he same one that
had stood on the table out on the Circle Arrow. He picks it up and pours
hisself out a drink, thoughtful, and shoves it over to me.

"Every little thing!" says he. "Not a thing left out! It's the same
place. Gawd bless the girl, anyways! I don't think I could of stood it
at all if she hadn't fixed up this room for you and me. I was just going
to stampede."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "here's looking at you! I see we've got a place
where we can come in and unbuckle. It makes it a heap easier. I wasn't
happy none at all before now."

"She done it all herself," says her pa, setting his glass down and
looking round the room once more. "I give her free hand. The architect
had marked this place 'Den,' I reckon. Huh! I don't call it a den--I
call it home, sweet home. If it wasn't for this room," says he, "this
would be one hell of a Christmas, wouldn't it, Curly? But never mind;
we're going to break into this town, or get awful good reasons why."

"You reckon we can, Colonel?" says I.

"Shore, we can!" says he. "We got to! Don't she want it?"

"For instance," says I, "what's the name of our neighbors over next door
to us, you reckon?"

"That's where Old Man Wisner lives," says he, grinning. "Them was the
folks that set over at the table that Henderson pointed out to us
tonight. He's the biggest packer in Chicago, president or something in
about all the banks and everything else--there ain't no better people
than what the Wisners are. And don't we live right next door to 'em? Can
you beat it? That's why the land cost so much.

"Wisner didn't want us to buy this place; he wanted to buy it hisself,
but buy it cheap. It was him or me, and I got it. Still, when I want to
be neighbor to a man I'm going to be a neighbor whether he likes it or
not."

"You reckon they'll like us?" says I.

"They got to," says he.

We was standing up, our glasses in hand, looking out through the door
down the hall to where things was all bright and shiny; and just then we
heard Bonnie Bell come down the stairs and call out:

"Oo-hoo, dad!"

We raises our glasses to her when she come in the door. She had took off
the clothes she wore down at the hotel and had on something light and
loose, silk, better for wearing in the house. The house was all warm,
too, and in our fireplace, the old smoky one, some logs was burning
right cheerful.

It was a new sort of Christmas to us, but we lived it down. The next
morning we all acte