go over and tell Johnny
what you want. And I'll send the buckboard over Saturday."

CHAPTER XXVIII

IMPROVEMENTS

Out in a field bordered by the roadway a man toiled behind a
disk-plough. He trudged with seven-league strides along the furrows,
disdaining to ride on the seat of the plough. To effect a comfortable
following of his operations he had lengthened the reins with
clothes-line. He drove a team of old and gentle white horses as
wheelers. His lead animals were mules, neither old nor gentle. It is
possible that this fact accounted for his being afoot. He was arrayed
in cowboy boots and chaps, a faded flannel shirt, and a Stetson.
Despite the fact that a year had passed since he had practically
"Lochinvared" the most willing Anita,--though with the full and joyous
consent of her parents,--he still clung to the habiliments of the
cowboy, feeling that they offset the more or less menial requirements
of tilling the soil. Behind him trailed a lean, shaggy wolf-dog who
nosed the furrows occasionally and dug for prairie-dogs with
intermittent zest.

The toiler, too preoccupied with his ploughing to see more than his
horses' heads and the immediate unbroken territory before them, did not
realize that a team had stopped out on the road and that a man had
leaped from the buckboard and was standing at the fence. Chance,
however, saw the man, and, running to Sundown, whined. Sundown pulled
up his team and wiped his brow. "Hurt your foot ag'in?" he queried.
"Nope? Then what's wrong?"

The man in the road called.

Sundown wheeled and stood with mouth open. "It's--Gee Gosh! It's
Billy!"

He observed that a young and fashionably attired woman sat in the
buckboard holding the team. He fumbled at his shirt and buttoned it at
the neck. Then he swung his team around and started toward the fence.

Will Corliss, attired in a quiet-hued business suit, his cheeks
healthfully pink and his eye clear, smiled as the lean one tied the
team and stalked toward him.

Corliss held out his hand. Sundown shook his head. "Excuse me, Billy,
but I ain't shakin' hands with you across no fence."

And Sundown wormed his length between the wires and straightened up,
extending a tanned and hairy paw. "Shake, pardner! Say, you're
lookin' gorjus!"

"My wife," said Corliss.

Sundown doffed his sombrero sweepingly. "Welcome to Arizona, ma'am."

"This is my friend, Washington Hicks, Margery."

"Yes, ma'am," said Su