I
throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road."

Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking
lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?"

"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you,
Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but
she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she
ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to
have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the
windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in
the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a
detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let
him investigate you just for fun."

Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the
first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring
him."

"What will you do, Bill?"

"Knock him down if he gets in my road."

"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be
afraid of a detective, Bill?"

"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?"

"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say
anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?"

"Stole a saw-mill."

"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?"

"To rip out new territory--I wanted to make a state."

"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your
education?"

"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran
stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and
carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork."

"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to
you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too
old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard
work."

"You don't see me out of it, do you?"

"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you
go to school much when you was a boy?"

"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and
then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to
be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself."

"Was it a good shift?"

"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell
got up from the table.

"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl