sort o' perked up his face when Jabez told him
about it; an' I thought he was goin' to suggest that they cut out the
trip to Europe an' take the whole o' the ranch. I had the makin's of a
good many cyclones in my system those days.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A MODERN KNIGHT-ERRANT

I was lonesome once. I don't mean simply willin' to sit in a game, or
to join a friendly little booze competition, or feelin' a sort of
inward desire to mingle about with some o' the old boys an' see who
could remember the biggest tales--I mean LONESOME,--the real
rib-strainin' article when a man sits in a limpy little heap with his
tongue hangin' out, a-wishin' that a flea-bit coyote would saunter
along, slap him on the back, an' call him friens.

I was out in No-man's land with just a small bunch o' mangy cows, an'
the grass so scarce I purt' nigh had to get 'em shod--they had to
travel so far in makin' a meal. It was hot an' it was dusty an' it was
dry--the whole earth seemed to reek. My victuals got moldy an' soft an'
sticky, my appetite laid down an' refused to go another peg; 'I was
just simply dyin' o' thirst, an' every single drop o' water we came
across had a breath like the dyin' gasp of a coal-oil stove, expirin'
for a couple o' fingers o' the stuff they float universities in.

Now I'd allus supposed that the' wasn't anything left to tell me about
bein' lonesome; but when it was finally settled that Barbie was to
waste herself on that imported imitation of a hand-made mechanical toy,
I found out that heretofore I'd been only dealin' in childish
delusions. The whole Diamond Dot seemed to rest right on top o' my
soul: the air didn't smell sweet, I got so I'd lie awake at night, food
grew so fearless it could look me right in the face without flinchin';
but one night I saw Merry England with his arm around Barbie's waist,
an' that settled it. By the time I had regained my self-control, I was
twenty miles from the ranch, an' I knew that if I went back it would be
to make arrangements for the last sad obsequaries of Clarence the
Comforter.

I had about three hundred bucks in my belt, so I wended my way to
Danders an' sneaked aboard the East-bound without attractin' the notice
of ol' Mrs. Fate or any o' the rest o' the Danders bunch. I got out at
Laramie, an' they all knew Dick an' was proud of him an' eager to learn
what had become of him. One thing else I found out, an' that was that
he had been keepin' a woman all right, an'