.

"I'm so glad, dear, about the health. It's a miracle, but don't overdo
it, don't attempt everything at once. And the trip 'sure' seems to have
'done' you in another way--how is it--'good and plenty'? You walk like a
cowboy and talk and sing and act generally like one----"

"Do I, really, though?" A sort of half-shamed pleasure glowed in his
eyes. "Well, you know they're good, companionable fellows, and a man
takes on their ways of speech unconsciously. But I didn't think it would
be noticed in me so soon. Do I seem like the real thing, honestly, now?"

She reassured him, laughing frankly.

"Well, you needn't laugh. It's all fixed--I'm going to be one."

"But, Clarence, not for long, surely!"

"It's all settled, I tell you. I've bought a ranch, old Swede Peterson's
place over on Pine River; corking spot, three half sections under fence
and ditch, right at the mouth of a box canyon where nobody can get in
above me, plenty of water, plenty of free range close at hand."

"Clarence Bartell, you're--what do you call it?--stringing."

"Not a bit of it. Wait till I come on in about two years, after selling
a train load of fat steers at Omaha or Kansas City--sashaying down
Fifth Avenue and rounding into Ninth Street with my big hat and
long-shanked spurs and a couple of forty-fours booming into the air.
_You'll_ see, and won't dad say it's deuced unpleasant!"

"But I'll not believe until I see."

He spoke ruminantly between pulls at the pipe.

"Lots of things to do now, though. Got to go down to Pagosa this week to
pay over the money, get the deed, and register my brand. How does
'Bar-B' strike you? Rather neat, yes? It'll make a tasty little monogram
on the three hundred critters I start with. I'm on track of a herd of
shorthorns already."

"And a little while ago you were off to the Philippines, and before that
to Porto Rico, and last summer you were going on one of those
expeditions that come back and tell why they didn't reach the North
Pole, and you came out here to be a miner and you've----"

There was an impatient, silencing wave of the pipe.

"Oh, let all that go, can't you?--let the dead past bury its dead. I'm
fixed for life. You and dad won't laugh at me any more. Come on out now
and see me throw a rope, if you don't believe me. I've been practicing
every day. And say, you didn't happen to notice the diamond hitch on
that forward pack horse, did you? Well, I'm the boy that did most of
that."

She