m." He qualified his statement by adding:
"Leastways, unless they come from the Buffalo Basin country. Then I shore
hates 'em." At last Mr. Britt was upon a subject upon which he could talk
fluently and for an indefinite length of time. "You take that there
Buffalo Basin stock," he went on earnestly, "and they're nothin' but
inbred cayuse outlaws. They're treach'rous. Oneriest horses that ever
wore hair. Can't gentle 'em--simply can't be done. They've piled me up
more times than any horses that run. Sunfishers--the hull of 'em; rare up
and fall over backwards. 'Tain't pleasant ridin' a horse like that. Wheel
on you quicker'n a weasel; shy clean acrost the road at nothin';
kick--stand up and strike at you in the corral. It's irritatin'. Hard
keepers, too. Maybe you've noticed that blue roan I'm ridin'. Well, sir,
the way I've throwed feed into that horse is a scandal, and the more he
eats the worse he looks. Besides, it spoils them Buffalo Basin
buzzard-heads to eat. Give 'em three square meals, and you can't hardly
ride 'em. They ain't stayers, neither; no bottom, seems-like. Forty miles,
and that horse of mine is played out. What for a horse is that? Is that a
horse? Not by a high-kick! Gimme a buckskin with a black line down his
back, and zebra stripes on his legs--high back, square chest--say, then
you got a _horse!_"

It was apparent enough that Mr. Britt had not commenced to exhaust the
subject of the Buffalo Basin stock. As a matter of fact, he had barely
started; but the sound of horses coming up the path, and a whoop outside,
caused a suspension of his conversation.

Something heavy was thrown against the door, and when Susie opened it a
roll of roped canvas rolled inside, while the lamplight fell upon the
grinning faces of two Bar C cowpunchers.

"What's that?" The Schoolmarm looked wonderingly at the bundle.

"Aw-w-w!" Mr. Britt replied, in angry confusion. "It's my bed. I'll put a
crimp in them two for this." He shouldered his blankets sheepishly and
went out.

VII

CUPID "WINGS" A DEPUTY SHERIFF

Riding home next morning with his bed on a borrowed pack-horse, morose,
his mind occupied with divers plans for punishing the cowpunchers who had
spoiled his evening and made him ridiculous before the Schoolmarm, "Babe"
came upon something in a gulch which caused him to rein his horse sharply
and swing from the saddle.

With an ejaculation of surprise, he pulled a fresh hide from under a pile
of ro