nt, which is plumb solid, do I put Lorry to work over on the
line this summer?"

Bondsman cocked his ears, blinked, and a slight quiver began at his
shoulders, which would undoubtedly accentuate to the affirmative when it
reached his tail.

"Rats!" cried Dorothy.

The Airedale grew rigid, and his spike of a tail cocked up straight and
stiff.

Bud Shoop waved his hands helplessly. "I might 'a' knowed it! A lady can
always get a man steppin' on his own foot when he tries to walk around a
argument with her. You done bribed me and corrupted Bondsman. But I'm
stayin' right by what I said."

Dorothy jumped up and took Bud's big hand in her slender ones. "You're
just lovely to us!" And her brown eyes glowed softly.

Bud coughed. His shirt-collar seemed tight. He tugged at it, and coughed
again.

"Missy," he said, leaning forward and patting her hand,--"missy, I
would send Lorry plumb to--to--Phoenix and tell the Service to go find
him, just to see them brown eyes of yours lookin' at me like that. But
don't you say nothin' about this here committee meetin' to nobody. I
reckon you played a trick on me for teasin' you. So you think Lorry is a
right smart hombre, eh?"

"Oh," indifferently, "he's rather nice at times. He's company for
father."

"Then I reckon you set a whole lot of store by your daddy. Now, I wonder
if I was a young, bow-legged cow-puncher with kind of curly hair and
lookin' fierce and noble, and they was a gal whose daddy was plumb
lonesome for company, and I was to get notice from the boss that I was
to vamose the diggin's and go to work,--now, I wonder who'd ride twenty
miles of trail to talk up for me?"

"Why, I would!"

"You got everything off of me but my watch," laughed Bud. "I reckon
you'll let me keep that?"

"Is it a good watch?" she asked, and her eyes sparkled with a great
idea.

"Tol'able. Cost a dollar. I lost my old watch in Criswell. I reckon the
city marshal got it when I wa'n't lookin'."

"Well, you may keep it--for a while yet. When are you coming up to visit
us?"

"Just as soon as I can, missy. Here's your daddy. I want to talk to him
a minute."

Three weeks later, when the wheels of the local stage were beginning to
throw a fine dust, instead of mud, as they whirred from St. Johns to
Jason, Bud Shoop received a tiny flat package addressed in an unfamiliar
hand. He laid it aside until he had read the mail. Then he opened it. In
a nest of cotton batting gleamed a plain gol