ad, an'--an' I allus aim to play
fair, so I took to ridin' alone an' workin' harder than I was used to.

She could strum a guitar till you'd be willin' to swear it was the
heavenly harps of the Celustial Choir; an' she an' Dick used to loaf
around in the moonlight makin' melody 'at was worth goin' a good long
ways to hear. They sure made a tasty couple, an' all the boys used to
like to see 'em together. In fact, the whole Diamond Dot was as
match-makey as a quiltin' bee.

One moonlight night I'd been up to ol' Monody's grave, an' I came
walkin' back about half-past nine. It was more'n twelve years since Ol'
Monody had passed over, but it didn't seem that long. Just as I turned
a corner; I heard a laugh that seemed to float to me from a long ways
back in the past. It was Jim Jimison's laugh, an' as I came around the
corner of the house there he stood with his back to me, talkin' to
Barbie. "Well, for the Gee Whizz!" I cried. He turned, an' it was Dick.
We looked into each other's eyes a moment, an' then I forced a laugh
an' went on to the stallion stable, where I sat down to puzzle it out.

It wasn't very long before Dick came to me an' held out his hand. I
took it, an' we gave an old-time grip. "I was wonderin' how long it
would be before you saw through me," he sez.

I got the moon in his face an' looked at him a long time. Of course a
dozen years and the beard made a lot of difference, but not near all.
When I'd left him, he was only a boy, a boy all the way
through,--looks, words, actions; while now he was a man an' a sizey one
at that. It ain't years alone that make any such change. I knew in a
minute that Jim had been through something that was mighty near too
narrow to get through. "Well," sez I, "what's the story?"

"You put me on my feet, Happy," sez he, "an' after you left I just kept
on goin'. I tended to my stuff, an' I improved it an' I took on new
ranges, an' I made it go, I sure made it go. Then the Exporters Cattle
Company got after me. My range was needed to fill a gap between two o'
their ranges, an' they tried to make me sell.

"I didn't want to sell, I was makin' money an' I was layin' it up; and
I wasn't ready to stop workin' at my age, so I fought back. I didn't
stand any show. There's a bunch o' these big companies that are all the
same, under different names, an' they fought me on the ground an' on
the railroads, an' at the stock yards; they tried to turn my men again
me; they had my stuff r