ys thought it would be better."

"I'm not going to quit runnin' this hotel, you understand. You're in town
two-three days a week anyhow. If you like you can build a house here an'
we'll move into it."

"I'll get busy _pronto_. I expect you want a quiet wedding, don't you?"

"Sure. We can go over to Blister's office this afternoon. You see him an'
make arrangements. Tell him I don't want the boys to know anything about
it till afterward."

An hour later they stood before Justice Haines. Mollie thought she
detected a faint glimmer of mirth in his eye after the ceremony. She
quelled it promptly.

"If you get gay with me, Blister--"

The fat man's impulse to smile fled. "Honest to goodness, Mrs.
Gillespie--"

"Larson," she corrected.

"Larson," he accepted. "I w-wish you m-many happy returns."

She looked at him suspiciously and grunted "Hmp!"

CHAPTER XVI

BLISTER AS DEUS EX MACHINA

Blister Haines found an old pair of chaps for Bob Dillon and lent him a
buckskin bronco. Also, he wrote a note addressed to Harshaw, of the Slash
Lazy D, and gave it to the boy.

"He'll put you to ridin', Ed will. The rest's up to you. D-don't you
forget you're made in the l-likeness of God. When you feel like crawlin'
into a hole s-snap that red haid up an' keep it up."

Bob grew very busy extricating a cockle burr from the mane of the
buckskin. "I'll never forget what you've done for me, Mr. Haines," he
murmured, beet red.

"Sho! Nothin' a-tall. I'm always lookin' for to get a chance to onload
advice on some one. Prob'ly I was meant to be a grandma an' got mixed in
the shuffle. Well, boy, don't weaken. When in doubt, hop to it."

"Yes, sir. I'll try."

"Don't w-worry about things beforehand. Nothin's ever as bad as you
figure it's goin' to be. A lickin' don't last but a few minutes, an' if
you get b-busy enough it's the other fellow that's liable to absorb it.
Watch that r-rampageous scalawag Dud Hollister an' do like he does."

"Yes, sir."

"An' don't forget that every m-mornin' begins a new day. Tha's all,
son."

Bob jogged down the road on this hazard of new fortune.

It chanced that Dud was still in town. Blister found him and half a dozen
other punchers in front of the hotel.

"Betcha! Drinks for the crowd," the justice heard him say.

"Go you," Reeves answered, eyes dancing. "But no monkey business. It's to
be a straight-away race from the front of the hotel clear to the
blacksmith shop."

"To-d