told about that's in the Bible somewheres?--he come home to his folks,

and they--well there was his father saw him comin'"--He stopped,
embarrassed.

Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticed
them in the church at the agencyintently watching him. And, just now,

what were best to say he did not know. He looked at the young man
gravely.

"Have yu' got a Bible?" pursued Lin. "For, excuse me, but I'd like yu' to
read that onced."

So the bishop read, and Lin listened. And all the while this good
clergyman was perplexed how to speak--or if indeed to speak at this time

at all--to the heart of the man beside him for whom the parable had gone
so sorely wrong. When the reading was done, Lin had not taken his eyes

from the bishop's face.
"How long has that there been wrote?" he asked.

He was told about how long.
"Mr. Bishop," said Lin, "I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and I

never figured it to be a book much on to facts. And I tell you I'm more
plumb beat about it's having that elder brother, and him being angry,

down in black and white two thousand years ago, than--than if I'd seen a
man turn water into wine, for I'd have knowed that ain't so. But the

elder brother is facts--dead-sure facts. And they knowed about that, and
put it down just the same as life two thousand years ago!"

"Well," said the bishop, wisely ignoring the challenge as to miracles, "I
am a good twenty years older than you, and all that time I've been

finding more facts in the Bible every day I have lived."
Lin meditated. "I guess that could be," he said. "Yes; after that yu've

been a-readin', and what I know for myself that I didn't know till
lately, I guess that could be."

Then the bishop talked with exceeding care, nor did he ask uncomfortable
things, or moralize visibly. Thus he came to hear how it had fared with

Lin his friend, and Lin forgot altogether about its being a parson he was
delivering the fulness of his heart to. "And come to think," he

concluded, "it weren't home I had went to back East, layin' round them
big cities, where a man can't help but feel strange all the week. No,

sir! Yu' can blow in a thousand dollars like I did in New York, and it'll
not give yu' any more home feelin' than what cattle has put in a

stock-yard. Nor it wouldn't have in Boston neither. Now this country
here" (he waved his hand towards the endless sage-brush), "seein' it

onced more, I know where my home is, and I wouldn't live nowheres else.
Only I ain't got no father watching for me to come up Wind River."

The cow-puncher stated this merely as a fact, and without any note of
self-pity. But the bishops face grew very tender, and he looked away from

Lin. Knowing his man--for had he not seen many of this kind in his desert
diocese?--he forbore to make any text from that last sentence the

cow-puncher had spoken. Lin talked cheerfully on about what he should now
do. The round-up must be somewhere near Du Noir Creek. He would join it

this season, but next he should work over to the Powder River country.
More business was over there, and better chances for a man to take up

some land and have a ranch of his own. As they got out at Fort Washakie,
the bishop handed him a small book, in which he had turned several leaves

down, carefully avoiding any page that related of miracles.
"You need not read it through, you know," he said, smiling; "just read

where I have marked, and see if you don't find some more facts. Goodbye--
and always come and see me."

The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towards
Wind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little moving dot

went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into the
parade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manly

soul, he shook his head sorrowfully.
THE WINNING OF THE BISCUIT-SHOOTER

It was quite clear to me that Mr. McLean could not know the news. Meeting
him to-day had been unforeseen--unforeseen and so pleasant that the thing

had never come into my head until just now, after both of us had talked
and dined our fill, and were torpid with satisfaction.

I had found Lin here at Riverside in the morning. At my horse's approach
to the cabin, it was he and not the postmaster who had come precipitately

out of the door.
"I'm turruble pleased to see yu'," he had said, immediately.

"What's happened?" said I, in some concern at his appearance.
And he piteously explained: "Why, I've been here all alone since

yesterday!"
This was indeed all; and my hasty impressions of shooting and a corpse

gave way to mirth over the child and his innocentgrievance that he had
blurted out before I could get off my horse.

Since when, I inquired of him, had his own company become such a shock to
him?

"As to that," replied Mr. McLean, a thought ruffled, "when a man expects
lonesomeness he stands it like he stands anything else, of course. But

when he has figured on finding company--say--" he broke off (and
vindictiveness sparkled in his eye)--"when you're lucky enough to catch

yourself alone, why, I suppose yu' just take a chair and chat to yourself
for hours.--You've not seen anything of Tommy?" he pursued with interest.

I had not; and forthwith Lin poured out to me the pent-up complaints and
sociability with which he was bursting. The foreman had sent him over

here with a sackful of letters for the post, and to bring back the week's
mail for the ranch. A day was gone now, and nothing for a man to do but

sit and sit. Tommy was overdue fifteen hours. Well, you could have
endured that, but the neighbors had all locked their cabins and gone to

Buffalo. It was circus week in Buffalo. Had I ever considered the money
there must be in the circus business? Tommy had taken the outgoing

letters early yesterday. Nobody had kept him waiting. By all rules he
should have been back again last night. Maybe the stage was late reaching

Powder River, and Tommy had had to lay over for it. Well, that would
justify him. Far more likely he had gone to the circus himself and taken

the mail with him. Tommy was no type of man for postmaster. Except
drawing the allowance his mother in the East gave him first of every

month, he had never shown punctuality that Lin could remember. Never had
any second thoughts, and awful few first ones. Told bigger lies than a

small man ought, also.
"Has successes, though," said I, wickedly.

"Huh!" went on Mr. McLean. "Successes! One ice-cream-soda success. And
she"--Lin's still wounded male pride made him plaintive--"why, even that

girl quit him, once she got the chance to appreciate how insignificant he
was as compared with the size of his words. No, sir. Not one of 'em

retains interest in Tommy."
Lin was unsaddling and looking after my horse, just because he was glad

to see me. Since our first acquaintance, that memorable summer of
Pitchstone Canyon when he had taken such good care of me and such bad care

of himself, I had learned pretty well about horses and camp craft in
general. He was an entire boy then. But he had been East since, East by a

route of his own discovering--and from his account of that journey it had
proved, I think, a sort of spiritual experience. And then the years of

our friendship were beginning to roll up. Manhood of the body he had
always richly possessed; and now, whenever we met after a season's

absence and spoke those invariable words which all old friends upon this
earth use to each other at meeting--"You haven't changed, you haven't

changed at all!"--I would wonder if manhood had arrived in Lin's boy
soul. And so to-day, while he attended to my horse and explained the

nature of Tommy (a subject he dearly loved just now), I looked at him and
took an intimate, superior pride in feeling how much more mature I was

than he, after all.
There's nothing like a sense of merit for making one feel aggrieved, and

on our return to the cabin Mr. McLean pointed with disgust to some