anded. "Oh, I see--you have something to sell?"

"No, ma'am, I ain't got nothing to sell--not unlessen--well, I'll tell
you. I want to advertise fer a woman--fer a wife--that is to say,
really fer him, Sim Gage--a feller's got to have something to sort of
occupy his mind, hain't he?"

Mrs. Davidson was too much astonished to speak, and he blundered on.

"Folks has done such things," said he.

"You offer me a somewhat difficult problem," rejoined the other, "since
I do not in the least understand what you desire to do."

"Well, it's this away, ma'am. There's papers that prints these
ads--sometimes big dailies does, they tell me--where folks advertises
for acquaintances just fer to get acquainted, you know--'acquaintance
with a view to matrimony' is the way they usually say it--and that may
be a tip fer you--I mean about this here ad I want you to write. Why,
folks has got married that way, plenty of 'em--I'll bet there ain't
more'n half the homesteaders in this state out here, leastways in the
sagebrush country, that didn't get married just that way--it's the
onliest way they _can_ get married, ma'am, half the time.

"Once, up in Helleny, years ago, right after the old Alder Gulch placer
mining days, there was eleven millionaires, each of 'em married to a
Injun woman, and not one of them women could set on a chair without
falling off. Now, there wasn't no papers then like this one here, or
them millionaires might of done better."

She gasped, unable to speak, her lips rotund and pursed, and he went on
with more assertiveness.

"They turn out just as good as any marriages there is," said he. "I've
knowed plenty of 'em. There's three in this valley--although they
don't say much about it now. _I_ know how they got acquainted, all
right."

"And you desire me to aid you in your endeavor to entr-r-r-ap some
foolish woman?"

"They don't have to answer. They don't have to get married if they
don't want to. You can't tell how things'll turn out."

"Indeed! _Indeed_!"

"Well, now, I was just hoping you would write the ad, that's all. Just
you write me a ad like you was a sagebrusher out here in this country,
and you was awful lonesome, and had a good ranch, and was
kind-hearted--and not too good-looking--and that you'd be kind to a
woman. Well, that's about as far as I can go. I was going to leave
the rest to you."

Mrs. Davidson's lips still remained round, her forehead puckered. She
leaned pondero