contemplate a return next year,
although Aggie says she will die first. But even that is not to be taken
as final. The last time I went to see her, she had bought a revolver
from the janitor and was taking lessons in loading it.

The Ostermaiers went also. Not with us, however. The congregation made
up a purse for the purpose, and Tish and Aggie and I went further, and
purchased a cigar-case for Mr. Ostermaier and a quantity of cigars.
Smoking is the good man's only weakness.

I must say, however, that it is absurd to hear Mrs. Ostermaier boasting
of the trip. To hear her talk, one would think they had done the whole
thing, instead of sitting in an automobile and looking up at the
mountains. I shall never forget the day they were in a car passing along
a road, and we crossed unexpectedly ahead of them and went on straight
up the side of a mountain.

Tish had a sombrero on the side of her head, and was resting herself in
the saddle by having her right leg thrown negligently over the horse's
neck. With the left foot she was kicking our pack-horse, a creature so
scarred with brands that Tish had named her Jane, after a cousin of hers
who had had so many operations that Tish says she is now entirely
unfurnished.

Mr. Ostermaier's face was terrible, and only two days ago Mrs.
Ostermaier came over to ask about putting an extra width in the skirt to
her last winter's suit. But it is my belief that she came to save Tish's
soul, and nothing else.

"I'm so glad wide skirts have come in," she said. "They're so modest,
aren't they, Miss Tish?"

"Not in a wind," Tish said, eying her coldly.

"I do think, dear Miss Tish," she went on with her eyes down, "that
to--to go about in riding-breeches before a young man is--well, it is
hardly discreet, is it?"

I saw Tish glancing about the room. She was pretty angry, and I knew
perfectly well what she wanted. I put my knitting-bag over Charlie
Sands's tobacco-pouch.

Tish had learned to roll cigarettes out in Glacier Park. Not that she
smoked them, of course, but she said she might as well know how. There
was no knowing when it would come in handy. And when she wishes to calm
herself she reaches instinctively for what Bill used to call, strangely,
"the makings."

"If," she said, her eye still roving,--"if it was any treat to a
twenty-four-year-old cowpuncher to see three elderly women in
riding-breeches, Mrs. Ostermaier,--and it's kind of you to think
so,--why, I'm not selfis