undred times. It was about an adventure
which the bard had shared with his gal in a place designated in
Banjo's uncertain vocabulary as "the big cook-quari-um." It began:

Oh-h-h, I stopped at a big cook-quari-um
Not very long ago,
To see the bass and suckers
And hear the white whale blow.

The chorus of it ran:

Oh-h-h-h, the big sea-line he howled and he growled,
The seal beat time on a drum;
The whale he swallered a den-vereel
In the big cook-quari-um.

From that one Banjo passed to "The Cowboy's Lament," and from tragedy
to love. There could be nothing more moving--if not in one direction,
then in another--than the sentimental expression of Banjo's little
sandy face as he sang:

I know you were once my true-lov-o-o-o,
But such a thing it has an aind;
My love and my transpo'ts are ov-o-o-o,
But you may still be my fraind-d-d.

Sundown was rosy behind the distant mountains, a sea of purple shadows
laved their nearer feet, when Banjo got out his fiddle at Mrs.
Chadron's request and sang her "favorite" along with the moving tones
of that instrument.

Dau-ling I am growing-a o-o-eld,
Seel-vo threads a-mong tho go-o-ld--

As he sang, Nola slipped from the room. He was finishing when she sped
by the window and came sparkling into the room with the announcement
that the guests from far Cheyenne were coming. Frances was up in
excitement; Mrs. Chadron searched the floor for her unfinished sock.

"What was that flashed a-past the winder like a streak a minute ago?"
Banjo inquired.

"Flashed by the window?" Nola repeated, puzzled.

Frances laughed, the two girls stopping in the door, merriment
gleaming from their young faces like rays from iridescent gems.

"Why, that was Nola," Frances told him, curious to learn what the
sentimental eyes of the little musician foretold.

"I thought it was a star from the sky," said Banjo, sighing softly,
like a falling leaf.

As they waited at the gate to welcome the guests, who were cantering
up with a curtain of dust behind them, they laughed over Banjo's
compliment.

"I knew there was something behind those eyes," said Frances.

"No telling how long he's been saving it for a chance to work it off
on somebody," Nola said. "He got it out of a book--the Mexicans all
have them, full of _brindies_, what we call toasts, and silly soft
compliments like that."

"I've seen them, little red books that they