"You wouldn't think that holding a gun to her head, and threatenin' to blow her brains out was just the touch that would set a maiden's heart tremblin' for a man, but if a woman takes a fancy to you, your habits and customs, manners and morals, disposition, personal appearance, financial standing and way of doing things generally is only a little matter of detail. "'How will this figger out legally?' E. G. W. asked the minister. "The minister, he was a cheerful, practical sort of lad, ready to indorse anything that would smooth the rugged road of life. "'Do you renounce the Mormon religion?' he asks. "'Bet your life,' says Scraggs. 'And all its works.' "'That settles it,' says the minister. 'Besides, I don't think anybody will ever come poking out here to make trouble--whenever you say the word.' "'One minute,' says Scraggs, and he turned to the girl very gentle. 'Are you doing this of your own free will, and not because I lugged you out here?' "'Yessir,' says she. "'You want me, just as I stand?' "'Yessir.' "'Keno. I won't forget it.' Then he put his hand on her head, took off his hat, and raised his face. 'O God!' he prays, 'you know what a miserable time I've had in this line before. I admit it was nine-tenths my fault, but now I call for an honest deck and the hands played above the table. And make me act decent for the sake of this nice little girl. Amen.' Then he pulled a twenty-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and plunked her down before the minister, 'Shoot,' says he. 'You're faded.' "Well. there old Scraggs--I say 'old,' but the man weren't more than forty--celebrated his eighty-first marriage in that old bull-pen, and they lived as happy ever after as any story book. Which knocks general principles. Probably it was because that no man was ever treated whiter than she treated him, and no woman was ever treated whiter than he treated her; he had the knack of bein' awful good and loving to her, without being foolish. Experience will tell, and he'd experienced a heap of the other side. "And now, what do you think of Aleck? The scare we threw into him that night wound up his moanin' and grievin' about the other girl. He never cheeped once after that, but got fat and hearty, and when I left the ranch he was makin' up to a widow with four children, as bold as brass. There was more poetry in E. G. W, than there was in Aleck, after all." II IN THE TOILS