nsas. Their foreman,
Bibleback Hunt, and myself were returning from hunting this missing
bunch of yearlings when night overtook us, fully twenty-five miles from
camp. Then this Bull Foot stage came to mind, and we turned our horses
and rode to it. It was nearly dark when we reached it, and Bibleback
said for me to go in and make the talk. I'll never forget that nice
little woman who met me at the door of that sod shack. I told her our
situation, and she seemed awfully gracious in granting us food and
shelter for the night. She told us we could either picket our horses
or put them in the corral and feed them hay and grain from the
stage-company's supply. Now, old Bibleback was what you might call shy
of women, and steered clear of the house until she sent her little boy
out and asked us to come in. Well, we sat around in the room, owly-like,
and to save my soul from the wrath to come, I couldn't think of a
word that was proper to say to the little woman, busy getting supper.
Bibleback was worse off than I was; he couldn't do anything but look at
the pictures on the wall. What was worrying me was, had she a husband?
Or what was she doing away out there in that lonesome country? Then
a man old enough to be her grandfather put in an appearance. He was
friendly and quite talkative, and I built right up to him. And then we
had a supper that I distinctly remember yet. Well, I should say I do--it
takes a woman to get a good supper, and cheer it with her presence,
sitting at the head of the table and pouring the coffee.

"This old man was a retired stage-driver, and was doing the wrangling
act for the stage-horses. After supper I went out to the corral and
wormed the information out of him that the woman was a widow; that her
husband had died before she came there, and that she was from Michigan.
Amongst other things that I learned from the old man was that she had
only been there a few months, and was a poor but deserving woman. I
told Bibleback all this after we had gone to bed, and we found that our
finances amounted to only four dollars, which she was more than welcome
to. So the next morning after breakfast, when I asked her what I owed
her for our trouble, she replied so graciously: 'Why, gentlemen, I
couldn't think of taking advantage of your necessity to charge you for
a favor that I'm only too happy to grant.' 'Oh,' said I, 'take this,
anyhow,' laying the silver on the corner of the table and starting
for the door, when