hey were closer than
ever, an' the third one had brought 'em together. The old sayin' is
that three's a crowd, but it took a crowd to hold all the joyfulness
that we was luggin' that night, an' it was ten o'clock before we turned
around on the velvet carpet an' came swingin' back to the house.

We had to finish with a little race, an' I was rejoiced to see that old
Starlight hadn't become a back number, even though the bay colt did
make it a mighty close finish.

As soon as we unsaddled, Barbie sort o' whispered to me, "I 'm awful
glad you came back, Happy"; an' then she ran into the house.

Jabez shook hands an' sez, "It seems to me, Happy, that I've been
waitin' for you for months. I hope to goodness you don't fly up any
more."

"I ain't goin' to look for trouble, Jabez," sez I. "This spot is the
most homelike to me of any on earth; but I don't believe I'll turn in
yet. I want to stroll around a little."

I walked off in the quiet to the little mound where Monody lay, an' I
sat there a long while, thinkin' o' the last time I'd come back. The
night was unusual warm, an' I hunted up all the stars that I knew, an'
watched 'em as they dropped down one by one behind the mountains. I
thought of all that Friar Tuck had said about the origin of life, an'
what a nerve a child like Barbie had to even study on such a subject.
Then I dropped back to all the happiness I'd had that day, an' the last
thing I knew I was lookin' into Barbie's eyes an' wonderin' what made
her face so pink. It was the cold, gray dawn-wind that woke me up.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE LASSOO DUEL

That was a summer I love to think over; but the' wasn't nothin'
happened to tell about. I was a little soft at first, but it didn't
take me long to get my hand in, an' I roped my half o' the winter
calves. It had been a mild winter an' the' was a big run of 'em, an'
Jabez was in a good humor most o' the time.

The men mostly liked Jabez; but they used to talk a lot about him, as
he was some different from the usual run. He had first come into that
locality when Barbie was two years old, buyin' the big Sembrick ranch
an' stockin' it up to the limit. Ye never said a word about his wife,
nor his past; an' Jabez wasn't just the sort of character a man felt
like pryin' private history out of.

The men laughed a good bit about the time Jabez had had with the Spike
Crick school. He had a fool notion that money was entitled to do all
the talkin', an' that'