en, she
ain't!" He laughed tipsily, and winked up at the singer, but Billy was
not observing him and his mathematical struggles. He refreshed himself
from the glass, leaving the contents perceptibly lower--it was a
large, thick glass with a handle, and it had flecks of foam down the
inside--took a pull at the cigarette and inquired plaintively:

"Can she brew, can she bake, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she brew, can she bake, charming Billy?"

Another long pull at the cigarette, and then the triumphant
declaration:

"She can brew n' she can bake,
She can sew n' she can make--
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."

"She ain't s' young!" bawled the sheepherder, who was taking it all
very seriously. "Say them numbers over again, onc't. Twelve-'n'-fourteen--"

"Aw, go off and lay down!" advised Charming Billy, in a tone of deep
disgust. He was about to pursue still farther his inquiry into the
housewifely qualifications of the mysterious "young thing," and he
hated interruptions.

"Can she make a punkin pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?"

The door opened timidly and closed again, but he did not see who
entered. He was not looking; he was holding the empty, foam-flecked
glass behind him imperatively, and he was watching over his shoulder
to see that the bartender did not skimp the filling and make it
two-thirds foam. The bartender was punctiliously lavish, so that a
crest of foam threatened to deluge the hand of Charming Billy and
quite occupied him for the moment. When he squared himself again and
buzzed his spurs against the bar, his mind was wholly given to the
proper execution of the musical gem.

"She can make a punkin pie,
Quick's a cat can wink her eye--"

Something was going on, over in the dimly lighted corner near the
door. Half a dozen men had grouped themselves there with their backs
to Billy and they were talking and laughing; but the speech of them
was an unintelligible clamor and their laughter a commingling roar.
Billy gravely inspected his cigarette, which had gone cold, set down
the glass and sought diligently for a match.

"Aw, come on an' have one on me!" bawled a voice peremptorily. "Yuh
can't raise no wild cattle around _this_ joint, lessen yuh wet up good
with whisky. Why, a feller as long as you be needs a good jolt for
every foot of yuh--and that's about fifteen when you're lengthened
out good. C