d queerly. "You've got quite a
reputation--" he ventured.

"Well, I earned it," Ford observed laconically.

"Dick banked on it--I'd stake my whole stack of blues on that. And after
you'd torn up the ranch, and pitched the fragments into the gulch, he'd
hold the last trump, with all high cards to keep the lead. Whee!" He
meditated admiringly upon the strategy. "But what I can't seem to
understand," he said frankly, "is why the deuce it didn't work! Is your
swallower out of kilter? If you don't mind my asking!"

"I never noticed that it was paralyzed," Ford answered grimly. He got
up, lifted a lid of the stove, and threw in the cigarette stub
mechanically. Then he bethought him of his interrupted search, and
prodded a long-handled spoon into the flour bin, struck something smooth
and hard, and drew out a befloured, quart bottle half full of whisky.
He wiped the bottle carefully, inspected it briefly, and pitched it into
the gully, where it smashed odorously upon a rock. Jim, watching him,
knew that he was thinking all the while of something else. When Ford
spoke, he proved it.

"Are you any good at all in the kitchen, Jim?" he asked, turning to him
as if he had decided just how he would meet the situation.

"Well, I hate to brag, but I've known of men eating my grub and going
right on living as if nothing had happened," Jim admitted modestly.

"Well, you turn yourself loose in here, will you? The boys will be good
and empty when they come--it's dinner time right now. I'll help you
carry Mose out of the way before I go."

Jim looked as if he would like to ask what Ford meant to do, but he
refrained. There was something besides preoccupation in Ford's face, and
it did not make for easy questioning. Jim did yield to his curiosity to
the extent of watching through a window, when Ford went out, to see
where he was going; and when he saw Ford had the jug, and that he took
the path which led across the little bridge and so to the house, he drew
back and said "Whee-e-e!" under his breath. Then he remarked to the
recumbent Mose, who was not in a condition either to hear or understand:
"I'll bet you Dick's got all he wants, right now, without any
postscript." After which Jim hunted up a clean apron and proceeded, with
his spurs on his heels, his hat on the back of his head, and a smile
upon his lips, to sweep out the broken dishes so that he might walk
without hearing them crunch unpleasantly under his boots. "I'll take
wil