"Well, then," said Hobby, "I won't--on one condition. It is to be distinctly understood under no circumstances are you ever to call me Charlie. I won't stand for it. Dig up your accursed doggerel!" This is what Hobby Lull read aloud, with exaggerated fervor, while Lyn huddled by the dying fire and hid her burning face in her hands: _Last night I kissed you as you slept, For all night long I dreamed of you; Lower and low the hearth fire crept, The embers glowed and dimmed; we two Heard the wind rave at bolt and door With all the world shut out and fast, Doubted, hoped, questioned, feared no more, And all we sought was ours at last._ _I do not love you, dear. I never loved you, Grudged what I gave, a wayward tenderness; Yet in my dream I wooed you with white arms And lingering soft caress. Now for all years to come I must remember, When fires burn dim and low, This false dear dream of mine, that stolen hour-- Your face of long ago._ _I shall awaken in some midnight lonely, I shall remember you as one apart, How for one hour of dream I loved you only And held you in my heart. And you, through all the years since first you met me Still let my memory gleam; Oh, my old lover! Do not quite forget me! I loved you--in my dream!_ Hobby cleared his throat impressively, tapped his table with the paper, and assumed measured judicial accents. "This incriminating document proves--hah--hum--" "To the satisfaction of the court," prompted Lyn in a muffled voice. "To the satisfaction of the court--I thank you! To the very great satisfaction of the court, this document, together with the barefaced manner in which you have brought this evidence to the cognizance of this court--it proves, little Lady Lyn, that you are compact all of loyalty and clean honor--and the sentence of this court is, Imprisonment for life!" He held out his arms, and the culprit crept gladly to prison. VI "Then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born." --_Much Ado About Nothing._ Cole Ralston rose up in a red windy dawn; he cupped his hands to his mouth and called out lustily: "Beds!" All around, men roused up in the half darkness and took up the word, laughing, as they dressed: "Beds! Beds!" The call meant that the wagon was to be moved to-day; that each man was to roll bedding and tarp to a hard and tight-roped cylinder, and was then to carry it to a stack by the bed wagon. The cook bent over pots and pans, an active demon by a wind-blown fire; here already the bobtail ate their private breakfast, that they might depart in haste to relieve the last guard--now slowly moving the herd from the bed ground, half a mile away. Cole moved over where Johnny Dines was making up his bed roll.