him. Swift and
sudden, that was the better way. Rather would he have whirled into
Reservoir with zest and some commotion. But Girl o' Mine was in no
shape for that. She drooped. Events which had jostled him roughly in
the last few weeks had dealt with her unkindly as well. There had been
many weary miles and not much grain.

And yet his poverty had not been a thing of easy stages. It had seemed
both swift and sudden, and he liked it none the better for that. But
he would not enter Reservoir with ostentation. He'd ride in without
enthusiasm, and thus call no attention to the pass to which he'd come.

Nor was he in a hurry to get there, either. The town, a quarter of a
mile across the track, squat and squalid in the dust, held nothing for
his mood.

Reservoir was a poor town, anyway.

And Life was a poor thing, too.

He'd tried for hours and hours to think of one fair promise which it
still held for him--just one!--tried hard! And couldn't!

Blue Jeans was twenty-two.

And Luck had trifled with him over-long.

One brief month earlier he had been a man of ambition, a man of
promise. He'd even found his Dream. An Easterner had helped him to
that foolishness; an -ologist from a university who expected to find
prehistoric bones and relics entombed under the hills.

Cornered by that Easterner, who liked his face, and not having been
handy enough as a liar to get out of it neatly, Blue Jeans had admitted
under cross-examination that he was familiar with the country.

Was he doing anything at present?

No-o-o. But he was looking around.

Could he pack?

Yes.

Was he accustomed to horses?

He hoped so.

Could he cook?

Ye-s-s, some. Not good for delicate folks.

Well, then, he was the very man for the position.

And Blue Jeans hadn't been able to think offhand of an objection; not
one which he wanted to voice. He couldn't admit outright that the
prospect was dismaying to his young pride. That he was afraid of the
ridicule which certainly it would bring down upon him.

"I'm a cowpuncher, not a grave-robber," was the way it rose to his
mind. But that wouldn't serve. It sounded neither dignified nor
convincing.

Then if that was settled, what remuneration would he expect per month?

He had been of astonishing though dense persistence, that professor.
Blue Jeans had pounced upon the query with sensations of deliverance.

"Wel-l-l," and he named a figure which struck him as outrageous.