The man Simpson was not a pleasant vis-à-vis. He wore the same picturesque ruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stopped there. He lacked their dusky bloom, their clearness of eye, the suppleness and easy flow of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. He was fat and squat and had not the rich bronzing of wind, sun, and rain. His small, black eyes twinkled from his puffy, white face, like raisins in a dough-pudding. He was ogling Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-house brought him his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for the prevailing spirit of romance, even in this woman-forsaken country. A good creature, all limp calico, Roman nose, and sharp elbows, she brought him his breakfast with an ill grace that she had not shown to the others. The men about the table gave him scant greeting, but the absence of enthusiasm didn’t embarrass Simpson. He lounged expansively on the table, regarding Miss Carmichael attentively meanwhile; then favored her with the result of his observations, “From the East, I take it.” And the dumpling face screwed into a smile whose mission was pacific. Every knife and fork in the room suspended action in anxiety to know how the “yearling” would take it. Would their chivalry, which strained at a gnat, be compelled to swallow such a conspicuous camel as the success of Simpson? With the attitude he had taken towards the girl, there had crept into the company an imperceptible change; deep-buried impulses sprang to the surface. If a scoundrel like Simpson was going to try his luck, why shouldn’t they? They didn’t see a pretty girl once in a blue moon. With the advent of the green-eyed monster at the board, each man unconsciously became the rival of his neighbor. But Miss Carmichael merely continued her breakfast, and if she heard the amiable deductions of Simpson regarding her, she gave no sign. But a rebuff to him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press the acquaintance. He encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of the table and continued, “Nice weather we’re having.” Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee. The spurs and sombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation of the little drama, breathed reflectively. Perhaps it was just as well that they had not emulated Simpson in his brazen charge; the “yearling” was not to be surprised into talking, that was certain. “He shore is showing hisself to be a friendly native,” commented the man who had sacrificed milk-teeth investigating the indestructible doll. “Seems to me that the system he’s playing lacks a heap of science. My money’s on the yearling.” And the man who had “discarded the steak and drawn to the biscuits” leaned a little forward that he might better watch developments.