n' there's Dexter. Lon's been awful quiet since she told him he had
a picturesque name. Said it'd do for to put into a book which she's
goin' to write, but when it come to choosin' a husband she'd prefer to
tie up to a commoner name. An' so Lon didn't graze on that range no
more."

"This country's goin' plum to----" sneered Dexter. But a laugh
silenced him. And the youth continued.

"It might have been fixed up for Lazy," he went on, "only when she
found out his name was Lazy, she wanted to know right off if he could
support a wife--providin' he got one. He said he reckoned he could,
an' she told him he could experiment on some other woman. An' now
Lazy'll have to look around quite a spell before he'll get another
chancst. I'd call that bein' in mighty poor luck."

Lazy was giving his undivided attention to his plate.

"An' she come right out an' told Wrinkles he was too old; that when she
was thinkin' of gettin' wedded to some old monolith she'd send word to
Egypt, where they keep 'em in stock. Beats me where she gets all them
words."

"Told me she'd studied her dictionary," said a man who sat near
Ferguson.

The young man grinned. "Well, I swear if I didn't come near forgettin'
Clem Miller!" he said. "If you hadn't spoke up then, I reckon you
wouldn't have been in on this deal. An' so she told you she'd studied
her dictionary! Now, I'd call that news. Some one'd been tellin' me
that she'd asked you the meanin' of the word 'evaporate.' An' when you
couldn't tell her she told you to do it. Said that when you got home
you might look up a dictionary an' then you'd know what she meant.

"An' now Leviatt's hangin' around over there," continued the youth.
"He's claimin' to be goin' to see Ben Radford, but I reckon he's got
the same kind of sickness as the rest of us."

"An' you ain't sayin' a word about what she said to you," observed
Miller. "She must have treated you awful gentle, seein' you won't
tell."

"Well," returned the young man, "I ain't layin' it all out to you. But
I'll tell you this much; she said she was goin' to make me one of the
characters in that book she's writin'."

"Well, now," said Miller, "that's sure lettin' you down easy. Did she
say what the character was goin' to be?"

"I reckon she did."

"An' now you're goin' to tell us boys?"

"An' now I'm goin' to tell you boys," returned Skinny. "But I reckon
there's a drove of them characters here. You'll find them with ev