Weary, struck by that incongruous last word, did an unforgivable thing. He laughed and laughed, while the match he had just lighted flared, sent up a blue thread of brimstone smoke, licked along the white wood and scorched his fingers painfully before he remembered his cigarette. Miss Satterly turned abruptly and went into the house, put on her hat and took up the little, tin lard-pail in which her aunt Meeker always packed her lunch. She was back, had the key turned in the lock and was slowly pulling on her gloves by the time Weary recovered from his mirth. "Since you will not leave the place, I shall do so. I want to say first, however, that I not only think you odious, but all the synonyms I mentioned besides. You need not come for me to go to the Labor Day dance, because I will not go with you. I shall go with Joe." Weary gave her a startled glance and almost dropped his cigarette. This seemed going rather far, he thought--but of course she didn't really mean it; the schoolma'am, he heartened himself with thinking, was an awful, little bluffer. "Don't go off mad, Girlie. I'm sorry I killed your gopher--on the dead, I am. I just didn't think, That's a habit I've got--not thinking. "Say! You stay, and we'll have a funeral. It isn't every common, scrub gopher that can have a real funeral with mourners and music when he goes over the Big Divide. He--he'll appreciate the honor; I would, I know, if it was me." The schoolma'am took a few steps and stopped, evidently in some difficulty with her glove. From the look of her, no human being was within a mile of her; she certainly did not seem to hear anything Weary was saying. "Say! I'll sing a song over him, if you'll wait a minute. I know two whole verses of 'Bill Bailey,' and the chorus to 'Good Old Summertime.' I can shuffle the two together and make a full deck. I believe they'd go fine together. "Say, you never heard me sing, did yuh? It's worth waiting for--only yuh want to hang tight to something when I start. Come on--I'll let you be the mourner." Since Miss Satterly had been taking steps quite regularly while Weary was speaking, she was now several rods away--and she had, more than ever, the appearance of not hearing him and of not wanting to hear. "Say, Tee-e-cher!" The schoolma'am refused to stop, or to turn her head a fraction of an inch, and Weary's face sobered a little. It was the first time that inimitable "Tee-e-cher" of his had failed to bring the smile back into the eyes of Miss Satterly. He looked after her dubiously. Her shoulders were thrown well back and her feet pressed their imprint firmly into the yellow dust of the trail. In a minute she would be quite out of hearing. Weary got up, took a step and grasped Glory's trailing bridle-rein and hurried after her much faster than Glory liked and which he reproved with stiffened knees and a general pulling back on the reins.