f all."

Well, you should have seen Jabez. Beam? Why, I reckon you could have
lit a cigar on his face, an' he fluttered around like a hen with one
chicken an' that one a duck. He couldn't quite believe that it was all
true and that he was actually awake. He had worried so long about her
cuttin' into some new game as soon as her schoolin' was done that he
hardly dared rejoice for fear it would wake him up; but it didn't take
her long to begin enjoyin' her old freedom again. It took us some
longer to adjust ourselves to her, however.

Now she hadn't changed such an awful sight, an' yet the' was somethin'
about her 'at made you feel like touchin' your hat when she issued an
order. Not that she was uppity nor nothin'; she rambled around playin'
with the colts an' the calves, an' rompin' with the dogs, an' fairly
stackin' up the whole place in little heaps. An' she rustled up her old
sombrero an' leggin's just as though she had never set a hoof off the
range. Still, the' was somethin' about her you couldn't quite put your
finger on; but which you knew in your heart was there all the time,
awaitin' till she made up her mind to call it out; like a handful o'
regulars givin' dignity to a scrawny two by twice fort in the Injun
country.

We took up our ridin' again, an' just as I was gettin' used to it,
along comes a feller lookin' about two thirds starved. His clothes was
ragged an' soiled, he had forgot his baggage, he was on foot (an' when
I say on foot, I don't only mean that he was dispensin' with the luxury
of a pony; he was also unemcumbered with soles to his boots), but he
had indoor hands, a back as straight as an Injun's, an' a way of
flingin' up his head an' drawin' down his brows when you spoke to him
sudden, which proved 'at trampin' was only a sideline with him. He put
in an application as cook for the home gang.

Ol' Cast Steel looked into him: examined his eyes, his hands, an' the
way he carried his head. Then he spoke kind o' slow an' drawly. "Cook?"
sez he. "We'll, I'd be willin' to bet 'at you've stayed up till three
o'clock a heap more times'n you have ever arose at this wholesome hour.
What can you cook?"

Well, the feller he laughed, an' sez, "You win. I own up 'at I ain't no
cook, nor I ain't no cow puncher; but my pension has stopped an' my
appetite is still runnin'. I never yet recall readin' no notice of any
cook what died of starvation."

Jabez grinned. "I don't ask no man about his past," sez he