the slant. Thus had Lin cooked and dined alone, supped
alone, and sat over some old newspapers until bed-time alone with his
sense of virtue. And now here it was long after breakfast, and no Tommy
yet.

"It's good yu' come this forenoon," Lin said to me. "I'd not have had
the heart to get up another dinner just for myself. Let's eat rich!"

Accordingly, we had richly eaten, Lin and I. He had gone out among the
sheds and caught some eggs (that is how he spoke of it), we had opened
a number of things in cans, and I had made my famous dish of evaporated
apricots, in which I managed to fling a suspicion of caramel throughout
the stew.

"Tommy'll be hot about these," said Lin, joyfully, as we ate the eggs.
"He don't mind what yu' use of his canned goods--pickled salmon and
truck. He is hospitable all right enough till it comes to an egg. Then
he'll tell any lie. But shucks! Yu' can read Tommy right through his
clothing. 'Make yourself at home, Lin,' says he, yesterday. And he
showed me his fresh milk and his stuff. 'Here's a new ham,' says he;
'too bad my damned hens ain't been layin'. The sons-o'guns have quit on
me ever since Christmas.' And away he goes to Powder River for the mail.
'You swore too heavy about them hens,' thinks I. Well, I expect he may
have travelled half a mile by the time I'd found four nests."

I am fond of eggs, and eat them constantly--and in Wyoming they were
always a luxury. But I never forget those that day, and how Lin and
I enjoyed them thinking of Tommy. Perhaps manhood was not quite
established in my own soul at that time--and perhaps that is the reason
why it is the only time I have ever known which I would live over again,
those years when people said, "You are old enough to know better"--and
one didn't care!

Salmon, apricots, eggs, we dealt with them all properly, and I had some
cigars. It was now that the news came back into my head.

"What do you think of--" I began, and stopped.

I spoke out of a long silence, the slack, luxurious silence of
digestion. I got no answer, naturally, from the torpid Lin, and then it
occurred to me that he would have asked me what I thought, long before
this, had he known. So, observing how comfortable he was, I began
differently.

"What is the most important event that can happen in this country?" said
I.

Mr. McLean heard me where he lay along the floor of the cabin on his
back, dozing by the fire; but his eyes remained closed. He waggled one