ment.

"Ho! dot's hell of some fine joak. Me, I'M ONE OAF DOSE MAIRSCHELL
MINE-SELLUF," he roared with delight, beating his knee. To his notion,
the joke was irresistible. All day long, he could be heard repeating it.
"Und Mist'r Praicelie, he say, 'Dose mairschell woand led you schoot,
Bismarck,' und ME, ach Gott, ME, aindt I mine-selluf one oaf dose
mairschell?"

As the two friends rode on, Presley had in his mind the image of Minna
Hooven, very pretty in a clean gown of pink gingham, a cheap straw
sailor hat from a Bonneville store on her blue black hair. He remembered
her very pale face, very red lips and eyes of greenish blue,--a pretty
girl certainly, always trailing a group of men behind her. Her love
affairs were the talk of all Los Muertos.

"I hope that Hooven girl won't go to the bad," Presley said to Harran.

"Oh, she's all right," the other answered. "There's nothing vicious
about Minna, and I guess she'll marry that foreman on the ditch gang,
right enough."

"Well, as a matter of course, she's a good girl," Presley hastened
to reply, "only she's too pretty for a poor girl, and too sure of her
prettiness besides. That's the kind," he continued, "who would find it
pretty easy to go wrong if they lived in a city."

Around Caraher's was a veritable throng. Saddle horses and buggies by
the score were clustered underneath the shed or hitched to the railings
in front of the watering trough. Three of Broderson's Portuguese tenants
and a couple of workmen from the railroad shops in Bonneville were on
the porch, already very drunk.

Continually, young men, singly or in groups, came from the door-way,
wiping their lips with sidelong gestures of the hand. The whole place
exhaled the febrile bustle of the saloon on a holiday morning.

The procession of teams streamed on through Bonneville, reenforced
at every street corner. Along the Upper Road from Quien Sabe and
Guadalajara came fresh auxiliaries, Spanish-Mexicans from the town
itself,--swarthy young men on capering horses, dark-eyed girls and
matrons, in red and black and yellow, more Portuguese in brand-new
overalls, smoking long thin cigars. Even Father Sarria appeared.

"Look," said Presley, "there goes Annixter and Hilma. He's got his
buckskin back." The master of Quien Sabe, in top laced boots and
campaign hat, a cigar in his teeth, followed along beside the carry-all.
Hilma and Mrs. Derrick were on the back seat, young Vacca driving.
Harran and Pres