f the herd, tumbled off'n the last one, an' rescooed the
gurl.

"Well, as my memory takes me back, thet was a most affectin' walk home
to the little town where she lived. But she wasn't troo to me, an'
married another feller. I was too much a sport to kill him. But thet
low-down trick rankled in my breast. Gurls is strange. I've never
stopped wonderin' how any gurl who has been hugged an' kissed by one man
could marry another. But matoor experience teaches me thet sich is the
case."

The cowboys roared; Helen and Mrs. Beck and Edith laughed till they
cried; Madeline found repression absolutely impossible; Dorothy sat
hugging her knees, her horror at the story no greater than at Monty's
unmistakable reference to her and to the fickleness of women;
and Castleton for the first time appeared to be moved out of his
imperturbability, though not in any sense by humor. Indeed, when he came
to notice it, he was dumfounded by the mirth.

"By Jove! you Americans are an extraordinary people," he said. "I don't
see anything blooming funny in Mr. Price's story of his adventure. By
Jove! that was a bally warm occasion. Mr. Price, when you speak of being
frightened for the only time in your life, I appreciate what you mean. I
have experienced that. I was frightened once."

"Dook, I wouldn't hev thought it of you," replied Monty. "I'm sure
tolerable curious to hear about it."

Madeline and her friends dared not break the spell, for fear that the
Englishman might hold to his usual modest reticence. He had explored
in Brazil, seen service in the Boer War, hunted in India and
Africa--matters of experience of which he never spoke. Upon this
occasion, however, evidently taking Monty's recital word for word as
literal truth, and excited by it into a Homeric mood, he might tell a
story. The cowboys almost fell upon their knees in their importunity.
There was a suppressed eagerness in their solicitations, a hint of
something that meant more than desire, great as it was, to hear a story
told by an English lord. Madeline divined instantly that the cowboys
had suddenly fancied that Castleton was not the dense and easily fooled
person they had made such game of; that he had played his part well;
that he was having fun at their expense; that he meant to tell a story,
a lie which would simply dwarf Monty's. Nels's keen, bright expectation
suggested how he would welcome the joke turned upon Monty. The slow
closing of Monty's cavernous smile, the