ried the foreman, picking out the blackest
cigar he could see. "I could taste them cigars for a whole week, they
was so good. There's nothing like a good Perfecto to make a fellow feel
like he's too lucky to live."

"Oh," said Mrs. Shields. "Then you won't care for the coffee and pie and
gingerbread," she sighed. "I'm very sorry."

Blake jumped: "Lord, Ma'am," he cried hastily, "I meant in the smoking
line! Why, I've been losing sleep a-dreaming of your cooking. Every time
the cook fills my cup with his insult to coffee I feel so lonesome that
it hurts!"

"You want to look out, Tom!" laughingly warned the sheriff, "or you'll
get yourself disliked! When I don't care for Margaret's cooking I ain't
fool enough to say so, not a bit of it."

"You're a nice one to talk like that!" cried his wife. "You are just like
a little boy on baking day--I can hardly keep you out of the kitchen. You
bother me to death, and it is all I can do to cook enough for you!"

After the laugh had subsided and a steaming cup of coffee had been placed
at the foreman's elbow, Helen impatiently urged her brother to begin his
story.

He lighted his cigar with exasperating deliberateness and then laughed
softly: "Gosh! I'm getting to be a second fiddle around here. From morning
to night all I hear is The Orphan. The first thing that hits me when I
come home is, 'Have you seen The Orphan?' or, 'Have you heard anything
about him?' The worst offenders are Miss Ritchie and Helen. They pester
me nigh to death about him. But here goes:

"I reckon I'd better begin with Old John Taylor," he slowly began. "I've
been doing some quiet hunting lately, and in the course of it I ran across
Old John down in Crockettsville. You remember him, don't you, Tom? Yes,
I reckoned you wouldn't forget the man who got us out of that Apache
scrape. Well, I had a good talk with him, and this is what I learned:

"About twenty years ago a family named Gordon moved into northwestern
Texas and put up a shack in one of the valleys. There was three of them,
father, mother, and a bright little five-year-old boy, and they brought
about two hundred head of cattle, a few horses and a whole raft of
books. Gordon bought up quite a bit of land from a ranch nearby at
almost a song, and he never thought of asking for a deed--who would,
down there in those days? There wasn't a rancher who owned more than a
quarter section; you know the game, Tom--take up a hundred and sixty
acres on a st