worth, why I began to feel right careful about that. And now I have got
savings stowed away. If once yu' could know how good that feels--"

"So I would know," said Shorty, "with your luck."

"What's my luck?" said the Virginian, sternly.

"Well, if I had took up land along a creek that never goes dry and
proved upon it like you have, and if I had saw that land raise its value
on me with me lifting no finger--"

"Why did you lift no finger?" cut in the Virginian. "Who stopped yu'
taking up land? Did it not stretch in front of yu', behind yu', all
around yu', the biggest, baldest opportunity in sight? That was the time
I lifted my finger; but yu' didn't."

Shorty stood stubborn.

"But never mind that," said the Virginian. "Take my land away to-morrow,
and I'd still have my savings in bank. Because, you see, I had to work
right hard gathering them in. I found out what I could do, and I settled
down and did it. Now you can do that too. The only tough part is the
finding out what you're good for. And for you, that is found. If you'll
just decide to work at this thing you can do, and gentle those hawsses
for the Judge, you'll be having savings in a bank yourself."

"I can make more," said the lost dog.

The Virginian was on the point of saying, "Then get out!" But instead,
he spoke kindness to the end. "The weather is freezing yet," he said,
"and it will be for a good long while. Take your time, and tell me if
yu' change your mind."

After that Shorty returned to the bunk house, and the Virginian knew
that the boy had learned his lesson of discontent from Trampas with
a thoroughness past all unteaching. This petty triumph of evil seemed
scarce of the size to count as any victory over the Virginian. But all
men grasp at straws. Since that first moment, when in the Medicine Bow
saloon the Virginian had shut the mouth of Trampas by a word, the man
had been trying to get even without risk; and at each successive clash
of his weapon with the Virginian's, he had merely met another public
humiliation. Therefore, now at the Sunk Creek Ranch in these cold white
days, a certain lurking insolence in his gait showed plainly his opinion
that by disaffecting Shorty he had made some sort of reprisal.

Yes, he had poisoned the lost dog. In the springtime, when the
neighboring ranches needed additional hands, it happened as the
Virginian had foreseen,--Trampas departed to a "better job," as he took
pains to say, and with him the