black,
well-brushed suit. And he made me think of a powerful locomotive stuck
puffing on a grade.

Meanwhile, the Virginian rode beside me, so silent in his volcanic wrath
that I did not perceive it. The missionary coming on top of Trampas
had been more than he could stand. But I did not know, and I spoke with
innocent cheeriness.

"Is the parson going to save us?" I asked; and I fairly jumped at
his voice: "Don't talk so much!" he burst out. I had got the whole
accumulation!

"Who's been talking?" I in equal anger screeched back. "I'm not trying
to save you. I didn't take your rope." And having poured this out, I
whipped up my pony.

But he spurred his own alongside of me; and glancing at him, I saw that
he was now convulsed with internal mirth. I therefore drew down to a
walk, and he straightened into gravity.

"I'm right obliged to yu'," he laid his hand in its buckskin gauntlet
upon my horse's mane as he spoke, "for bringing me back out o' my
nonsense. I'll be as serene as a bird now--whatever they do. A man,"
he stated reflectively, "any full-sized man, ought to own a big lot of
temper. And like all his valuable possessions, he'd ought to keep it and
not lose any." This was his full apology. "As for salvation, I have got
this far: somebody," he swept an arm at the sunset and the mountains,
"must have made all that, I know. But I know one more thing I would tell
Him to His face: if I can't do nothing long enough and good enough to
earn eternal happiness, I can't do nothing long enough and bad enough to
be damned. I reckon He plays a square game with us if He plays at all,
and I ain't bothering my haid about other worlds."

As we reached the stables, he had become the serene bird he promised,
and was sentimentally continuing:

"'De sun is made of mud from de bottom of de river;
De moon is made o' fox-fire, as you might disciver;
De stars like de ladies' eyes,
All round de world dey flies,
To give a little light when de moon don't rise.'"

If words were meant to conceal our thoughts, melody is perhaps a still
thicker veil for them. Whatever temper he had lost, he had certainly
found again; but this all the more fitted him to deal with Trampas, when
the dealing should begin. I had half a mind to speak to the Judge, only
it seemed beyond a mere visitor's business. Our missionary was at this
moment himself speaking to Judge Henry at the door of the home ranch.

"I reckon he's explai