lled over and over to him, "Constance! Constance!"

Once more he turned, and retraced his steps, the trees still
whispering. At the edge of the opening he paused unseen. He saw the
girl, with one hand each on the arm of her father and of Barkley,
laughing gayly and walking across the gallery. Each had offered her an
arm to assist her in arising, and her act was, in fact, the most
natural one in the world. Yet to Dan Anderson, remote, morose,
solitary, his soul out of all perspective, this sight seemed the very
end of all the world.

CHAPTER XV

SCIENCE AT HEART'S DESIRE

_This being the Story of a Cow Puncher, an Osteopath, and a Cross-eyed
Horse_

"That old railroad'll shore bust me up a heap if it ever does git in
here," remarked Tom Osby one morning in the forum of Whiteman's corral,
where the accustomed group was sitting in the sun, waiting for some one
to volunteer as Homer for the day.

There was little to do but listen to story telling, for Tom Osby dwelt
in the tents of Kedar, delaying departure on his accustomed trip to
Vegas.

"A feller down there to Sky Top," he went on, arousing only the most
indolent interest, "one of them spy-glass ingineers--tenderfoot, with
his six-shooter belt buckled so tight he couldn't get his feet to the
ground--he says to me I might as well trade my old grays for a nice new
checkerboard, or a deck of author cards, for I won't have nothing to do
but just amuse myself when the railroad cars gets here."

No one spoke. All present were trying to imagine how Heart's Desire
would seem with a railroad train each day.

"Things'll be some different in them days, mebbe so." Tom recrossed
his legs with well-considered deliberation.

"There's a heap of things different already from what they used to be
when I first hit the cow range," said Curly. "The whole country's
changed, and it ain't changed for the better, either. Grass is longer,
and horns is shorter, and men is triflin'er. Since the Yankees has got
west of the Missouri River a ranch foreman ain't allowed to run his own
brandin' iron any more, and that takes more'n half the poetry out of
the cow business, don't it, Mac?" This to McKinney, who was nearly
asleep.

"Everything else is changing too," Curly continued, gathering fluency
as memories began to crowd upon him. "Look at the lawyers and doctors
there is in the Territory now--and this country used to be respectable.
Why, when I first come here there