days of affection and love-talk from his pretty
little mistress. And how he missed them all!
How he missed them -- even the Mexican hostler
and the brown saddler and the old matronly
horse -- his mother by adoption! But they were
gone from him now, gone for all time out of his
life. Yet though he believed them gone, he continued
to brood on them, to live each day over
again in his thoughts, till the men ahead dismounted
suddenly. Then he was glad to turn his
attention to other matters, things close around
him. One of these was the coming of the lean
man with a pair of familiar objects in his hands -- ?
this after the noonday meal.

"Well, my bucky," he began, turning critical
eyes over Pat, "I been studyin' your case a
heap, and I've come to think I'm old Doctor Sow
himself. Your young man here is knocked out of
all possible good," he went on, as Stephen smilingly
approached, "and so it occurred to me, sir, as
how you ain't sick no more'n I be. What ails you
is you're an aristocrat -- something that's been
knocked around unusual -- what with them rustlers
and with us that's worse than rustlers -- and got
yourself all mussed up and unfit! All you need
is a cleanin' -- that's what ails you! You're just
nice furniture -- a piece o' Sheraton, mebbe -- that's
all over sweepings, and I'm the he-maid that's
going to dust you off. Hold still, now."

So Pat, after taking a step toward Stephen, who
now was stroking him tenderly, held very still,
not only under the soothing caress, but under the

[[218]]

p217 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p218w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p219

v?