ster, was slung about his waist. His
upper covering was a simple, gray flannel shirt, gaping wide open
across his sunburnt chest, and his modest-hued silk handkerchief tied
loosely about his neck.

"Leeson Butte's getting quite a city," Buck went on presently.

"That's so," replied the Padre, still bent upon his own thoughts.

After that it was quite a minute before either spoke. Yet there seemed
to be no awkwardness.

Finally it was the Padre who broached the matters that lay between
them.

"I got ten thousand dollars for it!" he said.

"The farm?" Buck's interrogation was purely mechanical. He knew well
enough that the other had purposely gone to Leeson Butte to sell the
farm on which they had both lived so long.

The Padre nodded.

"A fancy price," he said. "The lawyers closed quick. It was a woman
bought it. I didn't see her, though she was stopping at the hotel. I
figured on getting seven thousand five hundred dollars, and only asked
ten thousand dollars as a start. Guess the woman must have wanted it
bad. Maybe she's heard they're prospecting gold around. Well, anyway
she ought to get some luck with it, she's made it easy for us to help
the folks."

Buck's eyes were steadily fixed on the horses.

"It makes me feel bad seeing those fellers chasin' gold, and never a
color to show--an' all the while their womenfolk an' kiddies that thin
for food you can most see their shadows through 'em."

The eyes of the elder man brightened. The other's words had helped to
hearten him. He had felt keenly the parting with his farm after all
those years of labor and association. Yet, to a mind such as his, it
had been impossible to do otherwise. How could he stand by watching a
small community, such as he was surrounded with, however misguided in
their search for gold, painfully and doggedly starving before his very
eyes? For the men perhaps his sympathy might have been less keen, but
the poor, long-suffering women and the helpless children--the thought
was too painful. No, he and Buck had but their two selves to think of.
They had powerful hands with which to help themselves. Those others
were helpless--the women and children.

There was compensation in his sacrifice when he remembered the large
orders for edible stores he had placed with the merchants of Leeson
Butte before leaving that town.

"There's a heap of food coming along for them presently," he said
after a pause.

Buck nodded.

"I've been settin' tha