Sam wiped a ragged sleeve across his perspiring face, turned and went into the house, his terror of the Meadowlark man erased from his simple soul by the note of human understanding and sympathy. He returned presently with a big tin cup full of cold buttermilk over which Gelle promptly bent his eager lips. "Say, Snowball," he remarked, when he came up for air, "our cook at the Meddalark gits sixty dollars a month. And he _gits_ it--and buys his own pants and shirts. You're bein' robbed and you don't know it. And say! Lark buys sugar, five sacks at a lick, and nobody gits the bad eye for dumpin' three or four spoonsful into his coffee. 'Tain't none of my business, Snowball, but I hate to see even a coon git the worst of it like that. Say, here's a dollar. Don't let ole Palmer ketch you with it though." Sam's eyes would not stand out farther if he were being choked. He was too stunned by this munificence to put out his hand for the money, so Gelle tossed the dollar in his general direction, finished the buttermilk in one long drink, set the cup down on an upturned barrel near by and rode back to the gate to meet Bud, who was coming at a swift gallop. Bud pulled up, his eyes snapping with excitement. "Go back around the corner of the fence, Jelly, and down the gully about fifty yards," he directed crisply. "I left that old man Blinker tied up, and I want you to stand guard over him until I can ride into town and back. He came up on me before I could get away in the brush, and all I could do was glom him and bring him out with me. I won't be gone more than a couple of hours, but it's too hot a day to leave an old man tied up with ants and mosquitoes and flies raising merry hell with him. Will you do it, Jelly?" "Sure, I'll do it. Thank Gawd fer that buttermilk! Say, you ain't leavin' me out of anything like a scrap, are yuh, Bud? If you are, I'll pack m' prisoner in under my arm but what I'll go to yore party." "No--don't think there'll be a word of trouble. I'll be right back, Jelly, and then we'll both ride in and make merry. We'll have a right." He was galloping down the road before Gelle could answer him.