summer to the singing waters of Buffalo Horn, and place a third lady in that pond of Jimsy’s; then we might have another story if others are ever to be. My science in the third tale is of course out of date; since Kelvin, energy is immortal no longer, and a _lower_ form of it was transmitted to the Secretary than was originally stored in Captain Stone. CONTENTS PAGE I. HAPPY-TEETH 27 II. SPIT-CAT CREEK 67 III. IN THE BACK 89 IV. TIMBERLINE 124 V. THE GIFT HORSE 159 VI. EXTRA DRY 207 VII. WHERE IT WAS 229 VIII. THE DRAKE WHO HAD MEANS OF HIS OWN 276 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS “‘Pie like Mother made,’ said Scipio” _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE “High Bear galloped away into the dusk” 56 “Out of the door he flew,--squaws and bucks flapped after him like poultry” 66 “‘Is Sistah Stone heah?’ Leonidas inquired” 108 “‘If that I was where I would be, then should I be where I am not’” 126 “_Waiting for nothing_ was stamped plain upon him from head to foot” 140 “The stage rattled up as I sat” 171 “I found nothing new--the plain, the sage-brush, the dry ground--no more” 188 “He shuffled the shells straight at the freighter as if he were making love to him” 216 “How could he know that Bellyful had only become a road-agent in the last ten minutes?” 226 “‘My, but it’s turrable easy to get married’” 284 “‘Well, Jimsy, are you going to get me any wood for this stove--or ain’t you?’” 296 I HAPPY-TEETH Scipio Le Moyne lay in bed, held together with bandages. His body had need for many bandages. A Bar-Circle-Zee three-year-old had done him violent mischief at the forks of Stinking Water.[1] But for the fence, Scipio might have swung clear of the wild, rearing animal. When they lifted his wrecked frame from the ground one of them had said:-- “A spade’s all he’ll need now.” Overhearing this with some still unconquered piece of his mind, Scipio made one last remark: “I ain’t going to die for years and years.”