ty," said he. "There, son! Don't be shy. Haf
you forgot it is forbidden fruit after now?"

"Kid sworn off?" inquired Uncle Pasco of the school-master.

"I understand," replied this person, "that Mr. Vogel will not allow
his cow-boys at the Malheur Agency to have any whiskey brought there.
Personally, I feel gratified." And Mr. Bolles, the new school-master,
gave his faint smile.

"Oh," muttered Uncle Pasco. "Forbidden to bring whiskey on the ranch?
H'm." His eyes wandered to the jewelry-box. "H'm," said he again; and
becoming thoughtful, he laid back his moth-eaten sly head, and spoke no
further with Mr. Bolles.

Dean Drake climbed into the stage and the vehicle started.

"Goot luck, goot luck, my son!" shouted the hearty Max, and opened and
waved both his big arms at the departing boy: He stood looking after the
stage. "I hope he come back," said he. "I think he come back. If he come
I r-raise him fifty dollars without any beard."

II

The stage had not trundled so far on its Silver City road but that a
whistle from Nampa station reached its three occupants. This was the
branch train starting back to Boise with Max Vogel aboard; and the boy
looked out at the locomotive with a sigh.

"Only five days of town," he murmured. "Six months more wilderness now."

"My life has been too much town," said the new school-master. "I am
looking forward to a little wilderness for a change."

Old Uncle Pasco, leaning back, said nothing; he kept his eyes shut and
his ears open.

"Change is what I don't get," sighed Dean Drake. In a few miles,
however, before they had come to the ferry over Snake River, the recent
leave-taking and his employer's kind but dominating repression lifted
from the boy's spirit. His gray eye wakened keen again, and he began
to whistle light opera tunes, looking about him alertly, like the
sparrow-hawk that he was. "Ever see Jeannie Winston in 'Fatinitza'?" he
inquired of Mr. Bolles.

The school-master, with a startled, thankful countenance, stated that he
had never.

"Ought to," said Drake.

"You a man? that can't be true!
Men have never eyes like you."

"That's what the girls in the harem sing in the second act. Golly whiz!"
The boy gleamed over the memory of that evening.

"You have a hard job before you," said the school-master, changing the
subject.

"Yep. Hard." The wary Drake shook his head warningly at Mr. Bolles to
keep off that subject, and he glanced in the direction