the end of a fat, black
cigar. "You seem to think you know it all. What's your trade?"

"Punching cows--in Northern Montana," answered Weary, mildly.

The man took the trouble to look at him again, this time more
critically--and more favorably, perhaps. "Bronco-buster?" he demanded,
briefly.

"Some," grinned Weary, his thoughts whirling back to the dust and
uproar in the Flying U corrals--and to Glory.

The man seemed to read what was in his eyes. "You ought to know better
than to founder a three-hundred-dollar trotter, then," he remarked,
with some of the growl smoothed out of his voice.

"I sure had," agreed Weary, sympathetically.

"That's why I fired that four-or-five-kinds-of idiot just now,"
confided the other, rising to the sympathy in Weary's tone. "I need
men that know a little something about horses--the foreman can't always
be at a man's elbow. You can start right in--pay's good. Go tell the
foreman I've hired you; that's him back there in the office."

Then came the rain. Week after week of drab clouds and drizzle, and no
sun to hearten a man for his work. Week after week of bobbing
umbrellas, muddy crossings, sloppy pavements and dripping eaves--and a
cold that chilled the marrow in his bones.

Weary, after a week of poking along in the rain of an evening when his
work was done, threw up his hands, figuratively, and bought him an
umbrella, hoping devoutly they would never get to hear of it in Dry
Lake. He stood for two minutes in the deep doorway of the store before
he found nerve to open the awkward thing, and when he did so he glanced
sheepishly around him as if it were a weak thing to do and a
disgraceful.

Fog and rain and mud and mist, day after day through long months.
Feeding hungry horses their breakfast at five o'clock in the morning;
brushing, currying, combing till they shone satin-smooth. Harnessing,
unharnessing; washing mud from rigs that would be splashed and
plastered again before night. Driving to houses that were known by the
number over the door, giving the reins over to somebody and walking
back in the rain. Piling mangers with hay, strewing the stalls deep
with straw. Patting this horse as he passed, commanding the next to
move over, stopping to whisper caressing words into the ear of a
favorite. Sitting listlessly in the balcony of some theatre in the
evening while a mimic world lived its joys and sorrows below and an
orchestra played soft accompaniment to hi