st that the
method didn't work. Red listened most respectfully and always
replied, "Yes ma'am, but we don't want that paint. Get us some
good paint--bully old paint with stick'um in it--this stuff is like
whitewash, only feebler. We're going to put on a swell front up at
the mill, and we've got to have the right thing." And at last the
post-mistress said that she would, her respect for the
ex-cowpuncher having risen noticeably in the meantime.

V

The work on the mill was pushed, and in spite of the usual amount
of unforeseen delays, it was ready for work by the latter part of
September. The official opening was set for the
twenty-seventh--Miss Mattie's birthday--and the village of
Fairfield was invited to a picnic to be held at the mill in honor
of the occasion. It is needless to say that the Fairfield
Strawboard Mfg. Co. did the thing up in shape. Waggons loaded
with straw, and drawn by four-horse teams, went the rounds of the
village, collecting the guests. It is doubtful if Fairfield was
ever more surprised than at the realisation of how much there was
of her--using the pronoun out of respect to the majority--"when she
was bunched," as Red said. You would not have believed that
straggling, lonesome-looking place held so many people. As Red
could discover no means in the town's resources to provide a meal
for three hundred people it was necessarily a basket party, which
struck Mr. Saunders as being grievously like a Swede treat. He
made up for it in a measure by having barrels of lemonade and cider
on tap at the grounds--stronger beverages being barred--and by
hiring a quartette of strings "clear from town."

At half-past two on a resplendent but hot September afternoon the
caravan started for the mill grounds, the women dressed in the most
un-picnicky costumes imaginable, and the men ostentatiously at ease
in their store clothes. Everyone was in the best of spirits, keen
for the excitement and pleasure that was sure to mark the occasion.

Red rode old Buckskin, who had succumbed to the inevitable, and
only "jumped around a little," as Red put it, on being mounted. It
was pretty lively "jumping around," but perhaps Mr. Saunders found
some satisfaction in sitting perfectly at his ease, smoking his
cigarette, while Buck jumped and Fairfield admired. And, at any
rate, Buck had legs of iron, and the wind of a locomotive, carrying
Red all day, and willing to kick at anything which bothered him
w