ve the level of the ground. In a country where
timber was scarce and the railroad was not within two hundred miles, a
sod structure of this sort was the most practicable possible.

The girl sauntered in and glanced carelessly about her. Two or three
chap-clad cowboys were lounging against the counter watching another buy
a suit of clothes. The wide-brimmed hats of all of them came off
instantly at sight of her. The frontier was rampantly lawless, but
nowhere in the world did a good woman meet with more unquestioning
respect.

"What's this hyer garment?" asked the brick-red customer of the clerk,
holding up the waistcoat that went with the suit.

"That's a vest," explained the salesman. "You wear it under the coat."

"You don't say!" The vaquero examined the article curiously and
disdainfully. "I've heard tell of these didoes, but I never did see one
before. Well, I'll take this suit. Wrap it up. You keep the vest
proposition and give it to a tenderfoot."

No cowpuncher ever wore a waistcoat. The local dealers of the Southwest
had been utterly unable to impress this fact upon the mind of the Eastern
manufacturer. The result was that every suit came in three parts, one of
which always remained upon the shelf of the store. Some of the supply
merchants had several thousand of these articles de luxe in their stock.
In later years they gave them away to Indians and Mexicans.

"Do you know where Jack Goodheart is?" asked Lee of the nearest youth.

"No, ma'am, but I'll go hunt him for you," answered the puncher promptly.

"Thank you."

Ten minutes later a bronzed rider swung down in front of the Snaith home.
Miss Bertie Lee was on the porch.

"You sent for me," he said simply.

"Do you want to do something for me?"

"Try me."

"Will you ride after Webb's outfit and tell him that two of his men are
in hiding on the river just below town. One of them is wounded and can't
sit a horse. So he'd better send a buckboard for him. Let Homer Webb know
that if dad or Sanders finds these men, the cottonwoods will be bearing a
new kind of fruit. Tell him to burn the wind getting here. The men are in
a cave on the left-hand side of the river going down. It is just below
the bend."

Jack Goodheart did not ask her how she knew this or what difference it
made to her whether Webb rescued his riders or not. He said, "I'll be on
the road inside of twenty minutes."

Goodheart was a splendid specimen of the frontiersman. He was the