ipped up his horses and grew almost as thirsty for revenge as was his
wife.

Where the steer had been roasted, the powdered ashes were now cold
white, and Mr. McLean, feeling through his dreams the change of dawn
come over the air, sat up cautiously among the outdoor slumberers and
waked his neighbor.

"Day will be soon," he whispered, "and we must light out of this. I
never suspicioned yu' had that much of the devil in you before."

"I reckon some of the fellows will act haidstrong," the Virginian
murmured luxuriously, among the warmth of his blankets.

"I tell yu' we must skip," said Lin, for the second time; and he rubbed
the Virginian's black head, which alone was visible.

"Skip, then, you," came muffled from within, "and keep you'self mighty
sca'ce till they can appreciate our frolic."

The Southerner withdrew deeper into his bed, and Mr. McLean, informing
him that he was a fool, arose and saddled his horse. From the
saddle-bag, he brought a parcel, and lightly laying this beside Bokay
Baldy, he mounted and was gone. When Baldy awoke later, he found the
parcel to be a pair of flowery slippers.

In selecting the inert Virginian as the fool, Mr. McLean was scarcely
wise; it is the absent who are always guilty.

Before ever Lin could have been a mile in retreat, the rattle of
the wheels roused all of them, and here came the Taylors. Before the
Taylors' knocking had brought the Swintons to their door, other wheels
sounded, and here were Mr. and Mrs. Carmody, and Uncle Hughey with his
wife, and close after them Mr. Dow, alone, who told how his wife had
gone into one of her fits--she upon whom Dr. Barker at Drybone had
enjoined total abstinence from all excitement. Voices of women and
children began to be up lifted; the Westfalls arrived in a lather,
and the Thomases; and by sunrise, what with fathers and mothers and
spectators and loud offspring, there was gathered such a meeting as has
seldom been before among the generations of speaking men. To-day you can
hear legends of it from Texas to Montana; but I am giving you the full
particulars.

Of course they pitched upon poor Lin. Here was the Virginian doing
his best, holding horses and helping ladies descend, while the name of
McLean began to be muttered with threats. Soon a party led by Mr. Dow
set forth in search of him, and the Southerner debated a moment if he
had better not put them on a wrong track. But he concluded that they
might safely go on searchi