cookin' or something?"

"Say," retorted Scipio, "tell my future some now. Draw a conclusion from
my mouth."

"I'm right distressed," unsevered the gentle Southerner, "we've not a
drop in the outfit."

"Oh, drink with me uptown!" cried Scipio "I'm pleased to death with
yu'."

The Virginian glanced where the saloons stood just behind the station,
and shook his head.

"Why, it ain't a bit far to whiskey from here!" urged the other,
plaintively. "Step down, now. Scipio le Moyne's my name. Yes, you're
lookin' for my brass ear-rings. But there ain't no ear-rings on me. I've
been white for a hundred years. Step down. I've a forty-dollar thirst."

"You're certainly white," began the Virginian. "But--"

Here the caboose resumed:

"I'm wild, and woolly, and full of peas;
I'm hard to curry above the knees;
I'm a she-wolf from Bitter Creek, and
It's my night to ho-o-wl--"

And as they howled and stamped, the wheels of the caboose began to turn
gently and to murmur.

The Virginian rose suddenly. "Will yu' save that thirst and take a
forty-dollar job?"

"Missin' trains, profanity, or what?" said Scipio.

"I'll tell yu' soon as I'm sure."

At this Scipio looked hard at the Virginian. "Why, you're talkin'
business!" said he, and leaped on the caboose, where I was already. "I
WAS thinkin' of Rawhide," he added, "but I ain't any more."

"Well, good luck!" said Shorty, on the track behind us.

"Oh, say!" said Scipio, "he wanted to go on that train, just like me."

"Get on," called the Virginian. "But as to getting a job, he ain't just
like you." So Shorty came, like a lost dog when you whistle to him.

Our wheels clucked over the main-line switch. A train-hand threw it shut
after us, jumped aboard, and returned forward over the roofs. Inside the
caboose they had reached the third howling of the she-wolf.

"Friends of yourn?" said Scipio.

"My outfit," drawled the Virginian.

"Do yu' always travel outside?" inquired Scipio.

"It's lonesome in there," returned the deputy foreman. And here one of
them came out, slamming the door.

"Hell!" he said, at sight of the distant town. Then, truculently, to the
Virginian, "I told you I was going to get a bottle here."

"Have your bottle, then," said the deputy foreman, and kicked him off
into Dakota. (It was not North Dakota yet; they had not divided it.)
The Virginian had aimed his pistol at about the same time with his
boot. Therefore the man sa