cigarette; I nearly
died.'

"'Mine never made me sick,' says Margery--'only it was kind of sting-y
to the tongue and I swallowed smoke through my nose repeatedly. And
first, this old one wouldn't give us the cigarettes at all, until I
threatened to cast a spell on him and turn him into a toad forever. I
never did that to any one, but I bet I could. And the fat one cried like
anything and begged me not to turn the old one into a toad, and the old
one said he didn't think I could in a thousand years, but he wouldn't
take any chances in the Far West; so he gave us the cigarettes, and
Rupert only smoked half of his and then he acted in a very common way, I
must say. And this old one said we would have br'iled b'ar steaks for
breakfast. What is a br'iled b'ar steak? I'm hungry.'

"Such was little angel-faced Margery. Does she promise to make life
interesting for those who love her, or does she not?

"Well, that's all. Of course these cops when they come up said the two
men was desperate crooks wanted in every state in the Union; but I swore
I knew them both well and they was harmless; and I made it right with
'em about the reward as soon as I got back to a check book. After that
they'd have believed anything I said. And I sent something over to the
Blackhanders that had turned out to help look, and something to
Conductor Number Twenty-seven. And the next day I squared myself with
Mrs. W.B. Hemingway and her husband, and Mrs. L.H. Cummins, when they
come back, the aunt not having been sick but only eccentric again.

"And them two poor homeless boys--they kind of got me, I admit, after
I'd questioned 'em awhile. So I coaxed 'em out here where they could
lead the wild, free life. Kind of sad and pathetic, almost, they was.
The fat one I found was just a kind of natural-born one--a feeb you
understand--and the old one had a scar that the doctor said explained
him all right--you must have noticed it up over his temple. It's where
his old man laid him out once, when he was a kid, with a stovelifter. It
seemed to stop his works.

"Yes; they're pretty good boys. Boogies was never bad but once, account
of two custard pies off the kitchen window sill. I threatened him with
his stepmother and he hid under the house for twenty-four hours. The
other one is pretty good, too. This is only the second time I had to
punish him for fooling with live ca'tridges. There! It's sundown and
he's got on his Wild Wests again."

Jimmie Time swa