oved her
off with a pole. Wouldn't you?"

"Butted her like a ram," exclaimed Mr. McLean.

"Well, I don't say my prayers any more. I told Mr. Perkins I wasn't
a-going to, an' he--I think he is a flubdub anyway."

"I'll bet he is!" said Lin, sympathetically. He was scarcely a prudent
guardian.

"I told him straight, an' he looked at me an' down he flops on his
knees. An' he made 'em all flop, but I told him I didn't care for them
putting up any camp-meeting over me; an' he says, 'I'll lick you,' an'
I says, 'Dare you to!' I told him mother kep' a-licking me for nothing,
an' I'd not pray for her, not in Sunday-school or anywheres else. Do you
pray much?"

"No," replied Lin, uneasily.

"There! I told him a man didn't, an' he said then a man went to hell.
'You lie; father ain't going to hell,' I says, and you'd ought to heard
the first class laugh right out loud, girls an' boys. An' he was that
mad! But I didn't care. I came here with fifty cents."

"Yu' must have felt like a millionaire."

"Ah, I felt all right! I bought papers an' sold 'em, an' got more an'
saved, ant got my box an' blacking outfit. I weren't going to be licked
by her just because she felt like it, an' she feeling like it most any
time. Lemme see your pistol."

"You wait," said Lin. "After this show is through I'll put it on you."

"Will you, honest? Belt an' everything? Did you ever shoot a bear?"

"Lord! lots."

"Honest? Silver-tips?"

"Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cub onced."

"O-h! I never shot a bear."

"You'd ought to try it."

"I'm a-going to. I'm a-going to camp out in the mountains. I'd like to
see you when you camp. I'd like to camp with you. Mightn't I some time?"
Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly.

"You bet!" said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this,
it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy.
As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he
met--the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite
play for him, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder.

"Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off. Father
gets awful drunk, too. I've quit Laramie for good."

Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy. "Laramie!" said he, almost
shouting it. "Yu'--yu'--is your name Lusk?"

But the boy had shrunk from him instantly. "You're not going to take me
home?" he piteously wailed.

"Heav