t a gem.

"Father an' me found a lot, an' they made mother mad laying around, an'
she throwed 'em out. She takes stuff from Kelley's."

"Who's Kelley?"

"He keeps the drug-store at Laramie. Mother gets awful funny. That's
how she was when I came home. For I told Mr. Perkins he lied, an' I ran
then. An' I knowed well enough she'd lick me when she got through her
spell--an' father can't stop her, an' I--ah, I was sick of it! She's
lamed me up twice beating me--an' Perkins wanting me to say 'God bless
my mother!' a-getting up and a-going to bed--he's a flubdub! An' so I
cleared out. But I'd just as leaves said for God to bless father--an'
you. I'll do it now if you say it's any sense."

Mr. McLean sat down in a chair. "Don't yu' do it now," said he.

"You wouldn't like mother," Billy continued. "You can keep that." He
came to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands, standing beside
him. "Do you like birds' eggs? I collect them. I got twenty-five
kinds--sage-hen, an' blue grouse, an' willow-grouse, an' lots more
kinds harder--but I couldn't bring all them from Laramie. I brought
the magpie's, though. D' you care to see a magpie egg? Well, you
stay to-morrow an' I'll show you that en' some other things I got the
engine-man lets me keep there, for there's boys that would steal an egg.
An' I could take you where we could fire that pistol. Bet you don't know
what that is!"

He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble, in which were
things that rattled.

Mr. McLean gave it up.

"That's kinni-kinnic seed. You can have that, for I got some more with
the engine-man."

Lin received this second token also, and thanked the giver for it. His
first feeling had been to prevent the boy's parting with his treasures,
but something that came not from the polish of manners and experience
made him know that he should take them. Billy talked away, laying bare
his little soul; the street boy that was not quite come made place for
the child that was not quite gone, and unimportant words and confidences
dropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr. McLean, and
inadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had not
hitherto met. It lasted but a short while, however, for he went to sleep
in the middle of a sentence, with his head upon Lin's breast. The man
held him perfectly still, because he had not the faintest notion
that Billy would be impossible to disturb. At length he spoke to him,
sugges