m that like enough that Injun was plum peaceful, and only comin' in to
get a loaf o' bread."

"Bread? Aunt Mandy, where was all this?"

"Where d'ye suppose it was unlessen at our _ho_tel? My man and me seen
there was a good openin' there on the trail this side o' the south fork,
and we set up a hotel in a dugout. Them _emigrants_ would give you
anything you aste for a piece o' pie, or a real baked loaf o' bread. We
may go back there some time. We could make our pile in a couple o'
years. I got over three hundred dollars right here in my pocket."

"But I don't quite understand about the man--your husband--"

"Yep, my lastest one. Didn't you know I married ole man Auberry? He's
'round here somewheres, lookin' fer a drink o' licker, I reckon.
Colonel Meriwether 'lowed there'd be some fightin' 'round these parts
afore long. My man and my son 'lowed the West was gettin' right quiet
for them, and they'd just take a chanct down here, to see a little life
in other parts."

"I hadn't heard of this last marriage of yours, Aunt Mandy," I ventured.

"Oh, yes, me and him hooked up right soon atter you and the gal got
lost. Don't see how you missed our place when you come East. We done
took at least six bits off'n every other man, woman or child that come
through there, east or west, all summer long. You see I was tired of
that lazy husband o' mine back home, and Auberry he couldn't see nothin'
to that woman o' his'n atter he found out how I could bake pie and
bread. So we both seem' the chanct there was there on the trail, we done
set up in business. Say, I didn't know there was so many people in the
whole world as they was of them emi_grants_. Preacher come along in a
wagon one day--broke, like most preachers is. We kep' him overnight,
free, and he merried us next mornin' for nothin'. Turn about's fair
play, I reckon."

I scarcely heard her querulous confidences. "Where is Colonel
Meriwether?" I asked her at last.

"Inside," she motioned with her pipe. "Him and the gal, too. But say,
who's that a-comin' down the street there in that little sawed-off
wagon?"

I looked. It was my fiancee, Grace Sheraton!

By her side was my friend, Captain Stevenson, and at the other end of
the seat was a fluttering and animated figure that could be no one else
but Kitty. So then I guessed that Stevenson and his wife had come on
during my absence and were visiting at Dixiana. No doubt they had
driven down now for the evening mail.

Coul