k Desert isn't one that I hanker for, although you seem to have
made the journey on foot and thought little of it."

"That's 'cause I was doin' it on daddy's account. How much is your
price for this stuff?"

Mr. Mason instantly plunged his hand in his pocket; and before he
could withdraw it the physician replied,--

"You have earned all I've given you, lad; and I'd be ashamed to take
even a dollar from a plucky little shaver like you."

"But I've got ten dollars, an' can pay my way. If I'd thought the
prospectors meant to give me the money instead of buyin' the rifle,
I'd got along without it; but they said twice over that they wanted
the gun, an' I believed 'em."

"No one can accuse you of being a beggar; but if it's the same to
you, I'd rather let this go on account, and some day perhaps, when
you've struck it rich, come around and we'll have a settlement."

"Doctor, you're a man, every inch of you!" Mr. Mason said in a loud
tone, as he slapped the physician on the shoulder with a force that
caused him to wince with absolute pain. "You're a man; an' if the
people in this town don't know it already, they shall find it out from
yours truly. I reckon we can ante up a little something in this 'ere
matter, so the kid won't go home empty-handed; for I tell you there's
nothin' in Antelope Spring too good for him."

Again Dick looked about him in surprise that such praise should be
bestowed for what seemed to him a very simple act. The kindly manner
in which the physician bade him good-by, with the assurance that he
would himself go to Buffalo Meadows if it should become necessary,
served to increase the boy's astonishment; and instead of thanking the
gentleman, he could only say, because of his bewilderment,--

"I did it for daddy, sir; an' it would be a mean kind of fellow who
wouldn't do as much."

Then Mr. Mason hurried him away, and despite Dick's protests insisted
on leading him from one place to another, until it was as if he had
been introduced to every citizen in the settlement.

He was not called upon to tell his story again, because his conductor
did that for him; and the details of the narrative were magnified with
each repetition, until Dick believed it absolutely necessary he should
contradict certain portions wherein he was depicted as a hero of the
first class.

When Mr. Mason had shown the boy fully around the town, he said by way
of parting,--

"Now you go down to Mansfield's, an' wait there t