ohnnie?"

"That's what I done, Uncle Abram. And then she sez, kinder wheedlin':
'But you will marry yer Sairy Anne, Johnnie, won't ye?' And then,
gittin' scared, I kinder forgot my manners, fer I said: 'No--I'm d----
d if I will!' An' I disremember what she said nex', but I found myself
in the road, a-runnin' like a mad steer. Jee! that road was hotter'n a
red-hot stove!"

During the recital of this adventure Bumblepuppy's face had deepened
in tint till it glowed like an iron disc in the heart of a fire. As he
finished speaking, he knelt down and dipped his head into the cool,
bubbling creek. Lifting up his ruddy face, a ray of sunshine,
filtering through the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods, fell full
upon his chestnut curls, and each drop of water on his hair became of
a sudden a gem of prismatic colour and most brilliant lustre.

"Phew-w-w!" said Bumblepuppy. "I hope Mis' Janssen ain't feelin' as
warm as I am."

VI

JASPERSON'S BEST GIRL

Jasperson came to the ranch at the time of the March branding, and it
was well understood between the contracting parties--Ajax and I of the
first part, and Jasper Jasperson of the second part, all of San
Lorenzo County, in the State of California--that the said Jasperson
came to us as a favour, and, so to speak, under protest. For he had
never worked out before, and was possessed of money in bank and some
four hundred acres of good arable land which, he carefully explained
to us, he was unwilling to farm himself. Indeed, his appearance
bespoke the man of independent means, for he wore a diamond collar-
stud--his tie was always pulled carefully down so as not to interfere
with this splendid gem--and two diamond rings. In Jasperson's hot
youth he had come into violent contact with a circular saw, and the
saw, as he admitted, had the best of the encounter--two fingers of his
left hand being left in the pit. A man of character and originality,
he insisted upon wearing the rings upon his maimed hand, both upon the
index finger; and once, when Ajax suggested respectfully that the
diamonds would shine to better advantage upon the right hand, he
retorted reasonably enough that the mutilated member "kind of needed
settin' off." He seized the opportunity to ask Ajax why we wore no
jewellery, and upon my brother replying that we considered diamonds
out of place upon a cattle ranch, he roundly asserted that in his
opinion a "gen'leman couldn't be too dressy."

During the f