ind. And Toledo had a
loaf of bread under his arm.

"'This here is Mrs. Blake,' says Toledo, kind of nervous.

"'I am glad she is,' says I. 'Toledo, you're doin' well. Don't know
nothin' about the leetle colt in the blanket, but the yearlin' is built
right. He's got good hocks and first-class action.'

"Mrs. Toledo, she kind of sniffed superior, but said nothin'. You know
that kind of sayin' nothin' which is waitin' for you to move on.

"'Won't you come up to the shack and have grub?' says Toledo, hopin' I'd
say 'No.'

"'Nope,' says I. 'Obliged jest the same. I see you got hep to the ant
all right.'

"'I'll let you know I'm nobody's aunt!' says Mrs. Toledo, yankin' the
yearlin' off his hoofs and settin' him down again. For a fact, she thunk
I was alludin' to her.

"'Of course not, madam,' says I, polite, and liftin' me lid. 'And I
judge somebody's in luck at that.'

"I guess it was her not used to bein' spoke and acted polite to that got
her goat. Mebby she smelt somethin' sarcastic. I dunno. Anyhow, she was
a longhorn with a bad eye. 'Go on, you chicken-lifter!' she says.

"Bein' no hand to sass a lady, I said nothin' more to _her_. But I hands
Toledo a jolt for bein' ashamed of his old pal.

"'Well, so long,' says I, kind of offhand and easy. 'So long. I'll tell
Lucy when I see her that you was run over by a freight and killed. Then
she can take out them papers and marry Mike Brannigan that's been
waitin' in the hopes you'd pass over. You remember Mike, the cop on
Cherry Street. You oughta. He's pinched you often enough. 'Course you
do. Well, so long. Little Johnny was lookin' fine the last I seen of
him. He's gettin' more like his pa every day. But I got to beat it.'"

Overland Red leaned back and puffed a great cloud of smoke from a fresh
cigarette.

"Who was Lucy?" asked Winthrop.

"Search me!" replied Overland. "They wasn't any Lucy or nobody like
that. But I'd like to 'a' stayed to hear Toledo explain that to Mrs.
Toledo, though. She was a hard map to talk to."

"I suppose there's a moral attached to that, or, more properly, embodied
in that story. But it is good enough in itself without disemboweling it
for the moral."

"You can't always go by ants, neither," said Overland.

Winthrop nodded. His eyes were filled with the awe of great distances
and innumerable stars. "Gold!" he whispered presently, as one whispers
in dreams. "Gold! Everywhere! In the sun--in the starlight--in the
flowers--in