elmer
thought of him or did to him. He went straight up to the boss.

"I'll thank you for that paper," he said hardily. "It's mine, and the
boys have been acting the fool with it."

"Yeh? They have?" Selmer turned from the first page and read the second
without any apparent emotion. "You write that?"

Johnny flushed. "Yes, sir, I did. Do you mind letting--"

"That what I heard them yawping here in the corral?" Selmer folded the
paper with care, his fingers smoothing out the wrinkles and pausing to
observe the place where Mary V had torn off a corner.

"Poets and song birds on the pay roll, eh? Thought I hired you boys to
handle horses." Having folded the papers as though they were to be placed
in an envelope, Sudden held the verses out to Johnny. "As riders," he
observed judicially, "I know just about what you boys are worth to me. As
poets and singers, I doubt whether the Rolling R can find use for you.
What capacity do I find you in, Curley? Director of the orchestra, or
umpire?"

Curley climbed shamefacedly off the fence and picked up his rope. The
business of taming bronks was resumed in a dead silence broken only by
the trampling of the horses and a muttered oath now and then. A lump over
Aleck's ear was swelling so that the hair lifted there, and Bud limped
and sent scowling glances at Johnny Jewel. Tex spat dirt off his tongue
and scowled while he did it; indeed, no eyes save those of little Curley
seemed able to look upon Johnny with a kindly light.

Mary V's father stood dispassionately watching them for five minutes or
so before he turned back to the gate. Not once had he smiled or shown any
emotion whatever. But he had a new story to tell his friends in the clubs
of Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, Los Angeles. And whenever he told it, Sudden
Selmer would repeat what he called _The Skyrider's Dream_ from the first
verse to Mary V's last--even unto Bud's improvisation. He would paint
Johnny's bombardment of the choir practice until his audience could
almost hear the thud of the rocks when they landed. He would describe the
welt on Aleck's head, the exact shade of purple in Curley's face when his
boss called him off the fence. He would not smile at all during the
recital, but his audience would shout and splutter and roar, and when he
paused as though the story was done, some one would be sure to demand
more.

Then a little twitching smile would show at the corner of Sudden's lips,
and he would drawl whimsically