an ride Chalkeye's pinto that bucked Honey Wiggin."

"I am sure you can ride finely, Mr. Lusk. Maybe you and I can take a
ride together. Pleasant dreams!"

She nodded and smiled to him, and slid her door to; and Billy considered
it, remarking: "I like her. What makes her live in a car?"

But he was drowsing while I told him; and I lifted him up to Lin, who
took him in his own blankets, where he fell immediately asleep. One
distant whistle showed how far the late engine had gone from us. We left
our car open, and I lay enjoying the cool air. Thus was I drifting off,
when I grew aware of a figure in the door. It was Lin, standing in his
stockings and not much else, with his pistol. He listened, and then
leaped down, light as a cat. I heard some repressed talking, and lay in
expectancy; but back he came, noiseless in his stockings, and as he
slid into bed I asked what the matter was. He had found the Texas
boy, Manassas Donohoe, by the girl's car, with no worse intention than
keeping a watch on it. "So I gave him to understand," said Lin, "that I
had no objection to him amusing himself playing picket-line, but that
I guessed I was enough guard, and he would find sleep healthier for
his system." After this I went to sleep wholly; but, waking once in the
night, thought I heard some one outside, and learned in the morning from
Lin that the boy had not gone until the time came for him to join
his outfit at the corrals. And I was surprised that Lin, the usually
good-hearted, should find nothing but mirth in the idea of this unknown,
unthanked young sentinel. "Sleeping's a heap better for them kind till
they get their growth," was his single observation.

But when Separ had dwindled to toys behind us in the journeying stage
I told Miss Jessamine, and although she laughed too, it was with a note
that young Texas would have liked to hear; and she hoped she might see
him upon her return, to thank him.

"Any Jack can walk around all night," said Mr. McLean, disparagingly.

"Well, then, and I know a Jack who didn't," observed the young lady.

This speech caused her admirer to be full of explanations; so that
when she saw how readily she could perplex him, and yet how capable and
untiring he was about her comfort, helping her out or tucking her in
at the stations where we had a meal or changed horses, she enjoyed the
hours very much, in spite of their growing awkwardness.

But oh, the sparkling, unbashful Lin! Sometimes he sat