The news spread over the valley next day like a brush fire in August. It was startling! Like the newspapers say of a suicide, "No cause could be assigned for the rash act." They was away ten days and come back to find the whole country was again giving Homer the laugh because Mrs. Tolliver had up and married a prosperous widower from over in Surprise Valley, and had never brought any suit against him. It was said that even the late Mrs. Tolliver was laughing heartily at him. Homer didn't seem to care, and Minna certainly didn't. She was the old-fashioned kind of wife, a kind you don't hear much of nowadays; the kind that regards her husband as perfect, and looks up to him. She told me about the tumultuous wedding. Neither of 'em had had time for any talk till they got on the train. Then it come out. She says why ever did Homer do such a monstrous thing? And Homer says: "Well, you told me a change of Venus was the only way out for me--" "I said a change of venue," says Minna. "It sounded like change of Venus," says Homer, "and I knew Venus was the god of love. And you said you was willing and I knew we was congenial, and I was a desperate man; and so here we are!" So she cried on his shoulder for twenty miles while he ate a box of figs. Homer is now a solid citizen, with his money put into a place down at the lower end of the valley, instead of lying in the bank at the mercy of some unscrupulous woman with little ones. And here this summer, with his own work light, he's been helping me out as riding boss; or, at least I been lavishing money on him for that. A fine, dependable hand, too! Here was this bunch of stock to be got in from Madeline--them Bolshevik ain't gathered more'n two thirds of 'em; and there's more to come in from over Horse Fly Mountain way, and still another bunch from out of the Sheep Creek country--the busiest month in a bad year, when I needed every man, woman, and child to be had, and here comes Homer, the mush-head, taking two days off! "Yes'm, Mis' Pettengill; I just got to take time off to go down to Red Gap. It's a matter of life and death. Yes'm; it is. No'm; I wouldn't dast send any one, and Minna agrees I'm the only one to go--" Shucks! The lady built a cigarette and, after lighting it, turned back to scan the mesa we had descended. The cattle now crowded down the narrow way into the valley, their dust mounting in a high, slow cloud. "Call yourself a cowman, do you?" she demanded of the absent Homer. "Huh!" Then we rode on. "What was the matter of life and death?" I asked. Ma Pettengill expelled cigarette smoke venomously from inflated nostrils like a tired dragon. "The matter of life and death was that he had to get two teething rings for the twins." "Twins!"