m Cincinnati, manifestly unused to the ways of the country,
looked at John Gillispie with a lurking smile. Gillispie wore a
sombrero, fresh, white, and expansive. His boots had high heels, and
were of elegant leather and finely arched at the instep. His corduroys
disappeared in them half-way up the thigh. About his waist a sash of
blue held a laced shirt of the same color in place. Henderson puffed at
his cigarette, and continued to look a trifle quizzical.

Suddenly Gillispie walked up to him and said, in a voice of complete
suavity, "Damn yeh, smoke a pipe!"

"Eh?" said Henderson, stupidly.

"Smoke a pipe," said the other. "That thing you have is bad for your
complexion."

"I can take care of my complexion," said Henderson, firmly.

The two looked each other straight in the eye.

"You don't go on smoking that thing till you have apologized for that
grin you had on your phiz a moment ago."

"I laugh when I please, and I smoke what I please," said Henderson,
hotly, his face flaming as he realized that he was in for his first
"row."

That was how it began. How it would have ended is not known--probably
there would have been only one John--if it had not been for the almost
miraculous appearance at this moment of the third John. For just then
the two belligerents found themselves prostrate, their pistols only
half-cocked, and between them stood a man all gnarled and squat, like
one of those wind-torn oaks which grow on the arid heights. He was no
older than the others, but the lines in his face were deep, and his
large mouth twitched as he said:--

"Hold on here, yeh fools! There's too much blood in you to spill. You'll
spile th' floor, and waste good stuff. We need blood out here!"

Gillispie bounced to his feet. Henderson arose suspiciously, keeping his
eyes on his assailants.

"Oh, get up!" cried the intercessor. "We don't shoot men hereabouts till
they git on their feet in fightin' trim."

"What do you know about what we do here?" interrupted Gillispie. "This
is the first time I ever saw you around."

"That's so," the other admitted. "I'm just down from Montana. Came to
take up a quarter section. Where I come from we give men a show, an' I
thought perhaps yeh did th' same here."

"Why, yes," admitted Gillispie, "we do. But I don't want folks to laugh
too much--not when I'm around--unless they tell me what the joke is. I
was just mentioning it to the gentleman," he added, dryly.

"So I saw," said the