lt that he could give the world
just to touch with his lips that hem of her dress where his hand rested.
But he was afraid of frightening her. He fought to find something to
say, licking his parched lips and vainly attempting to articulate
something, anything.

"This ain't Sonoma Valley," he declared finally. "This is fairy land,
and you're a fairy. Mebbe I'm asleep and dreaming. I don't know. You and
me don't know how to talk together, because, you see, you're a fairy and
don't know nothing but good things, and I'm a man from the bad, wicked
world."

Having achieved this much, he was left gasping for ideas like a stranded
fish.

"And you're going to tell me about the bad, wicked world," she cried,
clapping her hands. "I'm just dying to know."

He looked at her, startled, remembering the wreckage of womanhood he had
encountered on the sunken ways of life. She was no fairy. She was flesh
and blood, and the possibilities of wreckage were in her as they had
been in him even when he lay at his mother's breast. And there was in
her eagerness to know.

"Nope," he said lightly, "this man from the bad, wicked world ain't
going to tell you nothing of the kind. He's going to tell you of the
good things in that world. He's going to tell you how he loved hosses
when he was a shaver, and about the first hoss he straddled, and the
first hoss he owned. Hosses ain't like men. They're better. They're
clean--clean all the way through and back again. And, little fairy, I
want to tell you one thing--there sure ain't nothing in the world like
when you're settin' a tired hoss at the end of a long day, and when you
just speak, and that tired animal lifts under you willing and hustles
along. Hosses! They're my long suit. I sure dote on hosses. Yep. I used
to be a cowboy once."

She clapped her hands in the way that tore so delightfully to his heart,
and her eyes were dancing, as she exclaimed:

"A Texas cowboy! I always wanted to see one! I heard papa say once that
cowboys are bow-legged. Are you?"

"I sure was a Texas cowboy," he answered. "But it was a long time ago.
And I'm sure bow-legged. You see, you can't ride much when you're young
and soft without getting the legs bent some. Why, I was only a
three-year-old when I begun. He was a three-year-old, too, fresh-broken.
I led him up alongside the fence, clumb to the top rail, and dropped
on. He was a pinto, and a real devil at bucking, but I could do
anything with him. I reckon h