awniness, and his arms
are those of the boys you see at the track meet of Lincoln Grammar
School Number Seven. The mutilated derby hat he now wore, a hat that had
been weathered from plum colour to a poisonous green--a shred of peacock
feather stuck in the band--lent his face no dignity whatever.

In truth, his was not an easy face to lend dignity to. It would still
look foolish, no matter what was lent it. He has a smug fringe of white
curls about the back and sides of his head, the beard of a prophet, and
the ready speech of a town bore. The blacksmith we read of can look the
whole world in the face, fears not any man, and would far rather do
honest smithing any day in the week--except Sunday--than live the life
of sinful ease that Uncle Abner was leading for the moment.

Uncle Abner may have feared no man; but he feared a woman. It was easy
to see this as he chatted the golden hours away to me. His pale eyes
seldom left the road where it came over a distant hill. When the woman
did arrive--Oh, surely the merry clang of the hammer on the anvil would
be heard in Abner's shop, where he led a dog's life. But, for a time at
least--

"So he's one of these tough murderers, is he?"

"You said it! Always a-creating of disturbances up on the reservation,
where he rightly belongs. Mebbe that's why they let him go off. Anyway,
he never stays there. Even in his young days they tell me he wouldn't
stay put. He'd disappear for a month and always come back with a new
wife. Talk about your Mormons! One time they sent out a new agent to the
reservation, and he hears talk back and forth of Pete philandering
thisaway; and he had his orders from the Gov'ment at Washington, D.C.,
to stamp out this here poly-gamy--or whatever you call it; so he orders
Pete up on the carpet and says to him: 'Look here now, Pete! You got a
regular wife, ain't you?' Pete says sure he has; and how could he say
anything else--the old liar! 'Well,' says Mr. Agent, 'I want you to get
this one regular wife of yours and lead a decent, orderly home life with
her; and don't let me hear no more scandalous reports about your goings
on.'

"Pete says all right; but he allows he'll have to have help in getting
her back home, because she's got kind of antagonistic and left him. The
agent says he'll put a stop to that if Pete'll just point her out. So
they ride down about a mile from the agency to a shack where they's a
young squaw out in front graining a deerhide and