ontrolling interest now in Whately's
store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a
little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept
only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately,
she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet.
And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is
about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so
hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of
her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard
beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish.

"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old
a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh
crazy about her. Did I know her?"

I did; oh, yes, I remembered her.

"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's--lemme see,
uh--common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky--uh--Tillhurst,
Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from
Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to
Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was
teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially
Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from
Virginny, too--" but I pass that story.

"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-office up in the
'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now,
an' drugs an' seeds, an' nobody was right sure where he got his funds to
stock up, so--they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named
Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson--Cam
Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh,
he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take
the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political
speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we
caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of
the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fe Trail now, and we were coming
to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb
out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little
legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town,
when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east