tched after a big thunderstorm."

"In a big thunderstorm!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. Don't yu' know about them, and what they'll do to aiggs? A
big case o' lightnin' and thunder will addle aiggs and keep 'em from
hatchin'. And I expect one came along, and all the other aiggs of
Em'ly's set didn't hatch out, but got plumb addled, and she happened not
to get addled that far, and so she just managed to make it through. But
she cert'nly ain't got a strong haid."

"I fear she has not," said I.

"Mighty hon'ble intentions," he observed. "If she can't make out to lay
anything, she wants to hatch somethin', and be a mother anyways."

"I wonder what relation the law considers that a hen is to the chicken
she hatched but did not lay?" I inquired.

The Virginian made no reply to this frivolous suggestion. He was gazing
over the wide landscape gravely and with apparent inattention. He
invariably saw game before I did, and was off his horse and crouched
among the sage while I was still getting my left foot clear of the
stirrup. I succeeded in killing an antelope, and we rode home with the
head and hind quarters.

"No," said he. "It's sure the thunder, and not the lonesomeness. How do
yu' like the lonesomeness yourself?"

I told him that I liked it.

"I could not live without it now," he said. "This has got into my
system." He swept his hand out at the vast space of world. "I went back
home to see my folks onced. Mother was dyin' slow, and she wanted me.
I stayed a year. But them Virginia mountains could please me no more.
Afteh she was gone, I told my brothers and sisters good-by. We like each
other well enough, but I reckon I'll not go back."

We found Em'ly seated upon a collection of green California peaches,
which the Judge had brought from the railroad.

"I don't mind her any more," I said; "I'm sorry for her."

"I've been sorry for her right along," said the Virginian. "She does
hate the roosters so." And he said that he was making a collection of
every class of object which he found her treating as eggs.

But Em'ly's egg-industry was terminated abruptly one morning, and her
unquestioned energies diverted to a new channel. A turkey which had been
sitting in the root-house appeared with twelve children, and a family of
bantams occurred almost simultaneously. Em'ly was importantly scratching
the soil inside Paladin's corral when the bantam tribe of newly born
came by down the lane, and she caught sight of them through t