ust have interrupted him.

"--a bully, the town bully, and an extremely powerful man. But that did
not deter me. I was outraged, you see--righteously indignant. So I
hooked with my left--I believe, sir, that that is the correct term--"

The absurd, fat things! She heard her husband assuring him that it was.
Her husband!

So later he returned to a very bright-eyed wife. He dropped into a seat
and she was happier still at the happiness in his eyes. For a time he
was quiet; then suddenly he slanted his head at her. He began to tell
her about the pots and pans.

"Some battle!" he drawled at the finish of it. "Champion--winner take
all!"

Nor had he been able to keep down a little note of pride. It was quite
as if, still humbly, in his own plains' talk, he had assured her, "Your
husband is no dub."

And so she started that soon to become better acquainted with him. He
was no braggart with others; to his own wife he would boast a little.
Husbands were likely to, she realized--she loved him more.

And the words had started a thought in her own head. She had lost that
phrase of Felicity's, and searched for it, and was glad to find it again.

"Some battle," she echoed softly. "Some battle--winner take all."

Then she rose and went to him.

"Perry, lad," she murmured, "I'm not sure but what there are _two_
champions, right here in this very car!"

CHAPTER XIII

BLUE FOR A BOY

"But would she have been happy?" A critic whose sex is indicated by
her usage of the pronoun _she_ instead of _they_ once raised the
question.

"Why not?" I asked unguardedly.

Obviously such stupidity as my counter-question evinced was worthy of
some pity.

"Why, she was an--ah--superior sort of a girl; breeding, you know, and
all that, or so I have gathered, while he--"

But I stayed no longer to listen. What was the use? There was not
merely a little of snobbishness in her. I did not even insist that
"she" might have been, or add that it was really true. But I went West
promptly to see.

Perry Blair had scarcely guessed at the possibilities of that valley.
There were five dozen, or five hundred white-faced Herefords under
fence; or five thousand. I forget which, for I was not curious
concerning these.

But having cornered her at last I put the question bluntly.

"What about that career?" I wanted to know. "There's a crying need
just now for good senators--plain statesmanship handled neatly."

She colo