or sixty-nine
varieties of breakfast food, if once you sit Trilby-wise on Wyoming
sand and eat the kind of breakfast we had that day.

After breakfast Hiram K. Hull hitched our horses to the wagon, got his
own horses ready, and then said, "'T ain't more 'n half a mile straight
out between them two hills to the stage-road, but I guess I had better
go and show you exactly, or you will be millin' around here all day,
tryin' to find it." In a very few minutes we were on the road, and our
odd host turned to go. "S'long!" he called. "Tell Stewart you seen old
Hikum. Him and me's shared tarps many's the nights. We used to be
punchers together,--old Clyde and me. Tell him old Hikum ain't forgot
him." So saying, he rode away into the golden morning, and we drove
onward, too.

We stopped for lunch only a few minutes that day, and we reached the
Bridger community about two that afternoon. The much sought Aurelia had
accepted the position of lifetime housekeeper for a sheep-herder who
had no house to keep, so I had to cast about for whatever comfort I
could. The roadhouse is presided over by a very able body of the clan
of Ferguson. I had never met her, but formalities count for very little
in the West. She was in her kitchen, having more trouble, she said,
than a hen whose ducklings were in swimming. I asked her if she could
accommodate the children and myself. "Yes," she said, "I can give you a
bed and grub, but I ain't got no time to ask you nothing. I ain't got
no time to inquire who you are nor where you come from. There's one
room left. You can have that, but you'll have to look out for yourself
and young 'uns." I felt equal to that; so I went out to have the horses
cared for and to unload the kiddies.

Leaning against the wagon was a man who made annual rounds of all the
homes in our community each summer; his sole object was to see what
kind of flowers we succeeded with. Every woman in our neighborhood
knows Bishey Bennet, but I don't think many would have recognized him
that afternoon. I had never seen him dressed in anything but blue denim
overalls and overshirt to match, but to-day he proudly displayed what
he said was his dove-colored suit. The style must have been one of
years ago, for I cannot remember seeing trousers quite so skimpy. He
wore top-boots, but as a concession to fashion he wore the boot-tops
under the trouser-legs, and as the trousers were about as narrow as a
sheath skirt, they kept slipping up and g