tern country'd been settled first,
the maps would read: 'Northeast Territory.--Uninhabitable wilderness;
region of storm and snow, roaming savages and fierce wild beasts.' When
the intrepid explorer hit the big white weather he'd say, 'Little old
San Diego's good enough for me!' Yes, sir!"

"Oh, well, climate alone doesn't account for the charm of this
country--nor scenery," said Leo. "You feel it, but you don't know why it
is."

"It sure agrees with your by-laws," observed Pringle. "You're a sight
changed from the furtive behemoth you was. You'll make a hand yet. But,
even now, your dimensions from east to west is plumb fascinatin'. I'd
sure admire to have your picture to put in my cornfield."

"Very well, Mr. Pringle: I'll exchange photographs with you," said Leo
artlessly. A smothered laugh followed this remark; uncertainty as to
what horrible and unnamed use Leo would make of Pringle's pictured face
appealed to these speculative minds.

"I've studied out this charm business," said Jeff. "See if I'm not
right. It's because there's no habitually old men here to pattern after,
to steady us, to make us ashamed of just staying boys. Now and then you
hit an octagonal cuss like Wes here, that on a mere count of years and
hairs might be sized up as old by the superficial observer. But if I
have ever met that man more addicted with vivid nonchalance as to
further continuance of educational facilities than this same Also Ran,
his number has now escaped me. Really aged old people stay where they
was."

"I think, myself, that what makes life so easy and congenial in these
latigos and longitudes is the dearth of law and the ladies." Thus
Pringle, the cynic.

A fourfold outcry ensued; indignant repudiation of the latter heresy.
Their protest rose above the customary subdued and quiet drawl of the
out-of-doors man.

"But has the law no defenders?" demanded Leo. "We've got to have laws to
make us behave."

"Sure thing! Likewise, 'tis the waves that make the tide come in," said
Jeff. "A good law is as handy as a good pocketbook. But law, as simply
such, independent of its merits, rouses no enthusiasm in my manly bosom,
no more than a signboard the day after Hallowe'en. If it occurs to me in
a moment of emotional sanity that the environments of the special case
in hand call for a compound fracture of the statutes made and
provided--for some totally different cases that happen to be called by
the same name--I fall upon it w