o quiet that little, brown
birds hopped close, and sang from swaying weeds almost within reach
of them. The Happy Family listened dully to the songs, and waited.
They did not even think to make a cigarette.

The sun climbed higher and shone hotly down upon them. The dying man
blinked at the glare, and Happy Jack took off his hat and tilted it
over the face of the other, and asked him if he wouldn't like to be
moved into the shade.

"No matter--I'll be in the shade--soon enough," he returned quietly,
and something gripped their throats to aching. His voice, they
observed, was weaker than it had been.

Weary took a long breath, and moved closer. "I wish you'd let us get
help," he said, wistfully. It all seemed so horribly brutal, their
sitting around him like that, waiting passively for him to die.

"I know--yuh hate it. But it's--all yuh can do. It's all I want."
He took his eyes from the drifting, white clouds, and looked from
face to face. "You're the whitest bunch--I'd like to know--who yuh
are. Maybe I can put in--a good word for yuh--on the new
range--where I'm going. I'd sure like to do--something--"

"Then for the Lord's sake, don't say such things!" cried Pink,
shakily. "You'll have us--so damn broke up--"

"All right--I won't. So long,--boys. See yuh later--"

"Mamma!" whispered Weary, and got up hastily and walked away. Slim
followed him a few paces, then turned resolutely and went back. It
seemed cowardly to leave the rest to bear it--and somebody had to.
They were breathing quickly, and they were staring across the coulee
with eyes that saw nothing; their lips were shut very tightly
together. Weary came back and stood with his back turned. Pink
moved a bit, glanced furtively at the long, quiet figure beside him,
and dropped his face into his gloved hands.

Glory threw up his head, glanced across the coulee at a band of range
horses trooping down a gully to drink at the river, and whinnied
shrilly. The Happy Family started and awoke to the stern necessities
of life. They stood up, and walked a little way from the spot,
avoiding one another's eyes.

"Somebody'll have to go back to camp," said Cal Emmett, in the hushed
tone that death ever compels from the living. "We've got to have a
spade--"

"It better be the handiest liar, then," Jack Bates put in hastily.
"If that old loose-tongued Patsy ever gets next--"

"Weary better go--and Pink. They're the best liars in the bunch,"