d night, and part of
the next day--how many days is that? One, two nights, and two days and a
half--that will give us ten days to sell the house and pack the
furniture and ship it----"

"Ship it!" exclaimed the man. "We better not do any shipping till we buy
the ranch. The deal may not go through----"

"Well, Mr. What's-his-name don't own the only ranch in Montana. If we
don't buy his, we'll buy another one. You better see that Mr.
Schwabheimer tomorrow--he's wanted this place ever since we bought it,
and he's offered more than we paid."

"Oh, it won't be any trouble to sell the house. But, about shipping the
furniture until we're sure----"

Alice interrupted impetuously: "We'll ship it right straight
away--because when we get it out there we'll just have to buy a ranch to
put it in!"

Endicott surrendered with a gesture of mock despair: "If that's the way
you feel about it, I guess we'll have to buy. But, I'll give you fair
warning--it will be up to you to help run the outfit. I don't know
anything about the cattle business----"

"We'll find Tex! And we'll make him foreman--and then, when we get all
settled I'll invite Margery Demming out for a long visit--I've picked
out Margery for Tex--and we can put them up a nice house right near
ours, and Margery and I can----"

"Holy Mackerel!" laughed Endicott. "Just like that! Little things don't
matter at all--like the fact that we haven't any ranch yet to invite her
to, and that she might not come if you did invite her, and if she did
come she might not like the country or Tex, or he might not like her.
And last of all, we may never find Tex. We've both written him a half a
dozen times--and all the letters have been returned. If we had some ham,
we'd have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs!"

"There you go, with your old practicability! Anyhow, that's what we'll
do--and if Tex don't like her I'll invite someone else, and keep on
inviting until I find someone he does like--and as for her--no one could
help loving the country, and no one could help loving Tex--so there!"

"I hope the course of their true love will run less tempestuously than
ours did for those few days we were under the chaperonage of the Texan,"
grinned the man.

"Of course it will! It's probably very prosaic out there, the same as it
is anywhere, most of the time. It was a peculiar combination of
circumstances that plunged us into such a maelstrom of adventure. And
yet--I don't see why you s