y so grave a face at
such a joyous moment?" He lifted his glass over his head and bowed low
to Shock.

Arrested by his words, the crowd turned their eyes toward the man that
stood in the door, waiting in silence for his reply.

A quick flush rose to Shock's face, but without moving his eyes from
the gay, laughing face of the boy, he said in a clear, steady voice, "I
thank you, sir, for your courtesy, and I ask your pardon if my face was
grave. I was thinking of your mother."

As if someone had stricken him the boy swayed over his horse's neck,
but in a moment recovering himself he sat up straight, and lifting high
his glass, he said reverently, as if he had been toasting the Queen:
"Gentlemen, my mother! God bless her!"

"God bless her!" echoed the men.

Drinking off the glass he dismounted and, followed by the cheers of the
crowd, led his horse out of the room and down the steps, and rode away.

Meantime Shock went in search of the doctor. In a corner of the
International bar he found him in a drunken sleep. After vain efforts
to wake him, without more ado Shock lifted him in his arms, carried him
out to the buckboard and drove away, followed by the jibes and
compliments of the astonished crowd.

But what to do with him was the question. There was no room for
himself, much less for his charge, in any of the hotels or stopping
places.

"May as well begin now," Shock said to himself, and drove out to a
little bluff of poplars at the river bank near the town, and prepared
to camp.

He disposed of the doctor by laying him in the back of his buckboard,
covered with the buffalo. He unhitched and tethered the pony, and,
according to his crude notions of what a camp should be, began to make
his preparations. With very considerable difficulty, he first of all
started a fire.

"Hello! Rather chilly for campin' out yit?"

He looked up and saw Ike.

"I guess you aint lived much out of doors," continued his visitor,
glancing at the apology for a fire, and noticing the absence of
everything in camp-making that distinguishes the experienced camper.

"No, this is my first camp," said Shock. "But I suppose every man must
make a beginning."

"Yes," agreed Ike, "when he's got to. But I have a lingerin' suspicion
that you'd be better inside to-night. It aint goin' to be pleasant."

"Oh, I'll be all right," replied Shock cheerfully.

"I have a small tent, a couple of coats, a pair of blankets, and my
pony has got his