e
get a rope 'round his neck."

The table, looking cool and dainty in its fleckless linen, was set with
plates of cold chicken and ham, with pots of jelly and white bread at
each end of the cloth, beside big pitchers of cool milk. To the cowboys,
accustomed only to their rude camps and the crude housekeeping of the
settlers round about, this dainty cleanliness of dining-room was
marvellously subduing. They shuffled into their seats noisily, with only
swift, animal-like glances at the girls, who were bubbling over with the
excitement of feeding this band of Cossacks.

As they drank their milk and fed great slices of bread and jelly into
their mouths, fighting Indians seemed less necessary than they had
supposed. Whiskey and alkali dust, and the smell of sweating ponies,
were all forgotten in the quiet and sweetness of this pretty home. The
soft answer had turned wrath into shamefaced wonder and awkward
courtesy.

Curtis, sitting at the head of the board as host, plied the sheriff with
cold chicken, discussing meanwhile the difficulties under which the
Tetongs labored, and drew from that sorely beleaguered officer
admissions which he afterwards regretted. "That's so, I don't know as
I'd do any better in their places, but--"

Jennie, with a keen perception of her power over her guests, went from
one to the other, inquiring, in her sweetest voice: "Won't _you_ have
another slice of bread? Please do!"

Elsie, less secure of manner, followed her with the pitcher of milk,
while the young men bruised each other's shins beneath the table in
their zealous efforts to diminish the joy each one took in the alluring
presence of his cup-bearer.

Calvin sat near the end of the table, and his assured manner made the
others furious. "Look at that stoatin' bottle," growled Green, out of
the corner of his mouth; "he needs killin'."

"Ah, we'll fix that tommy-cod!" replied Galvin.

While the girls were at the upper end of the table the man on Calvin's
right leaned over and said:

"Say, Cal, 'pears like you got the run o' the house here."

Calvin, big with joy and pride, replied: "Oh, I ride round and picket
here once in a while. It pays."

"Well, I should say yes--carry all your cheek right with ye, don't ye?"

As the boys began to shove back, Curtis brought out a box of cigars and
passed them along the line.

"Take hearty, boys; they don't belong to the government; they're mine,
and you'll find them good."

As they were