aidings which were so mixed up with choking sniffs as
to be fortunately more or less unintelligible. Finally, when he came
to his ordinary senses, and the dead level of his understanding was
fully restored, he found himself grasping the girl firmly by the
waist, her golden head lying snugly on his massive shoulder, and with
a distinct recollection of warm ripe lips many times pressed upon his
own. All of which was eminently pleasing.

When once these comfortable relations were thoroughly established, he
had no difficulty in clearing the clouds from her horizon, and
relegating her tears into the background. Her nature was of a much too
smiling order to need a great deal of coaxing. But explanation was
needed, and explanation never came easily to this stalwart dullard.

"Y'see, what I meant was," he said, with a troubled frown of intense
concentration, "maybe you know about kids. I didn't mean offense, I
sure didn't. Everybody knows our Birdie to be jest a straight,
up-standin', proper gal, who wouldn't hurt nobody, nor nuthin', 'cep'
it was a buzzin' fly around the supper hash. No feller don't take no
account o' her bein' a pot-wallopin', hash-slingin' mutton rustler. It
sure ain't no worse than ladlin' swill to prize hogs. It's jest in the
way o' business. 'Sides, she don't need to care what no fellers
thinks. She ain't stuck on men-folk wuth a cent."

"That I sure ain't," asserted a smothered voice from the bosom of his
dirty shirt.

"That you ain't," he reassured her. "You're jest a dandy gal as 'ud
make any feller with a good patch o' pay dirt a real elegant sort o'
wife."

The golden head snuggled closer into his shirt.

"You ain't got no patch o' pay dirt, Toby?" she inquired.

Toby shook his head all unsuspiciously.

"No sech luck," he asserted. Then with a sudden burst of gallantry,
"If I had I don't guess there'd be no Birdie Mason chasin' around
these parts unbespoke."

The girl's eyes developed an almost childish simplicity as they looked
up into his foolish face.

"What d'you mean?"

"Mean? Why, jest nothin', only--"

Toby laughed uneasily. And a shadow crossed Birdie's face.

"I don't guess the patch o' pay dirt matters a heap," she said, with
subtle encouragement.

"That's so," agreed Toby.

"Y'see, a gal don't marry a feller fer his patch o' pay dirt," she
went on, doing her best.

"Sure she don't."

But Toby's enthusiasm was rapidly cooling. The girl breathed a sigh of
perfect cont