I'm a-goin' to pay that boy out ef they 'll let me.' “'You don't say,' the old fellow grunted, lookin' mighty funny, an' he slid in the store after me. Somehow I wasn't afeerd o' nothin' with or without shape. I felt like I was walkin' on air in the brightest, saftest sunshine I ever felt. They was all huddled over Mason's desk still a-figurin' an' a-complainin' at the uneven division. Jimmy set thar with his head ducked an' his young wife was tryin' to fix some'n' about the baby. She looked like she'd been cryin.'I got up on my tater-barrel an' knocked on the wall with a axe-handle to attract the'r attention. Then I begun. I don't know what I said, or how it sounded, but I seed Jimmy raise his head an' look, an' his wife push back her poke-bonnet an' stare like I'd been raised from the grave. Along with my request to be allowed to foot the whole bill, I said I wanted to do it beca'se I believed I could show Jimmy an' his wife that I was doin' it out o' genuine regard fer 'em both, an' that I wanted 'em to take a hopeful new start an' not be depressed. Well, sir, it was like an avalanche. I never in all my life seed sech a knocked-out gang. Nobody wanted to talk. The sheriff looked like he was afeerd his handcuffs ud jingle, an' Jimmy bu'st out cryin'. His wife sobbed till you could 'a' heerd her to the spring. She sprung up an' fetched me her baby an' begged me to kiss it. With her big glad eyes, an' the tears in 'em, she looked nigher an angel than any human bein' I ever looked at. Jimmy went out the back way wipin' his eyes, an' I went to Mason's desk to write him a check fer the money. He come to my elbow an' looked troubled. “'I said it was five hundred dollars,' said he, 'but I was sorter averagin' the loss. I ain't a-goin' to run no risks in a matter like this. I'd feel better to call it four hundred. You see, Jimmy's been a sort o' standby with me, an' has fetched me lots o' trade. Make it four hundred and I 'll keep 'im. I don't believe he 'll ever git wrong agin.'