I joked to that three-card-monte feller, you recollect, about bein' busted. Wal, it was beginnin' t' look like no joke. 'Cause that very next day I took some stuff acrosst the street to a pawnbroker gent's, and hocked it. Then I sit down and writ a postal card t' the boys. "_Pass 'round the hat,_" I says on the postal card, "_and send me the collection. Bar that Mexic. Particulars later on._" Wal, fer a week, things run smooth. When Mace seen it was no use to change the time fer her ride, she kept to the mornin'. It saved me a pile. But she wouldn't so much as look at me. Aw, I felt fewey, just _fewey_. One thing I didn't figger on, though--that was the _po_lice. They're white, all right (I mean the _po_lice that ride 'round the park). Pretty soon, they noticed I was allus ridin' behind Macie. I guess they thought I was tryin' to bother her. Anyhow, one of 'em stopped me one mornin'. "Young feller," he says, "you'd better ride along Riverside oncet in a while. Ketch on?" "Yas, sir," I says, salutin'. Wal, I _was_ up a stump. If I was to be druv out of the park, how was I ever goin' to be on hand when Macie 'd take a notion t' speak. But I hit on a plan that was somethin' _won_-derful. I follered her out and found where she stalled her hoss. Next day, I borraed a' outfit and waited nigh her barn till she come in sight. Then, I fell in behind--_dressed like one of them blamed grooms._ I thought I was slick, and I _was_--fer a week. But them park _po_lice is rapid on faces. And the first one that got a good square look at me and my togs knowed me instant. He didn't say nothin' to me, but loped off. Pretty soon, another one come back--a moustached gent, a right dudey one, with yalla tucks on his sleeves. He rides square up to me. "Say," he says, "are you acquainted with that young lady on ahaid?" I tried to look as sad and innocent as a stray maverick. But it was no go. "Wal," I answers, "our hosses nicker to each other." He pulled at his moustache fer a while. "_You_ ain't no groom," he says fin'lly. "Where you from?" "I'm from the Bar Y Ranch, Oklahomaw." "That so!" It seemed to plumb relieve him. All of a suddent, he got as friendly as the devil. "Wal, how's the stock business?" he ast. And I says, "Cows is O. K." "And how's the climate down you' way? And how's prospects of the country openin' up fer farmers?" After that, I shed the groom duds, and not a _po_lice gent ever more 'n nodded at me. That Bar Y news seemed to make 'em shore easy in they conscience. But that didn't help me any with _her_. She was just as offish as ever. Why, one day when it rained, and we got under the same bridge, she just talked to her hoss all the time. I went home desp'rate. The boys 'd sent me some cash, but I was shy again. And I'd been to the pawnbroker feller's so many times that I couldn't look a Jew in the face without takin' out my watch.