nk. To the arms of Lusk she went back in the public
street, deserting McLean in the presence of Cheyenne; and when Cheyenne
saw this, and learned how she had been Mrs. Lusk for eight long, if
intermittent, years, Cheyenne laughed loudly. Lin McLean laughed, too,
and went about his business, ready to swagger at the necessary moment,
and with the necessary kind of joke always ready to shield his hurt
spirit. And soon, of course, the matter grew stale, seldom raked up in
the Bow Leg country where Lin had been at work; so lately he had begun
to remember other things beside the smouldering humiliation.

"Is she with him?" he asked Barker, and musingly listened while Barker
told him. The Governor had thought to make it a racy story, with the
moral that the joke was now on Lusk; but that inner man had spoken and
revealed the cow-puncher to him in a new and complicated light; hence he
quieted the proposed lively cadence and vocabulary of his anecdote
about the house of Lusk, but instead of narrating how Mrs. beat Mr. on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Mr. took his turn the odd days,
thus getting one ahead of his lady, while the kid Lusk had outlined
his opinion of the family by recently skipping to parts unknown, Barker
detailed these incidents more gravely, adding that Laramie believed Mrs.
Lusk addicted to opium.

"I don't guess I'll leave my card on 'em," said McLean, grimly, "if I
strike Laramie."

"You don't mind my saying I think you're well out of that scrape?"
Barker ventured.

"Shucks, no! That's all right, Doc. Only--yu' see now. A man gets tired
pretending--onced in a while."

Time had gone while they were in talk, and it was now half after one and
Mr. McLean late for that long-plotted first square meal. So the friends
shook hands, wishing each other Merry Christmas, and the cow-puncher
hastened toward his chosen companions through the stirring cheerfulness
of the season. His play-hour had made a dull beginning among the toys.
He had come upon people engaged in a pleasant game, and waited, shy and
well disposed, for some bidding to join, but they had gone on playing
with each other and left him out. And now he went along in a sort of
hurry to escape from that loneliness where his human promptings had been
lodged with him useless. Here was Cheyenne, full of holiday for sale,
and he with his pockets full of money to buy; and when he thought of
Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, those dandies to hit a tow