him and me" (he jerked his elbow towards the Virginian) "must go back to

camp, for we're on second relief."
"And the ladies would sleep better knowing there was another man in the

house," said Taylor.
"In that case," said Tommy, "I--"

"Yu' see," said Lin, "they've been told about Ten Sleep being burned two
nights ago."

"It ain't!" cried Tommy.
"Why, of course it ain't," drawled the ingenious Lin. "But that's what I

say. You and I know Ten Sleep's all right, but we can't report from our
own knowledge seeing it all right, and there it is. They get these

nervous notions."
"Just don't appear to make anything special of not going back to

Riverside," repeated Taylor, "but--"
"But just kind of stay here," said Lin.

"I will!" exclaimed Tommy. "Of course, I'm glad to oblige."
I suppose I was slow-sighted. All this pains seemed to me larger than its

results. They had imposed upon Tommy, yes. But what of that? He was to be
kept from going back to Riverside until morning. Unless they proposed to

visit his empty cabin and play tricks--but that would be too childish,
even for Lin McLean, to say nothing of the Virginian, his occasional

partner in mischief.
"In spite of the Crows," I satirically told the ladies, "I shall sleep

outside, as I intended. I've no use for houses at this season."
The cinches of the horses were tightened, Lin and the Virginian laid a

hand on their saddle-horns, swung up, and soon all sound of the galloping
horses had ceased. Molly Wood declined to be nervous and crossed to her

little neighbor cabin; we all parted, and (as always in that blessed
country) deep sleep quickly came to me.

I don't know how long after it was that I sprang from my blankets in
half-doubting fright. But I had dreamed nothing. A second long, wild yell

now gave me (I must own to it) a horrible chill. I had no pistol--
nothing. In the hatefulbrightness of the moon my single thought was

"House! House!" and I fled across the lane in my underclothes to the
cabin, when round the corner whirled the two cow-punchers, and I

understood. I saw the Virginian catch sight of me in my shirt, and saw
his teeth as he smiled. I hastened to my blankets, and returned more

decent to stand and watch the two go shooting and yelling round the
cabin, crazy with their youth. The door was opened, and Taylor

courageously emerged, bearing a Winchester. He fired at the sky
immediately.

"B' gosh!" he roared. "That's one." He fired again. "Out and at 'em.
They're running."

At this, duly came Mrs. Taylor in white with a pistol, and Miss Peck in
white, staring and stolid. But no Tommy. Noise prevailed without, shots

by the stable and shots by the creek. The two cow-punchers dismounted and
joined Taylor. Maniac delight seized me, and I, too, rushed about with

them, helping the din.
"Oh, Mr. Taylor!" said a voice. "I didn't think it of you." It was Molly

Wood, come from her cabin, very pretty in a hood-and-cloak arrangement.
She stood by the fence, laughing, but more at us than with us.

"Stop, friends!" said Taylor, gasping. "She teaches my Bobbie his A B C.
I'd hate to have Bobbie--"

"Speak to your papa," said Molly, and held her scholar up on the fence.
"Well, I'll be gol-darned," said Taylor, surveying his costume, "if Lin

McLean hasn't made a fool of me to-night!"
"Where has Tommy got?" said Mrs. Taylor.

"Didn't yus see him?" said the biscuit-shooter speaking her first word in
all this.

We followed her into the kitchen. The table was covered with tin plates.
Beneath it, wedged knelt Tommy with a pistol firm in his hand; but the

plates were rattling up and down like castanets.
There was a silence among us, and I wondered what we were going to do.

"Well," murmured the Virginian to himself, "if I could have foresaw, I'd
not--it makes yu' feel humiliated yu'self."

He marched out, got on his horse, and rode away. Lin followed him, but
perhaps less penitently. We all dispersed without saying anything, and

presently from my blankets I saw poor Tommy come out of the silent cabin,
mount, and slowly, very slowly, ride away. He would spend the night at

Riverside, after all.
Of course we recovered from our unexpected shame, and the tale of the

table and the dancing plates was not told as a sad one. But it is a sad
one when you think of it.

I was not there to see Lin get his bride. I learned from the Virginian
how the victorious puncher had ridden away across the sunny sagebrush,

bearing the biscuit-shooter with him to the nearest justice of the peace.
She was astride the horse he had brought for her.

"Yes, he beat Tommy," said the Virginian. "Some folks, anyway, get what
they want in this hyeh world."

From which I inferred that Miss Molly Wood was harder to beat than Tommy.
LIN McLEAN'S HONEY-MOON

Rain had not fallen for some sixty days, and for some sixty more there
was no necessity that it should fall. It is spells of weather like this

that set the Western editor writing praise and prophecy of the boundless
fertility of the soil--when irrigated, and of what an Eden it can be

made--with irrigation; but the spells annoy the people who are trying to
raise the Eden. We always told the transient Eastern visitor, when he

arrived at Cheyenne and criticised the desert, that anything would grow
here--with irrigation; and sometimes he replied, unsympathetically, that

anything could fly--with wings. Then we would lead such a man out and
show him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if he was

thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-five
thousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden. One of these

Eastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with the
Governor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to him the

glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country. Now the
Governor was about thirty-two, and until twenty-five had never gone West

far enough to see over the top of the Alleghany Mountains. I was not a
pioneer myself; and why both of us should have pitied the New-Yorker's

narrowness so hard I cannot see. But we did. We spoke to him of the size
of the country. We told him that his State could rattle round inside

Wyoming's stomach without any inconvenience to Wyoming, and he told us
that this was because Wyoming's stomach was empty. Altogether I began to

feel almost sorry that I had asked him to come out for a hunt, and had
travelled in haste all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne expressly to

meet him.
"For purposes of amusement," he said, "I'll admit anything you claim for

this place. Ranches, cowboys, elk; it's all splendid. Only, as an
investment I prefer the East. Am I to see any cowboys?"

"You shall," I said; and I distinctly hoped some of them might do
something to him "for purposes of amusement."

"You fellows come up with me to my office," said the Governor. "I'll look
at my mail, and show you round." So we went with him through the heat and

sun.
"What's that?" inquired the New-Yorker, whom I shall call James Ogden.

"That is our park," said I. "Of course it's merely in embryo. It's
wonderful how quickly any shade tree will grow here wi--" I checked

myself.
But Ogden said "with irrigation" for me, and I was entirely sorry he had

come.
We reached the Governor's office, and sat down while he looked his

letters over.
"Here you are, Ogden," said he. "Here's the way we hump ahead out here."

And he read us the following:
"MAGAW, KANSAS, July 5, 188--

"Hon. Amory W. Baker:
"Sir,--Understanding that your district is suffering from a prolonged

drought, I write to say that for necessary expenses paid I will be glad
to furnish you with a reasonablyshower. I have operated successfully in