His grin now faded. “Now and then, y’u know, people do act decent. I’ve met several besides them two old men. Even along the Rio Grande. Why, I’ve acted decent myself at times.” He seemed to review his recent anecdote. “The point was,” he said next, “_they_ always thought they were madder than they _were_. Now _I’m_ just the other way. I’m that good-natured that I’m frequently madder than I feel--and it’s the other man finds that out!” “Get out of here!” said the post doctor, entering. “Look at your victim’s eyes!” So I went out, ashamed of myself at having led poor Scipio to talk so much. I needn’t change a syllable of as many as I recollect in his anecdote. His impression of the Thowmet Valley as it had been in those earlier days--before apples, before the Great Northern, before anything--shall not be “fixed up” by me. * * * * * I’d been seein’ a lot of country, clear up from Mazatlan to the Big Bend--driftin’ through Old Mexico and California and Awregon, and over for a little while to Boisé, and up through the Palouse where the dust puffed up from the ploughs and trailed like a freight-train’s smoke does on the Southern Pacific for a half-hour after she’s went by; and I’d crossed the God-awful Big Bend--but I’ll skip that--and I’d crossed the stinkin’, vicious Columbia on a chain ferry--but I’ll skip that--and I was kind o’ tired. Didn’t want no mines either. There was mines up there and folks crowdin’ to ’em, thick from everywheres. But I was tired. Figured I’d put in the balance of the fall--and the winter, too, maybe--in some pleasant place, if they could direct me to such a thing. So they told me there was women--wives, I mean--and children and homes and neighbors over on the Thowmet. So I headed for there. Went in with a Siwash over the Chillowisp trail. Him and me couldn’t talk much, but we could nod and point and grunt when his English and my Chinook gave out. He carried the mail in wunst a week, except when the snow wouldn’t let him. That proved to be often. Oh, but I liked the Thowmet Valley’s looks that first sight! And it stayed pleasant to me. Why did I leave it? Don’t know. Just got curious to see some more country.