"How'd you do it! Why, I'm plumb knocked silly!" "But you' ain't the man to go back on you' word, Sewell. I can take good keer of Mace now--and I want to be friends with the man that's goin' to be my paw." He begun to look at me, awful steady and sober, and he looked and he looked--like as if he hadn't just savvied. Next, he sorta talked to hisself. "My little Macie," he kept sayin'; "my little Macie." She put her arms 'round him then, and he clean broke down. "Aw, I _cain't_ lose my little gal," he says. "I don't keer anythin' about land 'r cattle. But Macie--she's all I got left. _Don't_ take her away from me!" So _that_ was it! (And I'd said that all Sewell keered fer was money.) "Boss," I says, "you mean you'd like us to live here--with you?" He come over to me, tremblin' like he had the ague. "Would y', Cupid?" he ast. "I'd never interfere with you two none. _Would_ y'?" "Aw, daddy!" says Mace, holdin' to him tight. "Why, bless you' heart, Sewell," I answers, "what do I want to live any _other_ place fer? _Mace_ is what I want--just Mace. And, say! you take back you' little ole crick-bottom." "Got more land'n I want _now._" "Boss,"--I helt out my hand--"here's where you git a new son-in-law, and a foreman fer keeps on cow-punch pay. Shake!" He give one hand to Mace, and he give me the other. "Not by a long shot, Cupid!" he says. "Here's where I git a half-_pardner._" * * * * * So here I am--settled down at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule team t' pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin'; the boys 're strung along the side of the bunk-house t' rest and gass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite, leveler'n a floor; and--up over it all--the moon, white and smilin'. Then, outen the door nigh where the sun-flowers 're growin', mebbe she'll come--a slim, little figger in white. And, if it's plenty warm, and not too late, why, she'll be totin' the smartest, cutest---- Listen! y' hear that? "Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin' way to the sea----" That's my little wife,--that's Macie, now--a-singin' to the kid! THE END