estrella Sands
wrote back that she adored big black beards, but she was afraid of him,
he had such a fascinating bad eye: no woman could resist him. Senor
Johnson at once took things for granted, sent on to Kansas a
preposterous sum of "expense" money and a railroad ticket, and raided
Goodrich's store at Willets, a hundred miles away, for all manner of
gaudy carpets, silverware, fancy lamps, works of art, pianos, linen,
and gimcracks for the adornment of the ranch house. Furthermore, he
offered wages more than equal to a hundred miles of desert to a young
Irish girl, named Susie O'Toole, to come out as housekeeper, decorator,
boss of Sang and another Chinaman, and companion to Mrs. Johnson when
she should arrive.

Furthermore, he laid off from the range work Brent Palmer, the most
skilful man with horses, and se