dly, and promised intercession in his captive's behalf. This was
the more effective when, on arrival at the station-house, it was
learned that the girl with the dog had not appeared. Nor was there
sign of her after a period of waiting. The sergeant at the desk
decided that there could be no occasion to hold the prisoner. But he
frowned on the deadly weapon, which the usual search had revealed.

"'Twon't do for you to go totin' that cannon promiscuous," he
declared. "You shore don't need a gun--you shore do need breeches.
What's the answer?... Hock the gun, and buy some pants."

Thus simply did an alert mind solve all difficulties of the
situation.

So in the end, Zeke issued safely from his first bout with mischance
and found himself well content, for his dress now was more like that
of the men about him. The new trousers were full length, which the
jeans had not been, and the creases down the legs were in the latest
style. The salesman had so stated, and Zeke observed with huge
satisfaction that the stiffness of the creases seemed to mark the
quality of the various suits visible in the streets. And his own
creases were of the most rigid! Zeke for the first time in his life,
felt that warm thrill which characterizes any human integer, whether
high or low, when conscious of being especially well dressed.

Followed an interval of loitering. The sights of the town formed an
endless panorama of wonder to the lad's eager vision. Though he was a
year past the age of man's estate, this was his first opportunity of
beholding a town of any size, of seeing face to face things of which
he had heard a little, had read more. His fresh, receptive mind
scanned every detail with fierce concentration of interest, and
registered a multitude of vivid impressions to be tenaciously retained
in memory.

And ever with him, as he roamed the streets, went a tall slender girl,
barefooted, garbed in homespun, with great dark brown eyes that looked
tenderly on him from beneath the tumbled bronze masses of her hair. No
passer-by saw her, but the mountaineer knew her constant presence, and
with her held voiceless communion concerning all things that he
beheld. His heart exulted proudly over the bewildering revelations of
many women, both beautiful and marvelously clad in fine raiment--for
this girl that walked with him was more radiantly fair than any
other.

It was late afternoon when, finally, Zeke aroused himself to think of
the necessiti