guns an' come outside."

There were no dissenting votes. Lee's motion was unanimously carried.

"Lee's plumb right," whispered McTigh; "that kid's got it harder an'
worse than airy feller I ever heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in
stringin' him 'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no good
one; been allus like a old buffalo bull whipped out o' th' herd, sorta
flockin' by my lonesome, an'--an'--" with a husky catch of the voice,
"an' that thar kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a _hell_ of a lot
hit 'pears to me I wouldn't have no great trouble gittin' to like."

Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen.

Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in surprised inquiry at
the semicircle of grim bronzed faces, now dimly lit by the flickering
embers and then for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a
cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situation was tense. In
each man emotions long dormant, or perhaps by some never before
experienced, were tumultuously surging; surging the more tumultuously
for their long dormancy or first recognition. Presently in a low,
hoarse voice that scarcely carried round the semicircle, Chillili Jim
spoke:

"Fellers, Circuit shore 'minds me pow'ful strong o' my ol' mammy. She
was monstrous lovin' to we-uns; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up
my ol' pa when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's Rangers, with
his ol' carcass 'bout as full o' rents an' holes as his ragged gray war
clothes! Allus have tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me
like mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her into th' home
ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer keeps."

"'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six-year-old," mused Mancos
Mitch; "when Circuit's pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns
got so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in th' little ol'
meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on th' banks o' th' Lee in ol'
Uvalde County. Th' air got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion allus
'pears to give to meetin'-houses, a' I could hear th' ol' pa'son
a-tellin' us how it's th' lovinest that allus gits th' longest end o'
th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther ol' sky scout was 'bout right.
Feller cain't possibly keep busy _all_ th' love in his system, workin'
it off on nothing but a pet hoss or gun; thar's allus a hell of a lot
you didn't know you had comes oozin' out when a proper piece o' calico
lets you next."