fer the compliment, I'll
hev to refuse," replied Monty, laboring in distress. "It's too harrowin'
fer tender-hearted gurls to listen to."

"Go on?" cried everybody except the cowboys. Nels began to nod his head
as if he, as well as Monty, understood human nature. Dorothy hugged her
knees with a kind of shudder. Monty had fastened the hypnotic eyes upon
her. Castleton ceased smoking, adjusted his eyeglass, and prepared to
listen in great earnestness.

Monty changed his seat to one where the light from the blazing logs
fell upon his face; and he appeared plunged into melancholy and profound
thought.

"Now I tax myself, I can't jest decide which was the orfulest time I
ever hed," he said, reflectively.

Here Nels blew forth an immense cloud of smoke, as if he desired to hide
himself from sight. Monty pondered, and then when the smoke rolled away
he turned to Nels.

"See hyar, old pard, me an' you seen somethin' of each other in the
Panhandle, more 'n thirty years ago--"

"Which we didn't," interrupted Nels, bluntly. "Shore you can't make me
out an ole man."

"Mebbe it wasn't so darn long. Anyhow, Nels, you recollect them three
hoss-thieves I hung all on one cottonwood-tree, an' likewise thet
boo-tiful blond gurl I rescooed from a band of cutthroats who murdered
her paw, ole Bill Warren, the buffalo-hunter? Now, which of them two
scraps was the turriblest, in your idee?"

"Monty, my memory's shore bad," replied the unimpeachable Nels.

"Tell us about the beautiful blonde," cried at least three of the
ladies. Dorothy, who had suffered from nightmare because of a former
story of hanging men on trees, had voicelessly appealed to Monty to
spare her more of that.

"All right, we'll hev the blond gurl," said Monty, settling back,
"though I ain't thinkin' her story is most turrible of the two, an'
it'll rake over tender affections long slumberin' in my breast."

As he paused there came a sharp, rapping sound. This appeared to be Nels
knocking the ashes out of his pipe on a stump--a true indication of the
passing of content from that jealous cowboy.

"It was down in the Panhandle, 'way over in the west end of thet
Comanche huntin'-ground, an' all the redskins an' outlaws in thet
country were hidin' in the river-bottoms, an' chasin' some of the last
buffalo herds thet hed wintered in there. I was a young buck them days,
an' purty much of a desperado, I'm thinkin'. Though of all the seventeen
notches on my gun--an' ea