trains day and night."

"A biscuit-shooter!" said I.
Loyal Mrs. Taylor stirred some batter in silence. "Well," said she then,

"I'm told that's what the yard-hands of the railroad call them poor
waiter-girls. You might hear it around the switches at them division

stations."
I had heard it in higher places also, but meekly accepted the reproof.

If you have made your trans-Missouri journeys only since the new era of
dining-cars, there is a quantity of things you have come too late for,

and will never know. Three times a day in the brave days of old you
sprang from your scarce-halted car at the summons of a gong. You

discerned by instinct the right direction, and, passing steadily through
doorways, had taken, before you knew it, one of some sixty chairs in a

room of tables and catsup bottles. Behind the chairs, standing attention,
a platoon of Amazons, thick-wristed, pink-and-blue, began immediately a

swift chant. It hymned the total bill-of-fare at a blow. In this
inexpressible ceremony the name of every dish went hurtling into the

next, telescoped to shapelessness. Moreover, if you stopped your Amazon
in the middle, it dislocated her, and she merely went back and took a

fresh start. The chant was always the same, but you never learned it. As
soon as it began, your mind snapped shut like the upper berth in a

Pullman. You must have uttered appropriate words--even a parrot will--for
next you were eating things--pie, ham, hot cakes--as fast as you could.

Twenty minutes of swallowing, and all aboard for Ogden, with your
pile-driven stomach dumb with amazement. The Strasburg goose is not

dieted with greater velocity, and "biscuit-shooter" is a grand word. Very
likely some Homer of the railroad yards first said it--for what men upon

the present earth so speak with imagination's tongue as we Americans?
If Miss Peck had been a biscuit-shooter, I could accountreadily for her

conversation, her equipped deportment, the maturity in her round, blue,
marble eye. Her abrupt laugh, something beyond gay, was now sounding in

response to Mr. McLean's lively sallies, and I found him fanning her into
convalescence with his hat. She herself made but few remarks, but allowed

the cow-puncher to entertain her, merely exclaiming briefly now and then,
"I declare!" and "If you ain't!" Lin was most certainly engaging, if that

was the lady's meaning. His wide-open eyes sparkled upon her, and he half
closed them now and then to look at her more effectively. I suppose she

was worth it to him. I have forgotten to say that she was handsome in a
large California-fruit style. They made a good-looking pair of animals.

But it was in the presence of Tommy that Master Lin shone more
energetically than ever, and under such shining Tommy was transparently

restless. He tried, and failed, to bring the conversation his way, and
took to rearranging the mail and the furniture.

"Supper's ready," he said, at length. "Come right in, Miss Peck; right in
here. This is your seat--this one, please. Now you can see my fields out

of the window."
"You sit here," said the biscuit-shooter to Lin; and thus she was between

them. "Them's elegant!" she presently exclaimed to Tommy. "Did you cook
'em?"

I explained that the apricots were of my preparation.
"Indeed!" said she, and returned to Tommy, who had been telling her of

his ranch, his potatoes, his horses. "And do you punch cattle, too?" she
inquired of him.

"Me?" said Tommy, slightingly; "gave it up years ago; too empty a life
for me. I leave that to such as like it. When a man owns his own

property"--Tommy swept his hand at the whole landscape--" he takes to
more intellectual work."

"Lickin' postage-stamps," Mr. McLean suggested, sourly.
"You lick them and I cancel them," answered the postmaster; and it does

not seem a powerful rejoinder. But Miss Peck uttered her laugh.
"That's one on you," she told Lin. And throughout this meal it was Tommy

who had her favor. She partook of his generous supplies; she listened to
his romantic inventions, the trails he had discovered, the bears he had

slain; and after supper it was with Tommy, and not with Lin, that she
went for a little walk.

"Katie was ever a tease," said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and
Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. "She'll get

used to the ways of this country quicker than our little school-marm,"
said he.

Mr. McLean said very little, but read the new-arrived papers. It was only
when bedtime dispersed us, the ladies in the cabin and the men choosing

various spots outside, that he became talkative again for a while. We lay
in the blank--we had spread on some soft, dry sand in preference to the

stable, where Taylor and Tommy had gone. Under the contemplative
influence of the stars, Lin fell into generalization.

"Ever notice," said he, "how whiskey and lyin' act the same on a man?"
I did not feel sure that I had.

"Just the same way. You keep either of 'em up long enough, and yu' get to
require it. If Tommy didn't lie some every day, he'd get sick."

I was sleepy, but I murmured assent to this, and trusted he would not go
on.

"Ever notice," said he, "how the victims of the whiskey and lyin' habit
get to increasing the dose?"

"Yes," said I.
"Him roping six bears!" pursued Mr. McLean, after further contemplation.

"Or any bear. Ever notice how the worser a man's lyin' the silenter other
men'll get? Why's that, now?"

I believe that I made a faint sound to imply that I was following him.
"Men don't get took in. But ladies now, they--"

Here he paused again, and during the next interval of contemplation I
sank beyond his reach.

In the morning I left Riverside for Buffalo, and there or thereabouts I
remained for a number of weeks. Miss Peck did not enter my thoughts, nor

did I meet any one to remind me of her, until one day I stopped at the
drug-store. It was not for drugs, but gossip, that I went. In the daytime

there was no place like the apothecary's for meeting men and hearing the
news. There I heard how things were going everywhere, including Bear

Creek.
All the cow-punchers liked the new girl up there, said gossip. She was a

great addition to society. Reported to be more companionable than the
school-marm, Miss Molly Wood, who had been raised too far east, and

showed it. Vermont, or some such dude place. Several had been in town
buying presents for Miss Katie Peck. Tommy Postmaster had paid high for a

necklace of elk-tushes the government scout at McKinney sold him. Too bad
Miss Peck did not enjoy good health. Shorty had been in only yesterday to

get her medicine again. Third bottle. Had I heard the big joke on Lin
McLean? He had promised her the skin of a big bear he knew the location

of, and Tommy got the bear.
Two days after this I joined one of the roundup camps at sunset. They had

been working from Salt Creek to Bear Creek, and the Taylor ranch was in
visiting distance from them again, after an interval of gathering and

branding far across the country. The Virginian, the gentle-voiced
Southerner, whom I had last seen lingering with Miss Wood, was in camp.

Silent three-quarters of the time, as was his way, he sat gravely
watching Lin McLean. That person seemed silent also, as was not his way

quite so much.
"Lin," said the Southerner, "I reckon you're failin'."

Mr. McLean raised a sombre eye, but did not trouble to answer further.
"A healthy man's laigs ought to fill his pants," pursued the Virginian.

The challenged puncher stretched out a limb and showed his muscles with
young pride.

"And yu' cert'nly take no comfort in your food," his ingenious friend
continued, slowly and gently.

"I'll eat you a match any day and place yu' name," said Lin.
"It ain't sca'cely hon'able," went on the Virginian, "to waste away

durin' the round-up. A man owes his strength to them that hires it. If he
is paid to rope stock he ought to rope stock, and not leave it dodge or

pull away."
"It's not many dodge my rope," boasted Lin, imprudently.