that bleak land that he had come to love, as he never had loved the
country which claimed him by birth. He had been called on in this place
to fight for a man's station in it; he had trampled a refuge of safety
for the defenseless among its thorns.

Vesta had said nothing further of her own plans, but they took it for
granted that she would be leaving, now that the last of the cattle were
sold. Ananias had told them that she was putting things away in the
house, getting ready to close most of it up.

"I don't blame you for leavin'," said Taterleg, returning to the
original thread of discussion, "it'll be as lonesome as sin up there at
the ranch with Vesta gone away. When she's there she fills that place up
like the music of a band."

"She sure does, Taterleg."

"Old Ananias'll have a soft time of it, eatin' chicken and rabbit all
winter, nothing to do but milk them couple of cows, no boss to keep her
eye on him in a thousand miles."

"He's one that'll never want to leave."

"Well, it's a good place for a man," Taterleg sighed, "if he ain't got
nothin' else to look ahead to. I kind o' hate to leave myself, but at my
age, you know, Duke, a man's got to begin to think of marryin' and
settlin' down and fixin' him up a home, as I've said before."

"Many a time before, old feller, so many times I've got it down by
heart."

Taterleg looked at him again with that queer turning of the eyes, which
he could accomplish with the facility of a fish, and rode on in silence
a little way after chiding him in that manner.

"Well, it won't do you no harm," he said.

"No," sighed the Duke, "not a bit of harm."

Taterleg chuckled as he rode along, hummed a tune, laughed again in his
dry, clicking way, deep down in his throat.

"I met Alta the other day when I was down in Glendora," he said.

"Did you make up?"

"Make up! That girl looks to me like a tin cup by the side of a silver
shavin' mug now, Duke. Compare that girl to Nettie, and she wouldn't
take the leather medal. She says: 'Good morning, Mr. Wilson,' she says,
and I turned my head quick, like I was lookin' around for him, and never
kep' a-lettin' on like I knew she meant me."

"That was kind of rough treatment for a lady, Taterleg."

"It would be for a lady, but for that girl it ain't. It's what's comin'
to her, and what I'll hand her ag'in, if she ever's got the gall to
speak to me."

The Duke had no further comment on Taterleg's rules of conduct. They
went a