d went on.

Yes, she certainly would miss Bowers if anything happened that he left
her, she thought as she turned inside to her market report and her
letters.

It was days, however, before Bowers found the opportunity to go to
Dibert's camp with supplies and incidentally warn Neifkins's herder, if
he was still crowding. Now as he jolted towards the fluttering rag,
thrust in a pile of rocks to mark the location of Dibert's sheep-wagon,
his thoughts, for once, were not of sheep or anything pertaining to
them. He was, forsooth, composing for the matrimonial paper an
advertisement which should be sufficiently attractive to draw a few
answers without making himself in any way liable. He thought he might
with safety say that he was a single gentleman, crowding forty,
interested in the sheep industry, who would be pleased to correspond
with a plump blonde of about thirty. He would not go so far as to say
that his object was matrimony, since, of course, it was not, and the
declaration might somehow prove incriminating. The Denver _Post_ was
full of suits for breach of promise and it behooved him to be wary.

Bowers felt like a fox, at the adroit wording of the advertisement, and
chuckled at his cunning. He would notify the postmaster in Prouty to
hold out his mail for him and thus escape further "joshing" from Kate,
who would be sure to observe letters addressed to him in feminine
writing.

The matrimonial paper had proved to be in the nature of a debauch to
Bowers, who had worn it to tatters poring over its columns. The "petite
blondes" and "dashing brunettes" who enumerated their charms without any
noticeable lack of modesty furnished food for his imagination. He
selected brides, as the description pleased him, with the prodigal
abandon of a sultan.

However, the idea of an advertisement of his own, dismissed promptly at
first, grew upon him. The thought of getting something in the mail
besides a catalogue and the speeches of his congressman, of having
something actually to look forward to, appealed to him strongly the
more he considered it. Bowers craved a little of the warmth of romance
in his drab existence and this was the only way he knew of obtaining it.

Smiling at the brash act he contemplated, Bowers threw the brake
mechanically as the front wheels of the wagon sank into a chuck-hole and
the jolt all but landed him on the broad rump of Old Peter.

As he raised his eyes he saw a sight charged with significance