the count. But
say, them's sweet words, ain't they--community property." He rolled them
over and off his tongue with keen relish. "An' when we got married
the top of our ambition was a steady job an' some rags an' sticks
of furniture all paid up an' half-worn out. We wouldn't have had any
community property only for you."

"What nonsense! What could I have done by myself? You know very well
that you earned all the money that started us here. You paid the wages
of Gow Yum and Chan Chi, and old Hughie, and Mrs. Paul, and--why, you've
done it all."

She drew her two hands caressingly across his shoulders and down along
his great biceps muscles.

"That's what did it, Billy."

"Aw hell! It's your head that done it. What was my muscles good for with
no head to run 'em,--sluggin' scabs, beatin' up lodgers, an' crookin'
the elbow over a bar. The only sensible thing my head ever done was when
it run me into you. Honest to God, Saxon, you've been the makin' of me."

"Aw hell, Billy," she mimicked in the way that delighted him, "where
would I have been if you hadn't taken me out of the laundry? I couldn't
take myself out. I was just a helpless girl. I'd have been there yet if
it hadn't been for you. Mrs. Mortimer had five thousand dollars; but I
had you."

"A woman ain't got the chance to help herself that a man has," he
generalized. "I'll tell you what: It took the two of us. It's been
team-work. We've run in span. If we'd a-run single, you might still be
in the laundry; an', if I was lucky, I'd be still drivin' team by the
day an' sportin' around to cheap dances."

Saxon stood under the father of all madronos, watching Hazel and Hattie
go out the gate, the full vegetable wagon behind them, when she saw
Billy ride in, leading a sorrel mare from whose silken coat the sun
flashed golden lights.

"Four-year-old, high-life, a handful, but no vicious tricks," Billy
chanted, as he stopped beside Saxon. "Skin like tissue paper, mouth like
silk, but kill the toughest broncho ever foaled--look at them lungs an'
nostrils. They call her Ramona--some Spanish name: sired by Morellita
outa genuine Morgan stock."

"And they will sell her?" Saxon gasped, standing with hands clasped in
inarticulate delight.

"That's what I brought her to show you for."

"But how much must they want for her?" was Saxon's next question, so
impossible did it seem that such an amazement of horse-flesh could ever
be hers.

"That ain't your business