thanked me; said he must look out better for
those receipts, and added that he was educating a bit of a girl out on
the coast.

"Yours, Gun?" I asked kindly.

"No, John; she ain't; I'd give $5,000 if she was."

He looked at me straight, with that clear, blue eye, and I knew he told
me the truth.

"How old is she?" I asked.

"I don't know; 'bout five or six."

"Ever seen her?"

"No."

"Where did you get her?"

"Ain't had her."

"Tell me about her?"

"She was willed to me, John, kinder put in extra, but I can't tell you
her story now, partly because I don't know it all myself, and partly
because I won't--I won't even tell her."

I did not again refer to Gun's little girl, and soon other experiences
and other biographies crowded the story out of my mind.

One evening in the spring, I sat by the open window, enjoying the cool
night breeze from off the mountains, when I heard Gun's cheery voice on
the porch below. He was lecturing his fireman, in his own, unique way.

"Well, Jim, if I ain't ashamed of you! There ain't no one but you;
coming into general headquarters with a flutter in the stack, so full
that you can't whistle, air-pump a-squealing 'count of water, smeared
from stack to man-hole, headlight smoked and glimmery, don't know your
own rights, kind o' runnin' wildcat, without proper signals, imagining
you're first section with a regardless order. You want to blow out, man,
and trim up, get your packing set out and carry less juice. You're worse
than one of them slippin', dancin', three-legged, no-good Grants. The
next time I catch you at high-tide, I'll scrap you, that's what I'll do,
fire you into the scrap-pile. Why can't you use some judgment in your
runnin'? Why can't you say, 'Why, here's the town of Whisky, I'm going
to stop here and oil around,' sail right into town, put the air on
steady and fine, bring her right down to the proper gait, throw her into
full release, so as to just stop right, shut off your squirt, drop a
little oil on the worst points, ring your bell and sail on.

"But you, you come into town forty miles an hour, jam on the emergency
and while the passengers pick 'emselves out of the ends of the cars, you
go into the supply house and leave the injector on, and then, when you
do move, you're too full to go without opening your cylinder cocks and
givin' yourself dead away.

"Now, I'm goin' to Californ', next month, and if you get so as you can
tell when you've got enough l