by gravy, I could do it too!"

The explanation was so simple, and Lonesome Pete had such difficulty
in making his halting words come, and had such a way of refusing to
look at Conniston, that the latter began to suspect the truth.

"How about the teacher, Pete?" he asked, quietly, innocently. "They
have a real fine teacher, I suppose? Man or--woman?"

"Nuther! She's a lady! An' she's that smart as would make a man
wonder! In case there's anything as that same Miss Jocelyn Truxton
don't know, I ain't wise to it none."

"And--pretty?"

Lonesome Pete's joyous grin was like a beam of summer sunlight.

"They ain't none han'somer as ever wasted her time ridin' herd on a
bunch of dirty-faced brats. Say, Con," a bit doubtfully, "I wouldn't
mind showin' you--you ain't goin' to blow it off to the boys, are
you?"

Conniston swore himself to secrecy and watched Lonesome Pete with
twinkling eyes as the cowboy put his hand deep into the inside pocket
of his vest--the left pocket. First he removed the safety-pin with
which the top edges of the pocket were held securely together. Then he
brought out a bit of cardboard wrapped carefully in a wonderfully
clean red handkerchief. Whipping the handkerchief from the cardboard,
he held out to Conniston's gaze the picture it concealed.

"That's her, Con. An' I'll leave it to you if she ain't in the
blue-ribbon class, huh?"

She was pretty, decidedly pretty. Very dark, evidently young, her face
rounded, her mouth laughing, her eyes soft and big. And withal it was
a doll-like prettiness, a prettiness which was a trifle too conscious
of itself; there was a bit too much pose, too much studied effect.
Conniston thought that the girl's two chief characteristics were so
close under the smiling surface that he could not help seeing them,
and that they were, first, vanity; second, weakness.

"So that's Jocelyn Truxton, is it?" He handed the picture back to
Lonesome Pete, who, with a long, worshipful glance at it, restored it
in its wrapping to his vest pocket. "Not the daughter of Bat Truxton?"

"You wouldn't think it to look at her after seein' him, would you?"

Never having seen either of them, Conniston remained non-committal.

"Mrs. Bat Truxton was a Boston, Mass., girl, an' I reckon as how Miss
Jocelyn takes after her."

So there had sprung up between the two men a strange sort of
friendship, a strange sort of intimacy. For even when he came to have
a strong liking for Lonesome P