mpervious alike to the sting of the insects and the blows of the
whip, the animals plodded along in the unvarying walk they had
maintained since early morning.

"This yere's the skeeter flats," imparted Microby, between slaps.
"They hain't no skeeters in the mountains, mebbe it's too fer, an'
mebbe they hain't 'nough folks fer 'em to bite out there, they's only
us-uns an' a few more." As the girl talked the horses splashed into
the shallow water of the ford and despite all effort to urge them
forward, halted in mid-stream, and sucked greedily of the
crystal-clear water. It seemed an hour before they moved on and
assayed a leisurely ascent of the opposite bank. The air became
pungent with the smell of smoke. They were in town, now, and as the
wagon wheels sank deeply into the soft sand of the principal street,
Patty noted that in front of the doors of most of the houses, slow
fires were burning--fires that threw off a heavy, stifling smudge of
smoke that spread lazily upon the motionless air and hung thick and
low to the ground.

"Skeeter smudges," explained Microby proud of being the purveyor of
information, "towns has 'em, an' then the skeeters don't bite. Oh,
look at the folks! Lest hurry up! They might be a fight! Las' time
they wus a fight an' a breed cut a man Pap know'd an' the man got the
breed down an' stomped on his face an' the marshal come an' sp'ilt
hit, an' the man says if he'd of be'n let be he'd of et the breed up."

"My, what a shame! And now you may never see a man eat a breed,
whatever a breed is."

"A breed's half a Injun." Microby was standing up on the seat at the
imminent risk of her neck, peering over the heads of the crowd that
thronged the sidewalk.

"Sit down!" commanded Patty, sharply, as she noted the amused glances
with which those on the outskirts of the crowd viewed the ridiculous
figure in the red dress and the pink sunbonnet. "They are waiting for
the movie to open.

"Whut's a movie? Is hit like the circust? Kin I go?" The questions
crowded each other, as the girl scrambled to her seat, her eyes were
big with excitement.

"Yes, to-morrow."

"Looky, there's Buck!" Patty's eyes followed the pointing finger, and
she frowned at sight of the rangy buckskin tied with half a dozen
other horses to the hitching rail before the door of a saloon. It
seemed as she glanced along the street that nearly every building in
town was a saloon. Half a block farther on she drew to the sidewalk
an