leasure. Also, being,
as he was, free from the weight of a man, he felt an airy lightness that
was positively refreshing. And finally, since he was out of reach of the
nagging white, this blessing alone made him grateful. So he followed
along, working yet not working, with a feeling of complete composure
such as had not been his for many a day.

Still his composure did not last. The novelty wore off toward noon, and
he found himself morose and introspective again. Sounding the depths of
his grievances, he at length took to thinking of the white corral beside
the river. Not in many a day had he thought of the ranch. But he was
recalling it now, not through affection, not because it was home to him,
but because, brooding over his many discomforts in the open, he was
suddenly remembering that his life had not always been this--that he
knew actual comfort, knew what it was to have his wants gratified. And
recalling these facts, he naturally recalled that which had made them
possible--the little ranch in the valley. So he let his thoughts linger
there. Faint and elusive at first, those other days became finally quite
vivid, days of expectancy and gratification, days of sugar and quartered
apples, days of affection and love-talk from his pretty little mistress.
And how he missed them all! How he missed them--even the Mexican hostler
and the brown saddler and the old matronly horse--his mother by
adoption! But they were gone from him now, gone for all time out of his
life. Yet though he believed them gone, he continued to brood on them,
to live each day over again in his thoughts, till the men ahead
dismounted suddenly. Then he was glad to turn his attention to other
matters, things close around him. One of these was the coming of the
lean man with a pair of familiar objects in his hands--this after the
noonday meal.

"Well, my bucky," he began, turning critical eyes over Pat, "I been
studyin' your case a heap, and I've come to think I'm old Doctor Sow
himself. Your young man here is knocked out of all possible good," he
went on, as Stephen smilingly approached, "and so it occurred to me,
sir, as how you ain't sick no more'n I be. What ails you is you're an
aristocrat--something that's been knocked around unusual--what with them
rustlers and with us that's worse than rustlers--and got yourself all
mussed up and unfit! All you need is a cleanin'--that's what ails you!
You're just nice furniture--a piece o' Sheraton, mebbe--tha