ace
the long, red nose of Lee ran out. Beside it rolled his lonesome eye,
alive with excitement.

He came up with a strut, illumining the landscape, and inquired:

"Well, how do I look?"

"I'm darned if I know," said Gale. "But it's plumb unusual."

"These here shoes leak," said the spectacle, pulling up his baggy
trousers to display his tan footgear, "because they was made for dry
goin'--that's why they left the tops off; but they've got a nice,
healthy color, ain't they? As a whole, it seems to me I'm sort of
nifty." He revolved slowly before their admiring gaze, and while to one
versed in the manners of the Far East it would have been evident that
the original owner of these clothes had come from somewhere beyond the
Susquehanna, and had either been a football player or had travelled
with a glee club, to these three Northmen it seemed merely that here
was the modish echo of a distant civilization.

"Wat's de matter on your face?" said Poleon. "You been fightin'?"

"I ain't shaved in a long time, and this here excitement has kind of
shattered my nerves. I didn't have no lookin'-glass, neither, in my
shack, so I had to use a lard-can cover. Does it look bad?"

"Not to my way of thinkin'," said Gale, allaying "No Creek's" anxiety.
"It's more desp'rate than bad, but it sort of adds expression." At
which the miner's pride burst bounds.

"I'll kindly ask you to note the shirt--ten dollars a copy, that's all!
I got it from the little Jew down yonder. See them red spear-heads on
the boosum? 'Flower dee Lizzies,' which means 'calla lilies' in French.
Every one of 'em cost me four bits. On the level--how am I?"

"I never see no harness jus' lak it mese'f!" exclaimed Doret. "You look
good 'nough for tin-horn gambler. Say, don' you wear no necktie wit'
dem kin' of clothes?"

"No, sir! Not me. I'm a rude, rough miner, and I dress the part.
Low-cut, blushin' shoes and straw hats I can stand for, likewise
collars--they go hand-in-hand with pay-streaks; but a necktie ain't
neither wore for warmth nor protection; it's a pomp and a vanity, and
I'm a plain man without conceit. Now, let's proceed with the obsequies."

It was a very simple, unpretentious ceremony that took place inside the
long, low house of logs, and yet it was a wonderful thing to the dark,
shy maid who hearkened so breathlessly beside the man she had singled
out--the clean-cut man in uniform, who stood so straight and tall,
making response in a voice that