What he could not understand was why they should act as if there was something _amusing_ about a woman who came from west of Buffalo and then make a hero of a man from the Wild and Woolly. Yet they always did it, he had noticed. Why, that Pinkey could not speak a grammatical sentence and they hung on his every word, breathless. It was disgusting! Wallie picked up a pebble and pelted a robin. He wished the undertow would catch that Spenceley girl. If he should reach her when she was going down for the third time she would _have_ to thank him for saving her and that would about kill her. He decided that he would make a point of bathing when she did, on the very remote chance that it might happen. "Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie!" The name rankled. Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it. Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged robins, was looking. Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him. "Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I've nearly sprained my tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin, and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'm goin' to drift pretty pronto--I can't stand visitin'." "Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally. "I'm glad they's a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically. "You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?" "Yep--Wyomin'." "Er--by the way"--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--"what did she mean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?" Pinkey moved uneasily. "Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie. "I could, but I wouldn't like to," Pinkey replied, drily "Oh, don't spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there's nothing _she_ could say would hurt them." "If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'." "I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity. "I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed. Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded: "It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?" "I can't say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant you were a 'perfect lady'." "It's more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening. Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder. He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored him. "Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come West and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'. S'long, feller!"