settled, he settled himself--lower and lower in
the big chair, his shoulders doubling, his knees falling apart, his
clasped hands hanging between his knees and all but touching his boots.
Thus he stayed for a little, bowed.

All this was so different from what Johnnie had expected that again he
suspected displeasure--toward Cis, toward himself; and as with a
sinking, miserable heart he watched his visitor, he wished from his soul
that he had kept the engagement to himself. "Y' ain't g-g-glad," he
stammered finally.

However, as Johnnie afterward remarked to Cis, when it came to judging
what the cowboy felt about this or that, a person never could tell. For,
"Glad?" repeated One-Eye, raising the bent head; "w'y, sonny, I'm
tickled t' death t' hear it!--jes' plumb tickled t' death!" (And how was
Johnnie to know that this was not strictly the truth?)

The next afternoon, while Father Pat was reading aloud the story of the
Sangreal, here entered One-Eye again, stern purpose in the very
upturning of that depleted mustache. "Figgered mebbe I could ask y' t'
do somethin' fer me," he told the priest. "It's concernin' that scout
proposition o' Johnnie's. Seems like he'll be needin' a uniform pretty
soon, won't he? Wondered if y'd mind pur-_chasin'_ it." Then down upon
the kitchen table he tossed a number of crisp, green bills.

Stunned at sight of so much money, paralyzed with emotion, and
tongue-tied, Johnnie could only stare. Afterward he remembered, with a
bothersome, worried feeling, that he had not thanked One-Eye before the
latter took his leave along with Father Pat. That night on the roof he
walked up and down while he whispered his gratitude to a One-Eye who was
a think. "Oh, it just stuck in my throat, kind of," he explained. "Oh,
I'm sorry I acted so funny!" (Why did the words of appreciation simply
flow from between his lips now? though he had not been able to whisper
one at the proper time!)

That night, wearing the uniform he had not yet seen, he took a long
pretend-walk; but not along any street of the East Side; not even up
Fifth Avenue. He chose a garden set thick with trees. There was a lake
in the garden; and wonderful birds flew about--parrots, they were, like
the ones owned by Crusoe. For a new suit of an ordinary kind, any
thoroughfare of the city might have done well enough. But the new
uniform demanded a special setting. And this place of enchantment was
Mr. Rockefeller's private park!

It seemed a