and I run it my own way. I don't want
any interfering nor no talk afterward--'s that understood?

"It was. He was to cut loose.

"'All right,' says he. 'Poor Aleck!' So that night E. G. W.
Scraggs took his cayuse and made for the railroad station, bound
east.

"Aleck had give us full details. We knew all about his little town
and about that house in particular; just how the morning-glories
grew over the back porch, looking out on the garden patch, and
where the cistern was, which, with his usual good luck, Aleck had
managed to fall into, whilst they were putting a new cover on it.
Yessir; we knew that little East Dakota town as well as if we'd
been raised there; but we were some shy on details concerning the
girl. I swear I don't believe Aleck had ever looked her full in
the face. She was medium height, plump, blue eyes, brown hair, and
that ended the description,

"We suffered any quantity from impatience before E. G. W. showed
up. You see, there ain't such a lot that happens to other people
occurrin' on a ranch, and we was really more excited over Aleck and
his girl than a tenderfoot would be over a gun fight, and for the
same reason; it was out of our ordinary.

"Scraggsy didn't keep us on the anxious seat. He was the surest
thing I ever saw. Often I've watched him rope a critter; he never
whirled his rope, even when riding--always snapped. And he never
made a quick move--that is, a move that looked in a hurry--all the
same, every time he let go of the rope, there was his meat on the
other end of it. Women was the only thing that did E. G. W.
Scraggs, and that's because he wholesaled the business. That
ambition of his wrecked him. When he trotted around the track for
fun, nobody else in the heat could see him for the dust.

"One evening about half-past eight, when the glow was still strong,
here come Scraggs, prompt to the schedule. He was riding and a
buggy trailed behind him.

"We chased Aleck over to the main house, where the old man, who
stood in on the play, was to keep him busy until called for.

"Then up pulls E. G. W. and the buggy. In the buggy was a young
woman, and a man.

"'Here we are,' says Scraggs, in the tone of one who has done his
painful duty. 'Check the outfit--one girl and one splicer--have
you kept holt of Aleck?'

"'Yes,' I says. 'We've got him--come in, folks.' I was crazy to
hear how he'd pulled it off. Soon's they got inside I lugged him
to the corner, lea