d on Alta that time, because I was a little sore. She's
not so foolish fickle as some."

"When she's trying to hold three men in line at once it looks to me she
must be playin' two of 'em for suckers. But go to it, go to it, old
feller; don't let me scare you off."

"I never had but one little fallin' out with Alta, and that was the time
I was sore. She wanted me to cut off my mustache, and I told her I
wouldn't do that for no girl that ever punched a piller."

"What did she want you to do that for, do you reckon?"

"Curiosity, Duke, plain curiosity. She worked old Jedlick that way, but
she couldn't throw me. Wanted to see how it'd change me, she said. Well,
I know, without no experimentin'."

"I don't know that it'd hurt you much to lose it, Taterleg."

"Hurt me? I'd look like one of them flat Christmas toys they make out of
tin without that mustache, Duke. I'd be so sharp in the face I'd whistle
in the wind every time my horse went out of a walk. I'm a-goin' to wear
that mustache to my grave, and no woman that ever hung her stockin's out
of the winder to dry's goin' to fool me into cuttin' it off."

"You know when you're comfortable, old feller. Stick to it, if that's
the way you feel about it."

They hitched at the hotel rack. Taterleg said he'd go on to the depot
with Lambert.

"I'm lookin' for a package of express goods I sent away to Chicago for,"
he explained.

The package was on hand, according to expectation. It proved to be a
five-pound box of chewing gum, "All kinds and all flavors," Taterleg
said.

"You've got enough there to stick you to her so tight that even death
can't part you," Lambert told him.

Taterleg winked as he worked undoing the cords.

"Only thing can beat it, Duke--money. Money can beat it, but a man's got
to have a lick or two of common sense to go with it, and some good looks
on the side, if he picks off a girl as wise as Alta. When Jedlick was
weak enough to cut off his mustache, he killed his chance."

"Is he in town tonight, do you reckon?"

"I seen his horse in front of the saloon. Well, no girl can say I ever
went and set down by her smellin' like a bunghole on a hot day. I don't
travel that road. I'll go over there smellin' like a fruit-store, and
I'll put that box in her hand and tell her to chaw till she goes to
sleep, an then I'll pull her head over on my shoulder and pat them
bangs. Hursh, oh, hursh!"

It seemed that the effervescent fellow could not be wholly