put snow down each other's backs. Their shouts rang round
corners; it was like boys let out of school. When Drake gathered them
for the shooting-match, they cheered him; when he told them there were
no prizes, what did they care for prizes? When he beat them all the
first round, they cheered him again. Pity he hadn't offered prizes! He
wasn't a good business man, after all!

The rounds at the target proceeded through the forenoon, Drake the
acclaimed leader; and the Christmas sun drew to mid-sky. But as its
splendor in the heavens increased, the happy shoutings on earth began
to wane. The body was all that the buccaroos knew; well, the flesh comes
pretty natural to all of us--and who had ever taught these men about
the spirit? The further they were from breakfast the nearer they were
to dinner; yet the happy shootings waned! The spirit is a strange thing.
Often it dwells dumb in human clay, then unexpectedly speaks out of the
clay's darkness.

It was no longer a crowd Drake had at the target. He became aware that
quietness had been gradually coming over the buccaroos. He looked, and
saw a man wandering by himself in the lane. Another leaned by the stable
corner, with a vacant face. Through the windows of the bunk-house
he could see two or three on their beds. The children were tired of
shouting. Drake went in-doors and threw a great log on the fire. It
blazed up high with sparks, and he watched it, although the sun shown
bright on the window-sill. Presently he noticed that a man had come in
and taken a chair. It was Half-past Full, and with his boots stretched
to the warmth, he sat gazing into the fire. The door opened and another
buckaroo entered and sat off in a corner. He had a bundle of old
letters, smeared sheets tied trite a twisted old ribbon. While his
large, top-toughened fingers softly loosened the ribbon, he sat with his
back to the room and presently began to read the letters over, one
by one. Most of the men came in before long, and silently joined the
watchers round the treat fireplace. Drake threw another log on, and in
a short time this, too, broke into ample flame. The silence was long;
a slice of shadow had fallen across the window-sill, when a young man
spoke, addressing the logs:

"I skinned a coon in San Saba, Texas, this day a year."

At the sound of a voice, some of their eyes turned on the speaker, but
turned back to the fire again. The spirit had spoken from the clay,
aloud; and the clay was