the ticket-windows there was a line of citizens buying tickets for Salt
Lake as if it had been Madame Bernhardt. Some rock had been smitten,
and ready money had flowed forth. The Governor saw us off, sad that his
duties should detain him. But Jode went!

"Betting is the fool's argument, gentlemen," said he to Ogden, McLean,
and me, "and it's a weary time since I have had the pleasure."

"Which way are yu' bettin'?" Lin asked.

"With my principles, sir," answered the little signal-service officer.

"I expect I ain't got any," said the puncher. "It's Jim I'm backin' this
time."

"See here," said I; "I want to talk to you." We went into another car,
and I did.

"And so yu' knowed about Lusk when we was on them board walks?" the
puncher said.

"Do you mean I ought to have--"

"Shucks! no. Yu' couldn't. Nobody couldn't. It's a queer world, all
the same. Yu' have good friends, and all that." He looked out of the
window. "Laramie already!" he commented, and got out and walked by
himself on the platform until we had started again. "Yu' have good
friends," he pursued, settling himself so his long legs were stretched
and comfortable, "and they tell yu' things, and you tell them things.
And when it don't make no particular matter one way or the other, yu'
give 'em your honest opinion and talk straight to 'em, and they'll
come to you the same way. So that when yu're ridin' the range alone
sometimes, and thinkin' a lot o' things over on top maybe of some
dog-goned hill, you'll say to yourself about some fellow yu' know mighty
well, 'There's a man is a good friend of mine.' And yu' mean it. And
it's so. Yet when matters is serious, as onced in a while they're bound
to get, and yu're in a plumb hole, where is the man then--your good
friend? Why, he's where yu' want him to be. Standin' off, keepin' his
mouth shut, and lettin' yu' find your own trail out. If he tried to show
it to yu', yu'd likely hit him. But shucks! Circumstances have showed
me the trail this time, you bet!" And the puncher's face, which had been
sombre, grew lively, and he laid a friendly hand on my knee.

"The trail's pretty simple," said I.

"You bet! But it's sure a queer world. Tell yu'," said Lin, with the air
of having made a discovery, "when a man gets down to bed-rock affairs
in this life he's got to do his travellin' alone, same as he does his
dyin'. I expect even married men has thoughts and hopes they don't tell
their wives."

"Never was ma