his, in the wet since daylight and not carin' for
blind chills or rhumatiz!"

He was looking at a serape-draped horseman, the one the widow had seen
on the previous night, who was now cantering slowly up the street.
Seeing the group on the veranda, he rode up, threw himself lightly from
his saddle, and joined them. He was an alert, determined, good-looking
fellow of about thirty-five, whose smooth, smiling face hardly commended
itself to Santa Ana, though his eyes were distinctly sympathetic. He
glanced at the depressed group around him and became ominously serious.

"When did it happen?" he asked gravely.

"What happen?" said the nearest bystander.

"The Funeral, Flood, Fight, or Fire. Which of the four F's was it?"

"What are ye talkin' about?" said the proprietor stiffly, scenting some
dangerous humor.

"YOU," said Brooks promptly. "You're all standing here, croaking like
crows, this fine morning. I passed YOUR farm, Johnson, not an hour ago;
the wheat just climbing out of the black adobe mud as thick as rows of
pins on paper--what have YOU to grumble at? I saw YOUR stock, Briggs,
over on Two-Mile Bottom, waddling along, fat as the adobe they were
sticking in, their coats shining like fresh paint--what's the matter
with YOU? And," turning to the proprietor, "there's YOUR shed, Saunders,
over on the creek, just bursting with last year's grain that you know
has gone up two hundred per cent. since you bought it at a bargain--what
are YOU growling at? It's enough to provoke a fire or a famine to hear
you groaning--and take care it don't, some day, as a lesson to you."

All this was so perfectly true of the prosperous burghers that they
could not for a moment reply. But Briggs had recourse to what he
believed to be a retaliatory taunt.

"I heard you've been askin' Widow Wade to come to your dance," he said,
with a wink at the others. "Of course she said 'Yes.'"

"Of course she did," returned Brooks coolly. "I've just got her note."

"What?" ejaculated the three men together. "Mrs. Wade comin'?"

"Certainly! Why shouldn't she? And it would do YOU good to come too,
and shake the limp dampness out o' you," returned Brooks, as he quietly
remounted his horse and cantered away.

"Darned ef I don't think he's got his eye on the widder," said Johnson
faintly.

"Or the quarter section," added Briggs gloomily.

For all that, the eventful evening came, with many lights in the
staring, undraped windows of the hotel,