again last night. Maybe the stage was
late reaching Powder River, and Tommy had had to lay over for it.
Well, that would justify him. Far more likely he had gone to the circus
himself and taken the mail with him. Tommy was no type of man for
postmaster. Except drawing the allowance his mother in the East gave
him first of every month, he had never shown punctuality that Lin could
remember. Never had any second thoughts, and awful few first ones. Told
bigger lies than a small man ought, also.

"Has successes, though," said I, wickedly.

"Huh!" went on Mr. McLean. "Successes! One ice-cream-soda success. And
she"--Lin's still wounded male pride made him plaintive--"why, even that
girl quit him, once she got the chance to appreciate how insignificant
he was as compared with the size of his words. No, sir. Not one of 'em
retains interest in Tommy."

Lin was unsaddling and looking after my horse, just because he was
glad to see me. Since our first acquaintance, that memorable summer of
Pitchstone Canyon when he had taken such good care of me and such bad
care of himself, I had learned pretty well about horses and camp craft
in general. He was an entire boy then. But he had been East since, East
by a route of his own discovering--and from his account of that journey
it had proved, I think, a sort of spiritual experience. And then the
years of our friendship were beginning to roll up. Manhood of the
body he had always richly possessed; and now, whenever we met after a
season's absence and spoke those invariable words which all old friends
upon this earth use to each other at meeting--"You haven't changed, you
haven't changed at all!"--I would wonder if manhood had arrived in Lin's
boy soul. And so to-day, while he attended to my horse and explained the
nature of Tommy (a subject he dearly loved just now), I looked at him
and took an intimate, superior pride in feeling how much more mature I
was than he, after all.

There's nothing like a sense of merit for making one feel aggrieved,
and on our return to the cabin Mr. McLean pointed with disgust to some
firewood.

"Look at those sorrowful toothpicks," said he: "Tommy's work."

So Lin, the excellent hearted, had angrily busied himself, and chopped a
pile of real logs that would last a week. He had also cleaned the stove,
and nailed up the bed, the pillow-end of which was on the floor. It
appeared the master of the house had been sleeping in it the reverse
way on account of