Committee; an'
your guns was took so as to redooce the chances of hangin' you--the
same bein' some abundant, nacheral,--to minimum. Now who be you? also,
what's your little game?'

"'My name's Benjamin Glegg,' responds old Glegg. 'I owns the Sunflower
brand an' ranch. As for my game: thar's a member of my fam'ly escapes
this mornin'--comes streamin' over yere, I onderstands--an' I'm in the
saddle tryin' to round her up. Gents,' concloods old Glegg, an' he
displays emotion, 'I'm simply a harassed parent on the trail of his
errant offspring.'

"Then Enright makes old Glegg a long, soft talk, an' seeks to imboo him
with ca'mness. He relates how Abby an' the pinfeather sport dotes on
each other; an' counsels old Glegg not to come pesterin' about with
roode objections to the weddin'.

"'Which I says this as your friend,' remarks Enright.

"'It's as the scripter says,' replies old Glegg, who's mollified a lot,
'it's as the good book says: A soft answer turneth away wrath; but more
speshully when the opp'sition's got your guns. I begins to see things
different. Still, I hates to lose my Abby that a-way. Since my old
woman dies, Abby, gents, has been the world an' all to me.'

"'Is your wife dead?" asks Enright, like he sympathises.

"'Shore!' says old Glegg; 'been out an' gone these two years. She's
with them cherubim in glory. But folks, you oughter seen her to
onderstand my loss. Five years ago we has a ranch over back of the
Tres Hermanas by the Mexico line. The Injuns used to go lopin' by our
ranch, no'th an' south, all the time. You-all recalls when they pays
twenty-five dollars for skelps in Tucson? My wife's that thrifty them
days that she buys all her own an' my child Abby's clothes with the
Injuns she pots. Little Abby used to scout for her maw. "Yere comes
another!" little Abby would cry, as she stampedes up all breathless,
her childish face aglow. With that, my wife would take her hands outen
the wash-tub, snag onto that savage with her little old Winchester, and
quit winner twenty-five right thar.'

"'Which I don't marvel you-all mourns her loss,' says Enright
consolin'ly.

"'She's shorely--Missis Glegg is--' says old Glegg, shakin' his grizzly
head; 'she's shore the most meteoric married lady of which hist'ry says
a word. My girl Abby's like her.'

"'But whatever's your objection,' argues Enright, 'to this young an'
trusty sport who's so eager to wed Abby?'

"'I objects to him becau