on't go by looks," he explained. "They go by smell. And
later on by voice, too. Appearances don't count."

"The idea! You seem to know all about them."

"Not much," he said. "I 'm no sheep-man."

"But anyway, you do get along with them."

"If they were my sheep," he answered, "and I was n't responsible for
them, I would n't be so particular. Especially with this one; he has
been a lot of trouble. As far as money goes--he is n't worth over
fifty cents--I would have let him die."

"Oh, no-o-o-o!" protested Janet, lending further assistance with the
pelt.

"But after I had carried him around with me all day I got to feeling
responsible for him."

"A person naturally would," said Janet.

"And besides," he added, holding the lamb upright while she, with her
more skillful fingers, removed the fore legs from the armholes of the
pelt, "a fellow sort of hates to lose the first one, you know."

Janet, finding the lambskin left on her hands, examined it curiously,
running her fingers over the soft black wool.

"What shall I do with this, Mr. Brown?"

"Oh, just throw it away. But no," he added, upon second thought, "I
guess you had better keep that. It would be good for you to sit on."

Following this suggestion she took it to her "place" on the prairie and
spread it down. Then, as he seemed to be waiting for her, she returned.

"Miss Janet, I guess you 'll want to wash up. The best I can offer you
is the place down below the spring. You 'll find some soap down there
in a cigar-box. The bank is a little steep for you to climb down, so I
guess you had better go round and get in the front way. On your way
around you 'll find a towel on a bush; it is pretty clean,--I washed it
last night. And you 'd better take the lambskin along to kneel on."

Steve carried the lamb away to its breakfast. Janet took the pelt and
followed his instructions, going down the slope and skirting round the
base of the knoll till she came to where the stream issued forth.

The little gully was hardly more than a deep grass-grown ditch made by
the spring as it won its way out of the heart of the knoll; or rather
it was a green hallway, overtopped with a frieze of mesquite, leading
in privately to the source of the stream. Janet, as she entered the
house-like cosiness of this diminutive valley, felt very much as if she
had just stepped in out of the universe. On a prairie there is such an
insistent stare of space, so great a l