Jersey.

The outlook, he fancied, seemed more promising.

He sat down on his heel and started in energetically.

It did make a difference which side one milked on--there was no doubt
about it. The instant he touched her she lifted her foot and with an aim
which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that
she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach
with such force that the muffled thud of it sounded like someone beating
a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his
back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was bleeding internally
and probably dying.

Wallie finally got to his feet painfully and with both hands on his
stomach looked at the cow, who was again chewing tranquilly. There was
murder in Wallie's eyes as he yelled at her:

"Curse you! I could cut your heart out!"

Then he crept up the path to his tent and dropped down on his pneumatic
mattress, doubting if he ever would rise from it. As he lay there,
supperless, with his clothes on, every muscle in his body aching, to say
nothing of the sensation in his stomach, it seemed incredible that he
could be the same person who had started off so blithely in the morning.

The series of misfortunes which had befallen him overwhelmed him. He had
purchased a cow which not only gave no milk but had a vicious
disposition. He had paid two prices for a pair of locoed horses that did
their pulling backward. He had made himself a laughing stock to the
entire country and seemed destined to play the clown somehow whenever
Helene Spenceley was in the vicinity. His ears grew red to the rims as
he thought of it.

But she _had_ resented Canby's dishonesty for him--_that_ was something;
and Wallie was in a mood to be grateful for anything.

The cow grunted as she lay down to her slumbers--Wallie ground his teeth
as he heard her. A coyote yapped on a ridge forlornly and the horse on
picket coughed and snorted while Wallie, staring at the stars through
the entrance, massaged his injury and ruminated.

Suddenly he sat up on his patent air mattress and shook his fist at the
universe:

"Canby nor nobody else shall down me! I'm going to make good somehow, or
fertilize Wyoming as old Appel told me. I'll show 'em!"

After that he felt better; so much better that he fell asleep
immediately, and even the activities of two field-mice, who pulled and
snipped at his hair with their sharp teeth in the interes