locate the claim? If he did," she
muttered, peering into the empty sack, "they're gone, now."

One by one, she returned the belongings, handling them tenderly, now,
and examining them lovingly, and many an article was returned to the
sack, wet with its splash of hot tears. "Here's his coffee pot, and
his plate, and frying pan, and his old pipe--" the pipe she did not
replace, but put it with the other things in her trunk. "And
here--why, it's a revolver and a belt of cartridges--like Vil
Holland's! And a hat like his, too! And I thought he was a desperado
because he wore them!" She jumped to her feet and, hurrying to the
mirror, tried on the hat, pinching the crown into a peak, tilting it
this way and that, and arranging and rearranging the soft roll brim.
"It fits!" she cried, delighted as a child, and then with eyes
sparkling, picked up the belt with its row of yellow cartridges and
its ivory handled six gun dangling in the holster. Buckling the belt
about her waist, she laughed aloud as the buckle tongue came to rest a
full six inches beyond the last hole. "I'll look just as desperate as
he does, now--except for his old jug. Daddy didn't have any jug, and
I'm glad--that's where the difference is--it's the jug. But, I wish he
had had one of those black horn effects for his scarf." She knotted
the brilliant red scarf with its zigzag border of yellow, about her
neck, and snatching a small pair of scissors from the dressing table,
removed the heavy belt, and proceeded to bore a tongue hole at the
point she had marked with her finger nail. So engrossed she became in
the work, that she failed to hear the approach of horses' feet, and
started violently at the sound of a voice from the doorway. "Permit
me." The six shooter thudded to the floor, and sweeping the hat from
his head, Monk Bethune crossed the room, and replaced it upon the
table. He smiled as he noticed the scar left upon the thick leather by
the scissor points; and repeated. "Permit me, please." He drew a
penknife from his pocket, and picked up the belt. "A knife is so much
better."

Ashamed of having been startled, Patty smiled. "Yes, please do. I had
no idea it was so tough, or that scissors could be so dull."

Deftly twirling the penknife, Bethune bored a neat hole in the
leather. "There should be several holes," he smiled, "for there are
occasions in the hill country when one fails to connect with the
commissary, and then it is that the tightening of the