en him and Annie Pilgreen. So she
plucked the guitar strings tentatively and began to play.

Behind the curtain, Annie Pilgreen stood simpering in her place and
Happy Jack went reluctantly forward, resigned and deplorably
inefficient. Weary, himself again now that his torment was over, posed
him cheerfully. But Happy Jack did not get the idea. He stood, as
Weary told him disgustedly, looking like a hitching-post. Weary
labored with him desperately, his ear strained to keep in touch with
the music which would, at the proper time, die to a murmur which would
be a signal for the red fire and the tableau. Already the lamps were
being turned low, out there beyond the curtain.

Though it was primarily a scheme of torture for Happy Jack, Weary was
anxious that it should be technically perfect. He became impatient.
"Say, _don't_ stand there like a kink-necked horse, Happy!" he implored
under his breath. "Ain't there any joints in your arms?"

"I ain't never practised it," Happy Jack protested in a hoarse whisper.
"I never even seen a tableau in my life, even. If somebody'd show me
once, so's I could get the hang of it--"

"Oh, mamma! you're a peach, all right. Here, give me that sage brush!
Now, watch. We haven't got all night to make medicine over it. See?
Yuh want to hold it over her head and kinda bend down, like yuh were
daring yourself to kiss--"

Happy Jack backed off to get the effect; incidentally, he took the
curtain back with him; also incidentally--, Johnny dropped a match into
the red fire, which glowed beautifully. Weary caught his breath, but
he was game and never moved any eyelash.

The red glow faded and left an abominable smell behind it, and some
merciful hand drew the curtain--but it was not the hand of Happy Jack.
He had gone out through the window and was crouching beneath it
drinking in greedily the hand-clapping and the stamping of feet and the
whistling, with occasional shouts of mirth which he recognized as
coming from the rest of the Happy Family. It all sounded very sweet to
the great, red ears of Happy Jack.

When the clatter showed signs of abatement he stole away to where his
horse was tied, his sorrel coat gleaming with frost sparkles in the
moonlight. "It's you and me to hit the trail, Spider," he croaked to
the horse, and with his bare hand scraped the frost from the saddle.

A tall figure crept up from behind and grappled with him. Spider
danced away as far as the rope