"

"What did you do it with, some barbed wire?"

"Looks like somethin' that was left out in the rain an' had started to
peel," ventured the irrepressible Tex.

Alice ignored him completely. "But the clothes? Where did you get
them?"

Endicott nodded toward the Texan. "He loaned them to me!"

"But--surely they would never fit him."

"Didn't know it was necessary they should," drawled Tex, and having
succeeded in building the fire, moved off to help Bat who was busying
himself with the horses.

"Where has he been?" asked the girl as the voice of the Texan came from
beyond the trees:

"It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three,
A man by the name of Crego come steppin' up to me,
Sayin', 'How do you do, young fellow, an' how would you like to go
An' spend one summer pleasantly, on the range of the buffalo-o-o?'"

"I'm sure I don't know. He came back an hour or so ago and woke me up
and gave me this outfit and told me my whiskers looked like the
infernal regions and that I had better shave--even offered to shave me,
himself."

"But he has been drinking. Where did he get the liquor?"

"The same place he got the clothes, I guess. He said he met a friend
and borrowed them," smiled Endicott.

"Well, it's nothing to laugh at. I should think you'd be ashamed to
stand there and laugh about it."

The man stared at her in surprise. "I guess he won't drink enough to
hurt him any. And--why, it was only a day or two ago that you sat in
the dining car and defended their drinking. You even said, I believe,
that had you been a man you would have been over in the saloon with
them."

"Yes, I did say that! But that was different. Oh, I think men are
_disgusting_! They're either _bad_, or just plain _dumb_!"

"We left old Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo--
Went home to our wives an' sweethearts, told others not to go,
For God's forsaken the buffalo range, and the damned old buffalo-o-o!"

"At least our friend Tex does not seem to be stricken with dumbness,"
Endicott smiled as the words of the buffalo skinner's song broke forth
anew. "Do you know I have taken a decided fancy to him. He's----"

"I'd run along and play with him then if I were you," was the girl's
sarcastic comment. "Maybe if you learn how to swear and sing some of
his beautiful songs he'll give you part of his whiskey." She turned
away abruptly and became absorbed in the preparation of supper, an