bring the Virginian and
me to an appreciation of one another. Without her, it is likely I should
also not have heard so much of the story of the schoolmarm, and how that
lady at last came to Bear Creek.

VI. EM'LY

My personage was a hen, and she lived at the Sunk Creek Ranch.

Judge Henry's ranch was notable for several luxuries. He had milk, for
example. In those days his brother ranchmen had thousands of cattle very
often, but not a drop of milk, save the condensed variety. Therefore
they had no butter. The Judge had plenty. Next rarest to butter and milk
in the cattle country were eggs. But my host had chickens. Whether this
was because he had followed cock-fighting in his early days, or whether
it was due to Mrs. Henry, I cannot say. I only know that when I took a
meal elsewhere, I was likely to find nothing but the eternal "sowbelly,"
beans, and coffee; while at Sunk Creek the omelet and the custard were
frequent. The passing traveller was glad to tie his horse to the fence
here, and sit down to the Judge's table. For its fame was as wide as
Wyoming. It was an oasis in the Territory's desolate bill-of-fare.

The long fences of Judge Henry's home ranch began upon Sunk Creek soon
after that stream emerged from its canyon through the Bow Leg. It was
a place always well cared for by the owner, even in the days of his
bachelorhood. The placid regiments of cattle lay in the cool of the
cottonwoods by the water, or slowly moved among the sage-brush, feeding
upon the grass that in those forever departed years was plentiful and
tall. The steers came fat off his unenclosed range and fattened still
more in his large pasture; while his small pasture, a field some eight
miles square, was for several seasons given to the Judge's horses, and
over this ample space there played and prospered the good colts which
he raised from Paladin, his imported stallion. After he married, I have
been assured that his wife's influence became visible in and about the
house at once. Shade trees were planted, flowers attempted, and to the
chickens was added the much more troublesome turkey. I, the visitor, was
pressed into service when I arrived, green from the East. I took hold of
the farmyard and began building a better chicken house, while the Judge
was off creating meadow land in his gray and yellow wilderness. When
any cow-boy was unoccupied, he would lounge over to my neighborhood, and
silently regard my carpentering.

Those co