the ear of Mac Strann: "That was Jerry's advice
when he lay dyin'. An' it's my advice, too. Mac, Barry ain't a safe man
to foller!"

"Haw-Haw," answered Mac Strann, "Will you gimme a hand saddlin' my hoss?
I got an appointment, an' I'm two minutes late already."

CHAPTER XVIII

DOCTOR BYRNE ANALYSES

In the room which had been assigned to his use Doctor Randall Byrne sat
down to an unfinished letter and began to write.

"Dinner has interrupted me, my dear Loughburne. I have dined opposite
Miss Cumberland--only the two of us at a great table--with a wide
silence around us--and the Chinese cook padding to and fro from the
kitchen. Have I told you of that room? No, I believe that I have made no
more than casual mention of my environment here, for reasons which are
patent. But to-night I wished that you might look in upon the scene.
Along the walls hang a rope with which Mr. Cumberland won a roping and
tieing contest in his youth--a feat upon which he prides himself highly;
at another place hang the six-shooters of a notorious desperado, taken
from his dead body; there is the sombrero of a Mexican guerilla chief
beside the picture of a prize bull, and an oil painting of Mr.
Cumberland at middle age adjoins an immense calendar on which is
portrayed the head of a girl in bright colours--a creature with amazing
quantities of straw-coloured hair. The table itself is of such size that
it is said all the guests at a round-up--a festival of note in these
barbaric regions--can be easily seated around it. On one side of this
table I sat--and on the other side sat the girl, as far away as if an
entire room had separated us.

"Before going down to the meal I had laid aside my glasses, for I have
observed that spectacles, though often beneficial to the sight, are not
always equally commendable in the opinion of women; and it should
assuredly be one's endeavour to become agreeable to those about us.

"Be it noted at this point, my dear Loughburne, that I have observed
peculiar properties in the eyes of Miss Cumberland. Those of all other
humans and animals that have fallen under my observance were remarkable
only for their use in seeing, whereas the eyes of Miss Cumberland seem
peculiarly designed to be _seen_. This quality I attribute to the
following properties of the said eyes. First, they are in size well
beyond the ordinary. Secondly, they are of a colour restful to behold.
It is, indeed, the colour of the deep, bl