accidentally who the lady in the stage was. This
he had kept to himself; nor did the camp ever notice that he had ceased
to sing that eightieth stanza he had made about the A B C--the stanza
which was not printable. He effaced it imperceptibly, giving the boys
the other seventy-nine at judicious intervals. They dreamed of no guile,
but merely saw in him, whether frequenting camp or town, the same not
over-angelic comrade whom they valued and could not wholly understand.

All spring he had ridden trail, worked at ditches during summer, and
now he had just finished with the beef round-up. Yesterday, while he was
spending a little comfortable money at the Drybone hog-ranch, a casual
traveller from the north gossiped of Bear Creek, and the fences up
there, and the farm crops, the Westfalls, and the young schoolmarm from
Vermont, for whom the Taylors had built a cabin next door to theirs. The
traveller had not seen her, but Mrs. Taylor and all the ladies thought
the world of her, and Lin McLean had told him she was "away up in G."
She would have plenty of partners at this Swinton barbecue. Great boon
for the country, wasn't it, steers jumping that way?

The Virginian heard, asking no questions; and left town in an hour,
with the scarf and trousers tied in his slicker behind his saddle. After
looking upon the ford again, even though it was dry and not at all the
same place, he journeyed in attentively. When you have been hard at
work for months with no time to think, of course you think a great deal
during your first empty days. "Step along, you Monte hawss!" he said,
rousing after some while. He disciplined Monte, who flattened his ears
affectedly and snorted. "Why, you surely ain' thinkin' of you'-self as
a hero? She wasn't really a-drowndin', you pie-biter." He rested his
serious glance upon the alkali. "She's not likely to have forgot that
mix-up, though. I guess I'll not remind her about grippin' me, and all
that. She wasn't the kind a man ought to josh about such things. She had
a right clear eye." Thus, tall and loose in the saddle, did he jog along
the sixty miles which still lay between him and the dance.

X. WHERE FANCY WAS BRED

Two camps in the open, and the Virginian's Monte horse, untired, brought
him to the Swintons' in good time for the barbecue. The horse received
good food at length, while his rider was welcomed with good whiskey.
GOOD whiskey--for had not steers jumped to seventy-five?

Inside