fist in my face and called me "an old story-teller."

"Story-teller," said I; "what story?"

"Oh, what story? That _leg_ story, of course, you old cheat."

"What leg story?"

"Old innocence; that amputation below the knee--you know."

"Wa'n't it below the knee?"

"Yes, but it was only the little toe."

"John," said Miles, "she cried when she looked for that wooden foot and
only found a slightly flat wheel."

"That's just like 'em," said I. "Here Marie only expected a part of a
hero, and we give her a whole man, and she kicks--that's gratitude for
you."

"I got my hero all right, though," said Marie; "you told me a big fib
just the same, but I could kiss you for it."

"Don't you do that," said I; "but if the Lord should send you many
blessings, and any of 'em are boys, you might name one after me."

She said she'd do it--and she did.

MY LADY OF THE EYES

One morning, some years ago, I struck the general master mechanic of a
Rocky Mountain road for a job as an engineer--I needed a job pretty
badly.

As quick as the M. M. found that I could handle air on two hundred foot
grades, he was as tickled as I was; engineers were not plenty in the
country then, so many deserted to go to the mines.

"The 'III' will be out in a couple of days, and you can have her
regular, unless Hopkins comes back," said he.

I hustled around for a room and made my peace with the boarding-house
people before I reported to break in the big consolidation that was to
fall to my care.

She was big and black and ugly and new, and her fresh fire made the
asphalt paint on her fire-box and front-end stink in that peculiar and
familiar way given to recently rebuilt engines; but it smelt better to
me than all the perfumes of Arabia.

A good-natured engineer came out on the ash-pit track to welcome me to
the West and the road, and incidentally to remark that it was a great
relief to the gang that I had come as I did.

"Why," I asked, "are you so short-handed that you are doubling and
trebling?" "No, but they are afraid that some of 'em will have to take
out the 'III'--she is a holy terror."

Hadn't she been burned the first trip? Didn't she kill Jim O'Neil with
the reverse lever? Hadn't she lain down on the bed of the Arkansas river
and wallowed on "Scar Face" Hopkins, and he not up yet? Hadn't she run
away time and again without cause or provocation?

But a fellow that has needed a job for six months will tackle almost
an