'll want one like it
yourself, if I'm any good at guessing. Just got it, you know--it's the
one I was talking to yuh about last time I was down.

"W-ell--I reckon my means of conveyance is ready for me--so long, Peter,
till Sunday. See you at supper, boys."

He hooked a thumb under the shoulder-strap of his basket, pulled it to a
more comfortable position, waved his hand in a farewell, which included
every living thing within sight of him, and went away up the narrow,
winding trail through the sagebrush to the stable, humming something
under his breath with the same impulse of satisfaction with life which
sets a cat purring.

Some time later, he appeared, in the same jovial mood, at the Hart
ranch, and found there the welcome which he had counted upon--the
welcome which all men received there upon demand.

When Evadna and Jack rode up, they found Mr. Baumberger taking his ease
in Peaceful's armchair on the porch, discussing, with animated gravity,
the ins and outs of county politics; his fishing-basket lying on its
flat side close to his chair, his rod leaning against the house at
his elbow, his heavy pipe dragging down one corner of his loose-lipped
mouth; his whole gross person surrounded by an atmosphere of prosperity
leading the simple life transiently and by choice, and of lazy enjoyment
in his own physical and mental well-being.

CHAPTER IX. PEPPAJEE JIM "HEAP SABES"

Peppajee Jim had meditated long in the shade of his wikiup, and now,
when the sun changed from a glaring ball of intense, yellow heat to a
sullen red disk hanging low over the bluffs of Snake River, he rose,
carefully knocked the ashes from his little stone pipe, with one
mechanical movement of his arms, gathered his blanket around him, pushed
a too-familiar dog from him with a shove of moccasined foot, and stalked
away through the sagebrush.

On the brow of the hill, just where the faint footpath dipped into a
narrow gully at the very edge, almost, of the bluff, he stopped, and
lifted his head for an unconsciously haughty stare at his surroundings.

Beneath him and half a mile or so up the river valley, the mellow green
of Peaceful's orchard was already taking to itself the vagueness of
evening shadows. Nearer, the meadow of alfalfa and clover lay like a
soft, green carpet of velvet, lined here and there with the irrigation
ditches which kept it so. And in the center of the meadow, a small
inclosure marked grimly the spot where lay the