othes (bought at this store) which turned green in the hot
sun.

"Oh, come now!" I insisted, "I want to know about Nancy. All this
interests me deeply. Did she agree to come back with you?"

He looked a little bit embarrassed. "I asked her to--right there in
front of that window. I said, 'I want you to let me buy you that white
dress.'

"'Judas priest! I can't let you do that,' she says.

"'Why not?' I said. 'We're goin' to be married, anyhow.'

"'Is that so?' she asked. 'I hadn't heard of it.'

"Oh, she was no babe, I tell you. We went back to the hotel and woke up
the old man, and I ordered up the best machine in the shop--a big
seven-seated, shiny one, half as long as a Pullman parlor-car, with a
top and brass housin's and extra tires strapped on, and a place for a
trunk--an outfit that made me look like a street-railway magnate. It set
me back a whole lot, but I wanted to stagger dad--and I did. As we
rolled up to the door he came out with eyes you could hang your hat on.

"'What's all this?' he asked.

"I hopped out.

"'Miss McRae,' I says, 'this is my father. Dad, this is Mister McRae. I
think you've met before.'"

He chuckled again, that silent interior laugh, and I was certainly
grinning in sympathy as he went on.

"'Just help me with this trunk,' I says. 'The horses bein' tired, I just
thought I'd have a dray to bring up my duds.'

"Well, sir, I had him flat down. He couldn't raise a grunt. He stood
like a post while I laid off my trunk; but mother and sis came out and
were both very nice to Nance. Mother asked her to get out, and she did,
and I took 'em all for a ride later--all but dad. Couldn't get him
inside the machine. Nance stayed for supper, and just as we were goin'
in dad said to me:

"'How much does that red machine cost you an hour?'

"'About two dollars.'

"'I reckon you better send it back to the shop,' he says. 'You can take
Nance home in my buggy.'

"It was his surrender; but I didn't turn a hair.

"'I guess you're right,' I says. 'It is a little expensive to spark
in--and a little too public, too.'"

The whistle of the engine announcing the station helped him out.

"Here's Victor, and my mine is up there on the north-west side. You can
just see the chimney. I've got another year on it, and I'm goin' to
raise dirt to beat hell durin' all the time there is left, and then I'm
goin' to Denver."

"And Nance?"

"Oh, she's comin' out next week," he said, as he rose to take