knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into
a frying-pan. The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and
face and the listless droop of his shoulders. John Aldous, with three hours
between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire
itself. He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour. Seeing Stevens, he
began now.

"I wasn't going to rouse you until breakfast was ready," he interrupted
himself to say. "I heard you groaning, Stevens. I know you had a bad night.
And the kid, too. He couldn't sleep. But I made up my mind you'd have to
get up early. I've got a lot of business on to-day, and we'll have to rouse
Curly Roper out of bed to buy his pack outfit. Find the coffee, will you? I
couldn't."

For a moment Stevens stood over him.

"See here, Aldous, you didn't mean what you said last night, did you? You
didn't mean--that?"

"Confound it, yes! Can't you understand plain English, Stevens? Don't you
believe a man when he's a gentleman? Buy that outfit! Why, I'd buy twenty
outfits to-day, I'm--I'm feeling so fine, Stevens!"

For the first time in forty-eight hours Stevens smiled.

"I was wondering if I hadn't been dreaming," he said. "Once, a long time
ago, I guess I felt just like you do now."

With which cryptic remark he went for the coffee.

Aldous looked up in time to see the boy stagger sleepily out of the tepee.
There was something pathetic about the motherlessness of the picture, and
he understood a little of what Stevens had meant.

An hour later, with breakfast over, they started for Curly's. Curly was
pulling on his boots when they arrived, while his wife was frying the
inevitable bacon in the kitchen.

"I hear you have some horses for sale, Curly," said Aldous.

"Hi 'ave."

"How many?"

"Twenty-nine, 'r twenty-eight--mebby twenty-seven."

"How much?"

Curly looked up from the task of pulling on his second boot.

"H'are you buying 'orses or looking for hinformation?" he asked.

"I'm buying, and I'm in a hurry. How much do you want a head?"

"Sixty, 'r six----"

"I'll give you sixty dollars apiece for twenty-eight head, and that's just
ten dollars apiece more than they're worth," broke in Aldous, pulling a
check-book and a fountain pen from his pocket. "Is it a go?"

A little stupefied by the suddenness of it all, Curly opened his mouth and
stared.

"Is it a go?" repeated Aldous. "Including blankets, saddles, pack-saddles,
ropes, and c