e could not quite
believe that Pete had shot the lion until Bailey himself certified to
Pete's story of the hunt. Mrs. Bailey, for some feminine reason, felt
that she had been cheated. Bailey had not told her about the lion.
She had been indignant with Haskins for his apparently unseemly
conduct, and had been still more indignant with Pete when she
appreciated that he was at the bottom of the joke. But Haskins was
innocent and Pete was now somewhat of a hero. The good woman turned on
her husband and rebuked him roundly for allowing such "goings-on."
Bailey took his dressing-down silently. He felt that the fun had been
worth it. Pete himself was rather proud and obviously afraid he would
show it. But the atmosphere settled to normal when the men went to
work. Pete was commissioned to skin and cut up the deer. Later in the
day he tackled the lion, skinned it, fleshed out the nose, ears, and
eyelids, and salted and rolled the hide. Roth, the storekeeper at
Concho, was somewhat of a taxidermist and Mrs. Bailey had admired the
lion-skin.

Pete felt that he could have used the twenty dollars bounty, but he was
nothing if not generous. That afternoon he rode to Concho with the
lion-skin tied behind the cantle. He returned to the ranch late that
night. Next morning he was mysteriously reticent about the
disappearance of the hide. He intended to surprise Ma Bailey with a
real Christmas present. No one guessed his intent. Pete was good at
keeping his own counsel.

A few evenings later the men, loafing outside the bunk-house, amused
themselves by originating titles for the chief actors in the recent
range-drama. Pete, without question, was "The Lion Tamer," Bailey was
"Big-Chief-not-Afraid-of-a-Buck." Ma Bailey was "Queen of the
Pies"--not analogous to the drama but flattering--and Haskins, after
some argument and much suggestion, was entitled "Claw-Hammer." Such
titles as "Deer-Foot," "Rail-Hopper," "Back-Flip Bill,"
"Wind-Splitter," and the like were discarded in favor of
"Claw-Hammer"--for the unfortunate Bill had stepped on a rusty nail in
his recent exodus from the lion's den, and was at the time suffering
from a swollen and inflamed foot--really a serious injury, although
scoffed at by the good-natured Bill himself despite Mrs. Bailey's
solicitude and solution of peroxide.

Winter, with its thin shifts of snow, its intermittent sunshiny days,
its biting winds that bored through chaps and heavy gloves,