"And now," announced the widow, "we'll just make him a good head-board and stop there. Edgard _might_ have been a good husband, but he didn't try overhard. Have yuh got anything written?" "I ain't got anything but this yere old location notice," ventured Cassidy doubtfully. "I guess, though, I'll just stake out Edgard, the same as a claim. Then it'll be regular, and there won't nobody touch him. Of course we won't put up any side centers or corner posts; jest a sort of discovery monument. He'll be safe for three months, all right." And so Cassidy, with the nub of a pencil, and using his knee as a writing-desk, duly, and in the manner set forth in the laws of the United States, discovered and located Edgard Gentry, age thirty-five, died of consumption, extending fifteen hundred feet in a northerly and southerly direction and three hundred feet on either side, together with all his dips, spurs, and angles. "Yuh write a nice hand," murmured the widow pensively, sitting down in the sand beside him and unwittingly breathing on his neck as he wrote. "Did yuh go tuh school, Mister Cassidy?" "Yessum," was the confused answer. "Leastways, part of the time." The widow surveyed him with a dreamy look in her fine eyes and pulled thoughtfully at her full lower lip. "You're a big man," she remarked. "How much do you weigh?" "Over two hundred," answered Cassidy consciously. "And yuh haven't got any home?"--innocently. "No, ma'am." "What were yuh doing tuh that poor old man to-day?" The sudden irrelevance of the question startled Cassidy immeasurably. "Wot? That little old Arkinsaw man? Oh--nothin'. Did yuh see me talkin' tuh him?" "I did," said the woman; "and I also saw yuh poking him up the street with a big stick. Do yuh think that was a nice thing for a strong young man like yuh?" "I was--I was just advisin' him," explained Cassidy thickly. "I----" "What were yuh hurtin' that old man for?" was the forceful interruption. "Did he ever hurt _yuh_ any?" "Hurt _me_? Old Arkinsaw? No, ma'am; not tuh my knowledge. But----" "_Never mind that_," said the woman stonily though the big, strong eyes had a favorable light in their depths. "Yuh tell me why yuh were sticking him in the back." "Well--he wanted a drink--that's why," Cassidy mumbled. "Oh!" remarked the woman, with withering comprehension. "And so, because he was tired and thirsty and wanted a drink, yuh poked him. I see." Cassidy grew desperate. "I'm afraid, ma'am, yuh don't rightly understand," he undertook to explain. "Yes, I do," replied the woman hotly, and burned him with her eyes. Then she turned her back on him, which hurt him a great deal more. Cassidy groaned aloud. "I believe you're a bully," goaded the little woman, and showed an attractive, mutinous profile over her shoulder. "Do yuh bully women, too?" Cassidy did not answer at once. When he did, it was in a low, rather lifeless voice: "No'm; I don't bother the women-folks much."