ait five minutes and
ten seconds and I'll bring a whole strand of mules."

A rattling of wagons and roar of voices at the far end of the street
told of the arrival of a company coming in from the wharf at Westport,
and the crowd whirled about and made haste toward the next scene of
interest.

Only two men remained behind, the tall New England youth and the Mexican
on the farther side of the street sitting motionless on his horse. A
moment later he was gone, and the street was empty save for the
pale-faced invalid who had come over to the doorway where Mat and
Beverly and I waited together.

"Why don't you youngsters stay home with your mother, or is she going
with you?" he asked, a gleam of interest lighting his dull face as he
looked at Mat Nivers.

"We haven't any of us got a mother," Mat replied, timidly, lifting her
gray eyes to his.

"Mother! Ain't you all one family?" the young man questioned in
surprise.

"No, we are three orphan children that Uncle Esmond has adopted all our
lives, I guess." Beverly informed him.

A wave of sympathy swept over his face.

"You poor, lonely, unhappy cubs! You've never had a mother to love you!"
he exclaimed, in kindly pity.

"We aren't poor nor lonely nor unhappy. We have always had Uncle Esmond
and we didn't need a mother," I exclaimed, earnestly.

The young man stared at me as I spoke. "What's he, a bachelor or married
man?" he inquired.

"He couldn't be married and keep us, I reckon, and he's taking us with
him so nothing will happen to us while he's gone. He's really truly
Bev's uncle and mine, but he's just the same as uncle to Mat, who hasn't
anybody else," I declared, enthusiastically. Uncle Esmond was my pride,
and I meant that he should be fully appreciated.

The Yankee gazed at all three of us, his eyes resting longest on Mat's
bright face. The listlessness left his own that minute and a new light
shone on his countenance. But when he turned to my uncle the seeming
lack of all interest in living returned to his face again.

"Say," he drawled, looking down at the stubborn little merchant from his
slim six feet of altitude, "you are such a dam' fool as our friend, the
tipsy one, says, that I believe I'll go along 'cross the plains with
you, if you'll let me. I've not got a darned thing to lose out there but
a sick carcass that I'm pretty tired of looking after," he went on,
wearily. "I reckon I might as well see the fun through if I never set a
hoof on ol