sale.

I briefly pondered the lyric. It told its own simple story and could at
once have been dismissed but for its divined and puzzling relationship
to the popular society favourite of Nome, Alaska. What could there be in
this?

Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill bustled in upon my speculation, but as
usual I was compelled to wait for the talk I wanted. For some moments
she would be only the tired owner of the Arrowhead Ranch--in the tea
gown of a debutante and with too much powder on one side of her
nose--and she must have at least one cup of tea so corrosive that the
Scotch whiskey she adds to it is but a merciful dilution. She now drank
eagerly of the fearful brew, dulled the bite of it with smoke from a
hurriedly built cigarette, and relaxed gratefully into one of those
chairs which are all that most of us remember William Morris for. Even
then she must first murmur of the day's annoyances, provided this time
by officials of the United States Forest Reserve. In the beginning I
must always allow her a little to have her own way.

"The annual spring rumpus with them rangers," she wearily boomed. "Every
year they tell me just where to turn my cattle out on the Reserve, and
every year I go ahead and turn 'em out where I want 'em turned out,
which ain't the same place at all, and then I have to listen patiently
to their kicks and politely answer all letters from the higher-ups and
wait for the official permit, which always comes--and it's wearing on a
body. Darn it! They'd ought to know by this time I always get my own
way. If they wasn't such a decent bunch I'd have words with 'em, giving
me the same trouble year after year, probably because I'm a weak,
defenceless woman. However!"

The lady rested largely, inert save for the hand that raised the
cigarette automatically to her lips. My moment had come.

"What did Wilfred Lennox, the hobo poet, have to do with Mr. Ben Sutton,
of Nome, Alaska?" I gently inquired.

"More than he wanted," replied the lady. Her glance warmed with
memories; she hovered musingly on the verge of recital. But the
cigarette was half done and at its best. I allowed her another moment, a
moment in which she laughed confidentially to herself, a little dry,
throaty laugh. I knew that laugh. She would be marshalling certain
events in their just and diverting order. But they seemed to be many and
of confusing values.

"Some said he not only wasn't a hobo but wasn't even a poet," she
presently murm