m alone, fellows," said he. "I savvy. That fellow's in love!
He's in love with a Voice! Ain't it awful?"

Silence met this remark. Dan Anderson seated himself on a stone, and
we others followed his example, going into a committee of the whole,
there in the night-time, on the bank of the _arroyo_.

"Did you notice, Curly," asked Dan Anderson--"did you get a chance to
see the name on the record of the singer who--who perpetrated this?"

"No," said Curly. "I couldn't get a clean look at the brand, owin' to
Tom's cuttin' out the thing so sudden from the bunch. It was somethin'
like Doughnuts--"

"Exactly--Madame Donatelli! I thought I rather recognized that voice
my own self."

"Dago!" said McKinney with scorn.

"By trainin', though not by birth," admitted Dan Anderson. "Georgia
girl originally, they tell me, and Dagoized proper, subsequent. All
Yankee girls have to be Dagoized before they can learn to sing right
good and strong, you know. They frequent learn a heap of things
besides 'Annie Laurie'--and besides singin'. Oh, I can see the Yankee
Dago lady right now. Fancy works installed in the roof of her mouth,
adjacent and adjoinin' to her tongue, teeth, and other vocal outfit.

"Now, this here Georgia girl, accordin' to all stories, has sung
herself into about a quarter of a million dollars and four or five
different husbands with that voice of hers; and that same 'Annie
Laurie' song was largely responsible. Now, why, _why_, couldn't she
have taken a fellow of her size, and not gone and made trouble for Tom
Osby? It wasn't fair play.

"Now, Tom, he sits humped over in there, a-lookin' in that horn. What
does he see? Madame Donatelli? Does he see her show her teeth and bat
her eyes when she's fetchin' one of them hand-curled trills of hers?
Nay, nay. What he sees is a girl just like the one he used to know--"

"Whoa! Hold on there; that'll about do," said McKinney. "This
country's just as good as--"

"No, let him go on," said Curly to McKinney. "Onct over on the
Brazos--"

"Sometimes I think you fellows are inclined to be provincial," said Dan
Anderson, calmly. "Now, I'm not goin' to talk if you don't leave me
alone. Listen. What does Tom Osby see in that horn that he's lookin'
into? I'll tell you. He sees a plumb angel in white clothes and a
blue sash. She's got gray eyes and brown hair, and she's just a little
bit shorter than will go right under my arm here when I stretch it out