Danny Lenox slept with lips parted. His brown hair--the hair that wanted to curl so badly--was well down over the brow, and the skin beneath those locks was damp. One hand rested on the tarpaulin covering of the bed, the fingers in continual motion. "Poor kid!" Jed muttered under his breath. "Poor son of a gun! He's in a jack-pot, all right, an' it'll take all any man ever had to pull--" "'Mornin', sonny!" he cried as Danny opened his eyes and raised his head with a start. For a moment the boy stared at him, evidencing no recognition. Then he smiled and sat up. "How are you, Mr. Avery?" "Well," the other began grimly, looking straight before him, "Mr. Avery's in a bad way. He died about thirty year ago." Danny looked at him with a grin. "But Old Jed--Old VB," he went on, "he's alive an' happy. Fancy wrappin's is for boxes of candy an' playin' cards," he explained. "They ain't necessary to men." "I see--all right, Jed!" Danny stared about him at the freshness of the young day. "Wouldn't it be slick," Jed wanted to know, "if we was all fixed like th' feller who makes th' days? If yesterday's was a bad job he can start right in on this one an' make it a winner! Now, if this day turns out bad he can forget it an' begin to-morrow at sun-up to try th' job all over again!" "Yes, it would be fine to have more chances," agreed Danny. Jed sat silent a moment. "Mebby so, an' mebby no," he finally recanted. "It would be slick an' easy, all right; but mebby we'd get shiftless. Mebby we'd keep puttin' off tryin' hard until next time. As 'tis, we have to make every chance our only one, an' work ourselves to th' limit. Never let a chance get away! Throw it an' tie it an' hang on!" "In other words, think it's now or never?" Jed reached for a boot and declared solemnly: "It's th' only thing that keeps us onery human bein's on our feet an' movin' along!" Breakfast was a brief affair, brief but enthusiastic. The gastronomic feats performed at that table were things at which to marvel, and Danny divided his thoughts between wonder at them and recalling the events of the night before. Only once did he catch Rhues's eyes, and then the leer which came from them whipped a flush high in his cheeks. Jed and Danny rode out into the morning side by side, smoking some of the boy's tobacco. As the sun mounted and the breeze did not rise, the heat became too intense for a coat, and Danny stripped his off and tied it behind the saddle. Jed looked at the pink silk shirt a long time. "To be sure an' that's a fine piece of goods," he finally declared. Danny glanced down at the gorgeous garment with a mingled feeling of amusement and guilt. But he merely said: "I thought so, too, when I bought it." And even that little tendency toward foppishness which has been handed down to men from those ancestors who paraded in their finest skins and paints before the home of stalwart cave women seemed to draw the two closer to each other.