Scottie?" I asked, for her pronouns were perplexing.

"No!" she cried, "Bill! He promised he would, you know," she added.

"So you were at the bottom of it?" I said, amazed.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she kept crying, shrieking with laughter over
Bill's cherishing opinions and desires. "I shall be ill. Dear old Bill.
He said he'd 'try to get a move on to him.'"

Before I left that day, Bill himself came to the Old Timer's ranch,
inquiring in a casual way "if the 'boss' was in."

"Oh, Bill!" called out Gwen, "come in here at once; I want you."

After some delay and some shuffling with hat and spurs, Bill lounged
in and set his lank form upon the extreme end of a bench at the door,
trying to look unconcerned as he remarked: "Gittin' cold. Shouldn't
wonder if we'd have a little snow."

"Oh, come here," cried Gwen, impatiently, holding out her hand. "Come
here and shake hands."

Bill hesitated, spat out into the other room his quid of tobacco, and
swayed awkwardly across the room toward the bed, and, taking Gwen's
hand, he shook it up and down, and hurriedly said:

"Fine day, ma'am; hope I see you quite well."

"No; you don't," cried Gwen, laughing immoderately, but keeping hold
of Bill's hand, to his great confusion. "I'm not well a bit, but I'm a
great deal better since hearing of your meeting, Bill."

To this Bill made no reply, being entirely engrossed in getting his
hard, bony, brown hand out of the grasp of the white, clinging fingers.

"Oh, Bill," went on Gwen, "it was delightful! How did you do it?"

But Bill, who had by this time got back to his seat at the door,
pretended ignorance of any achievement calling for remark. He "hadn't
done nothin' more out ov the way than usual."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense!" cried Gwen, impatiently. "Tell me how you got
Scottie to lay you two hundred and fifty dollars."

"Oh, that!" said Bill, in great surprise; "that ain't nuthin' much.
Scottie riz slick enough."

"But how did you get him?" persisted Gwen. "Tell me, Bill," she added,
in her most coaxing voice.

"Well," said Bill, "it was easy as rollin' off a log. I made the remark
as how the boys ginerally put up for what they wanted without no fuss,
and that if they was sot on havin' a Gospel shack I cherished the
opinion"--here Gwen went off into a smothered shriek, which made Bill
pause and look at her in alarm.

"Go on," she gasped.

"I cherished the opinion," drawled on Bill, while Gwen stuck her
handkerchief