owboy shifted his weight uneasily and hesitated. He said finally
while the red of his shiny sun-blistered face deepened perceptibly: "My
name is supposed to be Teeters--Clarence Teeters."

As a matter of fact he _knew_ that his name was Teeters, but injecting
an element of doubt into it in this fashion seemed somehow to make the
telling easier. Teeters was bad enough, but combined with Clarence! Only
Mr. Teeters knew the effort it cost him to tell his name to strangers.
He added with the air of a man determined to make a clean breast of it:

"I'm from Missoury."

The Major's hand shot out unexpectedly.

"Shake!" he cried warmly. "I was drug up myself at the foot of the
Ozarks."

"I pulled out when I was a kid and wrangled 'round considerible."
Teeters made the statement as an extenuating circumstance.

"I took out naturalization papers myself," replied the Major
good-humoredly. "My name is Prouty--Stephen Douglas Prouty. You'll
prob'ly hear of me if you stay in the country. The fact is, I'm thinkin'
of startin' a town and namin' it Prouty."

"Shoo--you don't say so!" In polite inquiry, "Whur?"

"Thur!"

Mr. Teeters looked a little blank as he stared at the town site
indicated.

"It seems turrible fur from water," he commented finally.

"Sink--drill--artesian well--maybe we'll strike a regular subterranean
river. Anyway, 'twould be no trick at all to run a ditch from Dead Horse
Canyon and get all the water we want." He waved his arm at the distant
mountains and settled that objection.

"Wouldn't them alkali bogs breedin' a billion 'no-see-'ems' a second be
kind of a drawback?" inquired Teeters tentatively.

"That'll all be drained, covered with sile and seeded down in lawns,"
replied the Major quickly. "In two year that spot'll be bloomin' like
the Garden of Eden.

"I've got to be movin'," the Major continued. "I'm on my way from a
cornerstone layin' at Buffalo Waller to a barbecue at No Wood Crick. I'm
kind of an orator," he added modestly.

"And I got about three hundred head of calves to drag to the fire, if I
kin git my rope on 'em," said Teeters, straightening in the saddle.

The Major asked in instant interest:

"Oh, you're workin' for that wealthy eastern outfit?"

"Don't know how wealthy they be, but they're plenty eastern," Teeters
replied dryly.

"I was thinkin' I might stop over night with 'em and git acquainted. The
Scissors Outfit can't be more'n fifteen mile out of my way, and it'll