ge onced in a while, and talkin', and onced in a while she'd
sit up solemn and look all around so life-like that I near busted. Why,
how was I goin' to spoil that? So I come away, very quiet, you bet! for
I'd have hated to have Mrs. Bear notice me. Miss Peck, she laughed. She
claimed I was scared to shoot."

"After you had told her why it was?" said I.

"Before and after. I didn't tell her first, because I felt kind of
foolish. Then Tommy went and he killed the bear all right, and she has
the skin now. Of course the boys joshed me a heap about gettin' beat by
Tommy."

"But since she has taken you?" said I.

"She ain't said it. But she will when she understands Tommy."

I fancied that the lady understood. The once I had seen her she appeared
to me as what might be termed an expert in men, and one to understand
also the reality of Tommy's ranch and allowance, and how greatly these
differed from Box Elder. Probably the one thing she could not understand
was why Lin spared the mother and her cubs. A deserted home in Dubuque,
a career in a railroad eating-house, a somewhat vague past, and a
present lacking context--indeed, I hoped with all my heart that Tommy
would win!

"Lin," said I, "I'm backing him."

"Back away!" said he. "Tommy can please a woman--him and his blue
eyes--but he don't savvy how to make a woman want him, not any better
than he knows about killin' Injuns."

"Did you hear about the Crows?" said I.

"About young bucks going on the war-path? Shucks! That's put up by the
papers of this section. They're aimin' to get Uncle Sam to order his
troops out, and then folks can sell hay and stuff to 'em. If Tommy
believed any Crows--" he stopped, and suddenly slapped his leg.

"What's the matter now?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing." He took to singing, and his face grew roguish to its full
extent. "What made yu' say that to me?" he asked, presently.

"Say what?"

"About marrying. Yu' don't think I'd better."

"I don't."

"Onced in a while yu' tell me I'm flighty. Well, I am. Whoop-ya!"

"Colts ought not to marry," said I.

"Sure!" said he. And it was not until we came in sight of the
Virginian's black horse tied in front of Miss Wood's cabin next
the Taylors' that Lin changed the lively course of thought that was
evidently filling his mind.

"Tell yu'," said he, touching my arm confidentially and pointing to
the black horse, "for all her Vermont refinement she's a woman just the
same. She likes him dan