"Well, I done the best I knowed how," defended Holy. "That's the way things goes. I pulled an ol' Bar Z cow outen the mud, and the fust thing the durned cow done was to make a bee-line for me whilst I had my back to her a cinchin' my saddle. She spiled the only pair of trousers I owned, and then went back into the mudhole and died. Thar's a heap of human nature in cows, and heaps of cow nature in humans! Here's the button-hook." Holy rescued it from the floor where it had dropped as Roarer massaged his throat. "You dig yourself outen your own mud-hold. I'm done!" He limped painfully across the room and dropped into a chair, the picture of disgust, and watched with fishy eye as Roarer plied the button-hook until the collar succumbed. The agony was almost over, but the four pairs of gloves promised further trouble. "Say, Bronc," insinuated Roarer as he contemplated the bed, "Couldn't a feller go without wearin' these derned things? Suppose we just put 'em in the outside pockets of our coats and let the fingers hang out, to show we got 'em?" "No, sirree!" vetoed Bronco emphatically, in the self-assumed role of social adviser. "There ain't nothin' too good for the Boss; and the boys down to the store told me that white kid gloves has got to be wore at weddin's. So them gloves has got to go on, if it busts us flat!" With looks of grim determination and the spirit that inspired the 'noble Six Hundred,' they swooped down on the gloves. Appropriating a pair, each man settled himself on a chair. The room was silent. Moments passed unheeded. Four struggling cowpunchers sat in four creaking chairs and laboured until four pairs of huge hands were encased in bedraggled white kid gloves, which the owners surveyed with triumph. "They squinch," announced Holy, closing his hand convulsively, "but they'll stretch if you work 'em a bit." There was an ominous sound, and a look of consternation on Holy's face as he gazed at the split glove on his left hand. "Now, you'll have to get another pair," commanded Bronco. "Hanged if I will," retorted Holy, rebelling at the prospect of repeating his experience. "Then you got to remember to keep your hand shet up," compromised Bronco. "Lucky it's the left hand, because we all got to shake hands with the bride and the minister you know." "Say, Bronc, are you sure about the minister?" asked Limber dubiously. "You bet! You see it's this way," elucidated Bronco. "The groom is in luck to get the girl, ain't he? So you shake hands with him. The girl's lucky to get married, ain't she, stead of dyin' an old maid? So you shake hands with her; and the minister is the luckiest one of the bunch, because he gets paid for marryin' them and he don't take no chances on havin' trouble afterwards. That's why you have to shake hands with the minister." No one disputed the logic.