s, and then--

PART FIVE

Weary did not go back. When the hurry of shipping was over he went to
Shorty and asked for his time, much to the foreman's astonishment and
disgust. The Happy Family was incensed and wasted profanity and
argument trying to make him give up the crazy notion of quitting.

It seemed to Weary that he warded off their curiosity and answered
their arguments very adroitly. He was sick of punching cows, he said,
and he wasn't hankering for a chance to shovel hay another winter to an
ungrateful bunch of bawling calves. He was going to drift, for a
change--but he didn't know where. It didn't much matter, so long as he
got a change uh scenery. He just merely wanted to knock around and get
the alkali dust out of his lungs and see something grow besides calves
and cactus. His eyes plumb ached for sight of an apple tree with real,
live apples on it--that weren't wrapped up in a paper napkin.

When was he coming back? Well, now, that was a question; he hadn't got
started yet, man. What he was figuring on wasn't the coming back part,
but the getting started.

The schoolma'am? Oh, he guessed she could get along without him, all
right. Seeing they mentioned her, would some of them tell her hello
for him--and so long?

This last was at the station, where they had ridden in a body to see
him off. Weary waved his hat as long as the town was in sight, and the
Happy Family ran their horses to keep pace with the train when it
pulled out, emptied their six-shooters into the air and yelled parting
words till the Pullman windows were filled with shocked, Eastern faces,
eager to see a real, wild cowboy on his native soil.

Then Weary went into the smoker, sought a place where he could stretch
the long legs of him over two seats, made him a cigarette and forgot to
smoke it while he watched the gray plains slide away behind him; till
something went wrong with his eyes. It was just four o'clock, and
school was out. The schoolma'am was looking down the trail, maybe--
At any rate she was a good many miles away from him now--so many that
even if he got off and had Glory right there and ran him every foot of
the way, he could not possibly get to her--and the way the train was
galloping over the rails, she was every minute getting farther off,
and-- What a damn fool a man can make of himself, rushing off like
that when, maybe--

After that, a fellow who traveled for a San Francisco wine house spoke