his, and the ex-owner had gone to buy a ticket to go home by
rail, Henley winked at Cahews and said: "I know how to cure that hoss's
leg. I paid two dollars to learn in Fort Worth from an Indian
hoss-doctor. Two hundred dollars wouldn't buy 'im right now."

It was the loquacious stepfather-in-law who revelled most in Henley's
sayings and doings, and he regaled his wife and Henley's with accurate
and vivid reports of them. One morning he came into the sitting-room,
where the two women sat bent over a quilt on a big, square frame, their
needles going methodically up and down.

"You mought guess one million years," he panted, as he bent over them,
that he might feast on their facial expressions, "an' not guess what Alf
Henley's gone an' done."

They raised their faces and stared, and the wizened raconteur smiled as
he stepped to the open fireplace, shifted the paper screen to one side,
carefully spat, and then, replacing it, returned to his coign of
vantage.

"I don't know, and care less," Mrs. Henley answered, though her poised
needle and steady gaze belied her words. "He's done so many fool things
in his life that I'd not be surprised if he'd gone off in a balloon."

"That's equal to sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself
to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in
his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show
here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an'
left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it
all the way from Boston?"

They had heard every detail of the matter innumerable times, and only
stared and gaped as they awaited further revelations.

"Well, Alf Henley is sole owner an' manager now," was the bomb which
exploded in Wrinkle's hands. "He's the John Robinson and P. T. Barnum of
the whole capoodle."

"You don't mean that he has actually gone off with--" began Mrs. Henley,
but was checked by the old man's smile of correction.

"Well, he ain't, to say, actually _started out_ yit," the old man
grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers,
hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain
clodhoppers ain't in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women
if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat
throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to
throw twenty-dollar gold pieces at cats in no time. I seed the