alled "'Squire," and to be accepted into all the councils of the town.
This walk along the street was notice to the pure democracy of that
land that all might now leave cards at the cabin across the _arroyo_.
One need hardly doubt that the populace of Heart's Desire was lined up
along the street to say good morning and to receive befittingly this
tacit pledge of its newest citizen. Moreover, as to the Littlest Girl,
all Heart's Desire puffed out its chest. Once more, indeed, the camp
was entitled to hold up its head. There were Women in the town!
_Ergo_ Home; _ergo_ Civilization; _ergo_ Society; and ergo all the
rest. Heretofore Heart's Desire had wilfully been but an unorganized
section of savagery; but your Anglo Saxon, craving ever savagery, has
no sooner found it than he seeks to civilize it; there being for him in
his aeon of the world no real content or peace.

"I reckon the old man is goin' to take a look at the post-office to see
how he likes the place," said Curly, reflectively, as he gazed after
the gentleman whom he had frankly elected as his father-in-law. "He'll
get it, all right. Never saw a man from Leavenworth who wasn't a good
shot at a postoffice. But say, about that Littlest Girl--well, I
wonder!"

Curly was very restless until dinner-time, which, for one reason or
another, was postponed until about four of the afternoon. We met at
Dan Anderson's law office, which was also his residence, a room about a
dozen feet by twenty in size. The bunks were cleaned up, the blankets
put out of the way, and the centre of the room given over to a table,
small and home-made, but very full of good cheer for that time and
place. At the fireplace, McKinney, flushed and red, was broiling some
really good loin steaks. McKinney also allowed his imagination to soar
to the height of biscuits. Coffee was there assuredly, as one might
tell by the welcome odor now ascending. Upon the table there was
something masked under an ancient copy of a newspaper. Outside the
door of the adobe, in the deepest shade obtainable, sat two soap boxes
full of snow, or at least partly full, for Tom Osby had done his best.
In one of these boxes appeared the proof of Curly's truthfulness--three
cans of oysters, delicacies hitherto unheard of in that land! In the
other box was an object almost as unfamiliar as an oyster can,--an
oblong, smooth, and now partially frost-covered object with tinfoil
about its upper end. A certain tens