ess he would if there was anything to say. There ain't been
nothin'."

Sabina thought they must have quarrelled, but learned that they had not.
It was time for her now to return and set the colonel's table, so Lin
rose and went to bring her horse. When he had put her in her saddle she
noticed him step to his own.

"Why, I didn't know you were lame!" cried she.

"Shucks!" said Lin. "It don't cramp my style any." He had sprung on
his horse, ridden beside her, leaned and kissed her before she got any
measure of his activity.

"That's how," said he; and they took their homeward way galloping. "No,"
Lin continued, "Frank and me never quarrelled. I just thought I'd have
a look at this Western country. Frank, he thought dry-goods was good
enough for him, and so we're both satisfied, I expect. And that's a lot
of years now. Whoop ye!" he suddenly sang out, and fired his six-shooter
at a jack-rabbit, who strung himself out flat and flew over the earth.

Both dismounted at the parade-ground gate, and he kissed her again when
she was not looking, upon which she very properly slapped him; and he
took the horses to the stable. He sat down to tea at the hotel, and
found the meal consisted of black potatoes, gray tea, and a guttering
dish of fat pork. But his appetite was good, and he remarked to himself
that inside the first hour he was in Boston he would have steamed
Duxbury clams. Of Sabina he never thought again, and it is likely that
she found others to take his place. Fort Washakie was one hundred and
fifty miles from the railway, and men there were many and girls were
few.

The next morning the other passengers entered the stage with
resignation, knowing the thirty-six hours of evil that lay before them.
Lin climbed up beside the driver. He had a new trunk now.

"Don't get full, Lin," said the clerk, putting the mail-sacks in at the
store.

"My plans ain't settled that far yet," replied Mr. McLean.

"Leave it out of them," said the voice of the bishop, laughing, inside
the stage.

It was a cool, fine air. Gazing over the huge plain down in which lies
Fort Washakie, Lin heard the faint notes of the trumpet on the parade
ground, and took a good-bye look at all things. He watched the American
flag grow small, saw the circle of steam rising away down by the hot
springs, looked at the bad lands beyond, chemically pink and rose amid
the vast, natural, quiet-colored plain. Across the spreading distance
Indians trotted at