they tell me."

"Alta tells you."

"Oh, you git out! But I'm a cowman right now, and I'm goin' to stay one
for some little time to come. It don't take much intelligence in a man
to ride fence."

"No; I guess we could both pass on that."

The Duke blew the lamp out with his hat. There was silence, all but the
scuffing sound of disrobing. Taterleg spoke out of bed.

"That girl's got purty eyes, ain't she?"

"Lovely eyes, Taterleg."

"And purty hair, too. Makes a feller want to lean over and pat that
little row of bangs."

"I expect there's a feller down there doin' it now."

The spring complained under Taterleg's sudden movement; there was a
sound of swishing legs under the sheet. Lambert saw him dimly against
the window, sitting with his feet on the floor.

"You mean Jedlick?"

"Why not Jedlick? He's got the field to himself."

Taterleg sat a little while thinking about it. Presently he resumed his
repose, chuckling a choppy little laugh.

"Jedlick! Jedlick ain't got no more show than a cow. When a lady steps
in and takes a man's part there's only one answer, Duke. And she called
me a gentleman, too. Didn't you hear her call me a gentleman, Duke?"

"I seem to remember that somebody else called you that one time."

Taterleg hadn't any reply at once. Lambert lay there grinning in the
dark. No matter how sincere Taterleg might have been in this or any
other affair, to the Duke it was only a joke. That is the attitude of
most men toward the tender vagaries of others. No romance ever is
serious but one's own.

"Well, that happened a good while ago," said Taterleg defensively.

But memories didn't trouble him much that night. Very soon he was
sleeping, snoring on the _G_ string with unsparing pressure. For Lambert
there was no sleep. He lay in a fever of anticipation. Tomorrow he
should see her, his quest ended almost as soon as begun.

There was not one stick of fuel for the flame of this conjecture, not
one reasonable justification for his more than hope. Only something had
flashed to him that the girl in the house on the mesa was she whom his
soul sought, whose handkerchief was folded in his pocketbook and carried
with his money. He would take no counsel from reason, no denial from
fate.

He lay awake seeing visions when he should have been asleep in the midst
of legitimate dreams. A score of plans for serving her came up for
examination, a hundred hopes for a happy culmination of this green
romanc