n a rising barometer."
--_Naval Regulations._

"Married men always make the worst husbands."
--_The Critic on the Hearth._

"Although, contrary to his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he
instructed the young prince in his royal duties."
--ANATOLE FRANCE.

Lyn Dyer lived with Uncle Dan in a little crowded house. Across the
way stood a big lonesome house; there Edith Harkey lived with Daddy
Pete.

Pete Harkey was a gentle, quiet and rather melancholy old man; Dan
Fenderson was a fat, jolly and noisy youth of fifty. In relating other
circumstances within the knowledge of the Border it would have been in
no degree improper to have put the emphasis on the names of those
two gentlemen. But this is "another story"; it is fitting that the
youngsters take precedence; Lyn Dyer and Uncle Dan, Edith and her
father.

Lyn Dyer--Carolyn, Lyn--had known no mother but Aunt Peg. The crowding
of the little house was well performed by Lyn's three young cousins,
Danjunior, Tomtom and Peggy. The big house had been lonesome for ten
years now. Edith's sisters and her one brother were all her seniors,
all married, and all living within eye flight; two at Hillsboro, a
scant twenty-five miles beyond the river--but the big house was not
less lonesome for that.

The little crowded house and the big lonesome house were half way
between Garfield post office and Derry. Both homes were in Sierra
County, but they were barely across the boundary; the county line made
the southern limit of each farm. This was no chance but a choosing,
and that a pointed one; having to do with that other story of those
two old men.

In Dona Ana County taxes were high and life was cheap. Since the
Civil War, Dona Ana had been bedeviled by the rule of professional
politicians. Sierra--aside from Lake Valley and Hillsboro--had very
little ruling and needed less; commonly enough there was only one
ticket for county officers, and that was picked by a volunteer
committee from both parties. Sierra was an American county, and took
pride that she had kept free from feuds and had no bandits within her
borders. Not that Mexicans were such evildoers. But where there was
an overwhelming Mexican vote there was a large purchasable vote;
which meant that purchasers took office. Unjust administration
followed--oppression, lawsuits and lawlessness,