r cinch; it may be that our loud cheer was the last thing of this
world that he knew. The injuries to his body made impossible any taking
him home, which his sister at first wished to do. "Why, I came here to
bring him home," she said, with a smile and tone like cheerfulness in
wax. Her calm, the unearthly ease with which she spoke to any comer (and
she was surrounded with rough kindness), embarrassed the listeners; she
saw her calamity clear as they did, but was sleep-walking in it. It was
Lin gave her what she needed--the repose of his strong, silent presence.
He spoke no sympathy and no advice, nor even did he argue with her about
the burial; he perceived somehow that she did not really hear what was
said to her, and that these first griefless, sensible words came from
some mechanism of the nerves; so he kept himself near her, and let her
tell her story as she would. Once I heard him say to her, with the
same authority of that first "come away"; "Now you've had enough of
the talking. Come for a walk." Enough of the talking--as if it were
a treatment! How did he think of that? Jessamine, at any rate, again
obeyed him, and I saw the two going quietly about in the meadows and
along the curving brook; and that night she slept well. On one only
point did the cow-puncher consult me.

"They figured to put Nate on top of that bald mound," said he. "But
she has talked about the flowers and shade where the old folks lie, and
where she wants him to be alongside of them. I've not let her look at
him to-day, for--well, she might get the way he looks now on her memory.
But I'd like to show you my idea before going further."

Lin had indeed chosen a beautiful place, and so I told him at the first
sight of it.

"That's all I wanted to know," said he. "I'll fix the rest."

I believe he never once told Jessamine the body could not travel so far
as Kentucky. I think he let her live and talk and grieve from hour
to hour, and then led her that afternoon to the nook of sunlight and
sheltering trees, and won her consent to it thus; for there was Nate
laid, and there she went to sit, alone. Lin did not go with her on those
walks.

But now something new was on the fellow's mind. He was plainly occupied
with it, whatever else he was doing, and he had some active cattle-work.
On my asking him if Jessamine Buckner had decided when to return east,
he inquired of me, angrily, what was there in Kentucky she could
not have in Wyoming? Conseque