with
the girls.

"Sure, we'll start at sun-up," Cal answered gravely. "We've got to
be there by ten o'clock, so as to help the girls cut the cake and
round up all the ham sandwiches; haven't we, Weary?"

"I should smile to remark," Weary assented emphatically. "Sun-up
sure sees us on the road, Cadwolloper--and yuh want to be sure and
wear that new pink silk handkerchief, that matches the roses in your
cheeks so nice. My schoolma'am's got a friend visiting her, and
she's been hearing a lot about yuh. She's plumb wild to meet yuh.
Chip drawed your picture and I sent it over in my last letter, and
the little friend has gone plumb batty over your dimples (Chip drawed
yuh with a sweet smile drifting, like a rose-leaf with the dew on it,
across your countenance, and your hat pushed back so the curls would
show) and it sure done the business for Little Friend. Schoolma'am
says she's a good-looker, herself, and that Joe Meeker has took to
parting his hair on the dead center and wearing a four-inch,
celluloid collar week days. But he's all to the bad--she just looks
at your picture and smiles sad and longing."

"I hate to see a man impose on friendship," murmured Pink. "I don't
want to spoil your face till after the Fourth, though that ain't
saying yuh don't deserve it. But I will say this: You're a liar--you
ain't had a letter for more than six weeks."

"Got anything yuh want to bet on that?" Weary reached challengingly
toward an inner pocket of his vest.

"Nit. I don't give a darn, anyway yuh look at it. I'm going to
bed." Pink unrolled his "sooguns" in their accustomed corner next to
Weary's bed and went straightway to sleep.

Weary thumped his own battered pillow into some semblance of
plumpness and gazed with suspicion at the thick fringe of curled
lashes lying softly upon Pink's cheeks.

"If I was a girl," he said pensively to the others, "I'd sure be in
love with Cadwolloper myself. He don't amount to nothing, but his
face 'd cause me to lose my appetite and pine away like a wilted
vi'let. It's straight, about that girl being stuck on his picture;
I'd gamble she's counting the hours on her fingers, right now, till
he'll stand before her. Schoolma'am says it'll be a plumb sin if he
don't act pretty about it and let her love him." He eyed Pink
sharply from the tail of his eye, but not a lash quivered; the breath
came evenly and softly between Pink's half-closed lips--and if he
heard there was nothin