ss of his powers. He was only thirteen or fourteen years old
when he died, but even the guidebook of the Northern Pacific had taken
notice of him, recounting the retort courteous he had delivered on one
occasion when he was serving the guests at the hotel.

"Tea or coffee?" he asked one of the "dudes" who had come in on the
Overland.

"I'll take tea, if you please," responded the tenderfoot.

"You blinkety blank son of a blank!" remarked Archie, "you'll take
coffee or I'll scald you!"

The "dude" took coffee.

His "lip" was, indeed, phenomenal, and one day when he aimed it at
Darius Vine (who was not a difficult mark), that individual bestirred
his two hundred and fifty pounds and set about to thrash him. Archie
promptly drew his "six-shooter," and as Darius, who was not
conspicuous for courage, fled toward the Cantonment, Archie followed,
shooting about his ears and his heels. Darius reached his brother's
store, nigh dead, just in time to slam the door in Archie's face.
Archie shot through the panel and brought Darius down with a bullet in
his leg.

Archie's "gayety" with his "six-shooter" seemed to stir no emotion in
his father except pride. But when Archie finally began to shoot at his
own brother, Jake Maunders mildly protested. "Golly, golly," he
exclaimed, "don't shoot at your brother. If you want to shoot at
anybody, shoot at somebody outside the family."

Whether or not the boy saw the reasonableness of this paternal
injunction is lost in the dust of the years. But the aphorism that the
good die young has no significance so far as Archie Maunders is
concerned.

The lawless element was altogether in the majority in the Bad Lands
and thieving was common up and down the river and in the heart of the
settlement itself. Maunders himself was too much of a coward to steal,
too politic not to realize the disadvantage in being caught
red-handed. Bill Williams was not above picking a purse when a
reasonably safe occasion offered, but as a rule, like Maunders, he and
his partner Hogue contrived to make some of the floaters and
fly-by-nights, fugitives from other communities, do the actual
stealing.

Maunders ruled by the law of the bully, and most men took him at the
valuation of his "bluff." But his attempt to intimidate Mrs. McGeeney
was a rank failure. One of his hogs wandered south across the railroad
track and invaded Mrs. McGeeney's vegetable garden; whereupon, to
discourage repetition, she promptly scal