constable demanded,
scandalized--referring to the fact that Pinkey and Wallie had divested
themselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in their
stocking feet.

"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"

"Who sold liquor to you two?"

"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.

"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.

"How'sh I know?"

"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Come
along!"

"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.

The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they
dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.

The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where he
was. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. As
he lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of the
accommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciously
marvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shame
at finding himself in a cell.

He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad.
He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from his
wages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State.
After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usually
overdrawn. He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since he
calculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that than
anything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart which
prevailed.

So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage to
ride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had left
the Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the same
cattleman.

He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions they
had met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputation
and disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for his
inoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain,
he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemed
to make no difference in his own feelings for her.

His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon several
occasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He was
going to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160
acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes he
stood in.