each listener into a blood-stained
fugitive, climbing with torn fingers upon the ensanguined rocks. He
touched the table and spake, and the five panted as they gazed on
barren lava beds, and each man took his tongue between his teeth and
felt his mouth bake at the tale of a land empty of water and food. As
simply as Homer sang, while he dug a tine of his fork leisurely into
the tablecloth, he opened a new world to their view, as does one who
tells a child of the Looking-Glass Country.

As one of his listeners might have spoken of tea too strong at a
Madison Square "afternoon," so he depicted the ravages of "redeye"
in a border town when the caballeros of the lariat and "forty-five"
reduced ennui to a minimum.

And then, with a sweep of his white, unringed hands, he dismissed
Melpomene, and forthwith Diana and Amaryllis footed it before the
mind's eyes of the clubmen.

The savannas of the continent spread before them. The wind, humming
through a hundred leagues of sage brush and mesquite, closed their
ears to the city's staccato noises. He told them of camps, of ranches
marooned in a sea of fragrant prairie blossoms, of gallops in the
stilly night that Apollo would have forsaken his daytime steeds to
enjoy; he read them the great, rough epic of the cattle and the
hills that have not been spoiled by the hand of man, the mason. His
words were a telescope to the city men, whose eyes had looked upon
Youngstown, O., and whose tongues had called it "West."

In fact, Emerson had them "going."

The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by appointment, at a
Forty-second Street cafe.

Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He wore a suit of dark
cheviot that looked to have been draped upon him by an ancient
Grecian tailor who was a few thousand years ahead of the styles.

"Mr. Vuyning," said he, with the clear, ingenuous smile of the
successful "crook," "it's up to me to go the limit for you any time I
can do so. You're the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor,
you bet your life I'll do it."

"What was that cow-puncher's name?" asked Vuyning, "who used to catch
a mustang by the nose and mane, and throw him till he put the bridle
on?"

"Bates," said Emerson.

"Thanks," said Vuyning. "I thought it was Yates. Oh, about that
toggery business--I'd forgotten that."

"I've been looking for some guy to put me on the right track for
years," said Emerson. "You're the goods, duty free, and half-way to
the wa