the other extreme an' call it Percy or Reginald. I ain't got her yet--but believe me! She's goin' to have a war on her hands till I do get her! "I'll just admit that she'll marry me--what then? It's time I was kind of takin' inventory. Here's what she gets: One cow-hand an' outfit--includin' one extra saddle horse, a bed-roll, an' a war-bag full of odds an' ends of raiment; some dirty, an' some clean; some tore, an' some in a fair state of preservation. Eight hundred an' forty dollars in cash--minus what it'll take to square me in Timber City. An'--an'--that's all! She ain't goin' to derive no hell of a material advantage from the union, that's sure. But, if I've still got my job it ain't so bad to start off with. Other assets, what we used to call incorporeal hereditaments back in law school--fair workin' knowledge of the cattle an' horse business. Health--good. Disposition--um-m-m, kind, to murderous. Habits--bad, to worse. Let's see: smokin'--that's all right: chewin'--prob'ly be allowable if indulged in out doors only. Swearin'--prob'ly won't be an issue till the kids get old enough to listen. Gamblin'--prob'ly be limited to poker--friendly games an' pifflin' limit. Drinkin'--let's see, the only year since I can remember I don't drink nothin' I quit better than eight hundred dollars to the good--first time I ever had eight hundred dollars all at once in my life. What happens? Get to drinkin' for a half a day, an' Bing! Off comes a hundred, maybe two hundred to pay up for the hell I raised! Does it pay? Not for a married man! Not for me! An' besides, what was it she said when I turned down the drink she offered me? She said, 'I'm glad--I hate the stuff.'" He paused, smiling reminiscently, "drinkin's lots of fun--but, a man's got to pay for his fun--more ways than one, he's got to pay. If it'll make her happy to not drink, an' onhappy to drink--the way I look at it, it's a damned mean man that would pay for his own belly-wash with his wife's happiness! That about concludes the takin' stock, then: Drinkin'--once! Drinkin'--twice! Drinkin'--three times--an' _out_! I'm a non-drinker, a teetotaller, a pop-lapper, an' a grape-juice swizzler! At that, if I'd known that last drink I had back there in Timber City was goin' to be the very last doggone drink I was ever goin' to get, I'd kind of strung it along a little--sort of sipped it slow an' solemn as become an obsequy. Instead of which, I tossed it off light-hearted, casual, even what you might call flippant--an' it's the last drink I was ever goin' to have!" He rose, brushed a stray crumb or two from his shirt, and mounted: "Come on, Blue, let's get this stuff over with, an' wash our hands, an' hit for Red Sand. Cass says Cinnabar Joe's place ain't only about four miles above McWhorter's."