fat, when he can step into a layout like that?"

"Why didn't you lead her up to the hitching-rack while you were there?
Somebody else is likely to pick your plum while your back's turned."

"No, I don't reckon. She's been on the tree quite a spell; she ain't
the kind you young fellers want, and the old ones is most generally
married off or in the soldiers' home. Well, she's got a little cross
of Indian and Mexican in her, anyway; that kind of keeps 'em away, you
know."

It was no trouble to frame a mental picture of Dad's inamorata. Black,
squat, squint; a forehead a finger deep, a voice that would carry a
mile. Mackenzie had seen that cross of Mexican and Indian blood, with
a dash of debased white. They were not the kind that attracted men
outside their own mixed breed, but he hadn't a doubt that this one was
plenty good enough, and handsome enough, for Dad.

Mackenzie left the old man with this new happiness in his heart,
through which a procession of various-hued women had worn a path
during the forty years of his taking in marriage one month and taking
leave the next. Dad wasn't nervous over his prospects, but calm and
calculative, as became his age. Mackenzie went smiling now and then as
he thought of the team the black nondescript and the old fellow would
make.

He found Reid sitting on a hilltop with his face in his hands, surly
and out of sorts, his revolver and belt on the ground beside him as if
he had grown weary of their weight. He gave a short return to
Mackenzie's unaffected greeting and interested inquiry into the
conduct of the sheep and the dogs during his absence.

Reid's eyes were shot with inflamed veins, as if he had been sitting
all night beside a smoky fire. When Mackenzie sat near him the wind
bore the pollution of whisky from his breath. Reid made a show of
being at his ease, although the veins in his temples were swollen in
the stress of what must have been a splitting headache. He rolled a
cigarette with nonchalance almost challenging, and smoked in silence,
the corners of his wide, salamander mouth drawn down in a peculiar
scoffing.

"I suppose that guy told you the whole story," he said at last,
lifting his eyes briefly to Mackenzie's face.

"The sheriff, you mean?"

"Who else?" impatiently.

"I don't know whether he told me all or not, but he told me plenty."

"And you've passed it on to Joan by now!"

"No."

Reid faced around, a flush over his thin cheeks, a scowl in his