thought
of Mary his heart ached a little; he forgot her only when his
imagination set wing into the sunset sky.

One other thing troubled him a little. Rude, plain Jennie was in love
with him. Daily intercourse with a youngster half as attractive as Mose
would have had the same effect upon her, for she was at that age when
propinquity makes sentiment inevitable. She could scarcely keep her eyes
from him during hours in camp, and on the drive she rode with him four
times as long as he wished for. She bothered him, and yet she was so
good and generous he could not rebuff her; he could only endure.

She had one accomplishment: she could ride like a Sioux, either astride
or womanwise, with a saddle or without, and many a race they had as the
roads grew firm and dry. She was scrawny and flat-chested, but agile as
a boy when occasion demanded. She was fearless, too, of man or beast,
and once when her father became crazy with liquor (which was his
weakness) she went with Mose to bring him from a saloon, where he stood
boasting of his powers as a fighter with the bowie knife.

As they entered Jennie walked straight up to him: "Dad, you come home.
Come right out o' yere."

He looked at her for a moment until his benumbed brain took in her words
and all their meaning; then he said: "All right, Jinnie, just wait a
second till I have another horn with these yer gents----"

"Horn nawthin," she said in reply, and seized him by the arm. "You come
along."

He submitted without a struggle, and on the way out grew plaintive.
"Jinnie, gal," he kept saying, "I'm liable to get dry before mornin', I
shore am; ef you'd only jest let me had one more gill----"

"Oh, shet up, Dad. Ef you git dry I'll bring the hull crick in fer ye to
drink," was her scornful reply.

After he was safe in bed Jennie came over to the wagon where Mose was
smoking.

"Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; "'pears like they
ain't got the sense of a grayback louse, leastways some of 'em. Now,
there's dad, filled up on stuff they call whisky out yer, and
consequence is he can't eat any grub for two days or more. Doggone it,
it makes me huffy, it plum does. Mam has put up with it fer twenty
years, which is just twenty more than I'd stand it, and don't you forget
it. When I marry a man it will be a man with sense 'nough not to pizen
hisself on rot-gut whisky."

Without waiting for a reply she turned away and went to bed in the
bottom of the hinder