ler of time which a drudge of success would be
stamping into gold, it is better for a man than wine. He can return from
his wide excursions with no deeper injury than a sigh.

Lambert came back to the reality, broaching the subject of a job. Here
Jim took notice and cut into the conversation, it being his first word
to the stranger.

"Sure you can git a job, bud," he said, coming over to where Lambert sat
with Siwash and Taterleg, the latter peeling potatoes for a stew,
somebody having killed a calf. "The old man needs a couple of hands; he
told me to keep my eye open for anybody that wanted a job."

"I'm glad to hear of it," said Lambert, warming up at the news, feeling
that he must have been a bit severe in his judgment of Jim, which had
not been altogether favorable.

"He'll be over in the morning; you'd better hang around."

Seeing the foundation of a new fortune taking shape, Lambert said he
would "hang around." They all applauded his resolution, for they all
appeared to like him in spite of his appearance, which was distinctive,
indeed, among the somber colors of that sage-gray land.

Jim inquired if he had a horse, the growing interest of a friend in his
manner. Hearing the facts of the case from Lambert--before dawn he had
heard them from Taterleg--he appeared concerned almost to the point of
being troubled.

"You'll have to git you a horse, Duke; you'll have to ride up to the
boss when you hit him for a job. He never was known to hire a man off
the ground, and I guess if you was to head at him on that bicycle, he'd
blow a hole through you as big as a can of salmon. Any of you fellers
got a horse you want to trade the Duke for his bicycle?"

The inquiry brought out a round of somewhat cloudy witticism, with
proposals to Lambert for an exchange on terms rather embarrassing to
meet, seeing that even the least preposterous was not sincere. Taterleg
winked to assure him that it was all banter, without a bit of harm at
the bottom of it, which Lambert understood very well without the
services of a commentator.

Jim brightened up presently, as if he saw a gleam that might lead
Lambert out of the difficulty. He had an extra horse himself, not much
of a horse to look at, but as good-hearted a horse as a man ever throwed
a leg over, and that wasn't no lie, if you took him the right side on.
But you had to take him the right side on, and humor him, and handle him
like eggs till he got used to you. Then you had as