"Oh, I reckon it's so," said Dan Anderson. "Now, the bull-ring over at Juarez would be a fine place for grand opera--especially for 'Carmen'--which, I may inform you, Tom, is all about a bull-fight, anyway. Yes," he went on softly, "I hope they'll sing 'Carmen' over there. I hope, also, they won't see the name on the Guggenheim smelters and undertake to give Wagner under a misapprehension. If Blauring has any judgment at all, he'll stick to 'Carmen' at El Paso. He'd have to hire a freight train to get away with the money. "But now," resumed he, "after they get done at El Paso, whatever they sing, the grub wagon will be located in the Sacramentos, while old Blauring, he goes on in advance and rides a little sign out near 'Frisco and other places, where Art is patronized copious. Yes, friend, 'Annie Laurie,' she'll be up in Sacramentos; and from all I can figure, there'll be trouble in that particular health resort." "Sometimes I think you're _loco_," said Tom Osby, slowly; "then again I think you ain't, quite. The man who allows he's any better than this country don't belong here; but I didn't think you ever did." "No!" cried Dan Anderson. "Don't ever say that of me." "Of course, I know folks is different," went on Tom Osby, presently. "They come from different places, and have lived different ways. Me, I come from Georgy. I never did have much chanct for edication, along of the war breakin' out. My folks was in the fightin' some; and so I drifted here," "You came from Georgia?" asked Dan Anderson. "I was born farther north. I had a little schooling, but the only schooling I ever had in all my life that was worth while, I got right here in Heart's Desire. The only real friends I ever had are here. "Now," he went on, "it's because I feel that way, and because you're going to punch your freight team more than a hundred miles south next week to see if you can get a look at that 'Annie Laurie' woman--it's because of those things that I want to help you if I can. And that's the truth--or something resemblin' it, maybe. "Now listen, Tom. Madame Donatelli is no Dago, and she's not dead. She was a Georgia girl herself--Alice Strowbridge was her name, and she had naturally a wonderful voice. She went to Paris and Italy to study long before I came out West. She first sang in Milan, and her appearance was a big success. She's made thousands and thousands of dollars." "About how old is she?" asked Tom Osby. "I should think about thirty-five," said Dan Anderson. "That is, countin' years, and not experience." "I'm just about forty-five," said Tom, "countin' both." "Well, she came from Georgia--" "And so did I," observed Tom Osby, casually. Dan Anderson was troubled. His horizon was wider than Tom Osby's. "It's far, Tom," said he; "it's very far." "I everidge about twenty mile a day," said Tom, not wholly understanding. "I can make it in less'n a week." "Tom," cried Dan Anderson, "don't!"