The owner of the voice, a shriveled-up, extremely untidy girl of about eighteen, with her hair in "crackers" and her eyes scarcely more than half open, entered the room, and stood gaping at him. She had gaped at him consistently for two whole days, and he didn't like it. He wasn't used to women--didn't understand them and didn't want to. He didn't even understand that the romantic Emily had fallen passionately in love with him exactly forty seconds after her sleepy eyes had first beheld him. "For God's sake don't stare at me! Take the grips, gal, take 'em. Not that one, it would dislocate your internals." She dropped the big one like a hot brick and grabbed the two smaller ones. At the door she found opportunity to scan him once more, and to murmur under her breath, "Lor', ain't he wonderful!" before her master came along and ended her rapturous soliloquies. He entered the room and nodded to Jim. "So you're making out, Jim?" "Looks like it." "Wal, I'm sure sorry, and there ain't a guy in these parts who ain't sorry too." Jim shrugged his big shoulders and jerked out his chin. "Maybe there ain't one more sorry than yours truly." "What!" "Jest that." "It's junk you're talking." Jim smiled whimsically. "Nope, it's God's truth. I didn't figure it all out till I came here. I wish I hadn't sold out. I guess I'm best fitted for running mines or herding cattle, Dan. And I'm leaving all the boys who know me for those who don't--and I don't git on with folks who don't know me. God knows what persuaded me to sell to that macaroni-eating swab. But it's done, and there ain't no manner of good wailing about it." Dan laughed lugubriously. "A man that can knock a million out of a mountain can git along most anywheres, I guess. Wish I had your chance." "What'd you do?" "I'd hitch up to some smart gal in New York or London and start a family." Jim made a grimace. "'Pears to me you ain't strong on originality. I'd rather run a cattle ranch--they don't talk back." "Gosh! man, wimmen's all right if you know how to treat 'em. They're like bosses, they want careful breakin' in." Jim shook his head. He remembered the time when a girl from down East, on a holiday tour, had looked over his mine. Her eloquent blue eyes had made him feel decidedly sheepish. Colorado Jim, who had tackled most of the bad men around Medicine Bow, and had tamed the wildest bronchos that ever roved prairie, was lamentably lacking where the fair sex was concerned. He didn't know what to do, what to say, or how to say it. "Dan," he said, "you hev to have a gift that way--an' I ain't got it." "My lad, you've got a figure and a 'physog' that'll sure turn every gal's head that takes a slant at 'em." "Let up!" growled Jim. "It's honest truth, laddie. Gee! I gotta hankering for the bright lights myself. I lived in New York once. _Some_ village. And with a million in your wallet ... Ah!"