are you, Racey?"

Racey, pivoting on a spurred heel, faced Jimmie, stuck his arms
akimbo, and spoke:

"Not mentioning any names, of course, but there's some people round
here got an awful lot to say. Which if a gent was to say their tongues
are hung in the middle he'd be only tellin' half the truth. Not that
you ain't popular with me, James. You are. I think the world of you.
How can I help it when you remind me all the time of my aunt's pet
parrot in yore face and language. Except you ain't the right colour.
If yore whiskers had only grown out green."

"We're forgetting what we was talkin' about," tucked in Jimmie the
cook, smiling sweetly. "The lady, Racey. Who is she?"

"James," said Racey, his smile matching that of the cook, "they's
something about you to-day, something I don't like. I dunno the name
for it exactly. But if you'll step inside the bunkhouse a minute, I'll
show you what I mean. I'll show you in two shakes."

Jimmie shook a wise head and backed out into the open. "Not while I
got my health. You come out here and show me."

"Oh, I ain't gonna play any tricks on you," protested Racey Dawson.

"You bet you ain't," Jimmie concurred, warmly. "Not by severial
jugfuls. I--" He broke off, cocking a listening ear.

"Yeah," grinned Racey, "you hear a noise in the cook-shack, huh? I
_thought_ I saw the Kid slide past in the lookin'-glass while you were
standing in the doorway."

"And you never told me!" squalled Jimmie, speeding toward his beloved
place of business.

He reached it rather late. When he entered by the doorway the Kid, a
pie in each hand, was disappearing through a back window.

"Did you ever get left!" tossed back the Kid as the flung frying-pan
buzzed past his ear.--"Now see what you done," he continued, skipping
safely out of range; "dented yore nice new frypan all up. You
oughtn'ta done that, Jimmie. Fry-pans cost money. Some day, if you
ain't careful, you'll break something, you and yore temper."

"Them's the Old Man's pies," declared Jimmie, leaning over the
window-sill and shaking an indignant fist at the Kid. "You bring 'em
back, you hear?"

"They ain't, and I won't, and I do," was the brisk answer. "Yo're
making a big mistake, Jimmie boy, if you think they're _his_ pies.
Don't you s'pose I know he's gone to Piegan City, and he won't be back
for a coupla weeks? And don't you s'pose I know them pies would be too
stale for him to eat by the time he got back? You must take me f