Slim's feet with the broom vigorously. With an elaborate "Excuse me,"
Slim arose, but re-seated himself in another chair directly in the
pathway of Polly's broom.

"Get out of there, too," she cried.

"Shucks, there ain't any room for me nowhere," he muttered disgustedly.

"You shouldn't take up so much of it."

Slim attempted to take a seat on the small gilt chair which was Jack's
wedding-present to Echo.

Polly caught sight of him in time. "Look out," she shouted. "That
chair wasn't built for a full-grown man like you."

Slim nervously replaced the chair before a writing-desk. Polly wielded
her broom about the feet of the Sheriff, who danced clumsily about,
trying to avoid her.

"You're just trying to sweep me out of here," he complained.

"Well, if you will bring dust in with you, you must expect to be swept
out," Polly replied, with a show of spirit.

Polly was shaking the mat vigorously at the door when Slim said:

"I see they buried Poker Bill this mornin'."

"Is HE dead?" It was the first Polly had heard of the passing away of
one of the characters of the Territory. She had expressed her surprise
in the of an interrogation, emphasizing the "he," a colloquialism of
the Southwest.

Slim, however, had chosen to ignore the manner of speech, and with a
grin answered: "Ye-es, that's why they buried him."

Polly laughed in spite of herself. "What did he die of?" she asked.

As Slim was about to take a drink at the olla, he failed to hear her.

"Eh?" he grunted.

"What did he die of?" she repeated.

"Five aces," was the sober reply of the Sheriff, before he drained the
gourd.

Polly put the broom back of the door, and was rearranging the articles
on the table, before Slim could muster up enough courage to speak on
the topic which was always uppermost in his mind when in her presence.

"Say, Miss Polly," he began.

"If you've anything to say to me, Slim Hoover, just say it--I can't be
bothered to-day--all the fixin's and things," saucily advised the girl.

"Well, what I want to say is--" began the Sheriff.

At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst open
the door.

"Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying no heed
to Polly.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?"

"I don't know--Buck McKee--he's there with some of the Lazy K outfit.
They want to see you."

Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Da