She paused, and then shaking her finger again remarked solemnly: "Or you ’ll maybe find that the good, likeable half o’ you ain’t a half no longer, only a quarter, dwindled down to a quarter, and the half of you that puts up this bluff in the face of men becomes three-quarter then. I ’m thinking I would n’t like you so good then, Apache Kid! Not but what I ’d be——" she hesitated, "sorry for you like," she said. "To win your sorrow, Mrs. Laughlin," said he, looking on her solemnly, "would be a desirable thing." She gazed at him a long while, and to my utter astonishment, for I did not quite understand all this, there were tears in her eyes when she said, as to herself, "Yes, you mean that." She sighed, and then said she: "What you need is to settle down with a good, square, honest girl. If I was younger like myself——" she broke off merrily. Apache Kid looked her in the face with interested eyes. "I wish I knew just what you were like, just how you spoke and acted when you were—in the position you have suggested as desirable." "Would you have had me?" she said. "I would perhaps have failed to know you possessed all these qualities you do, for you would never have shown them to me." "Would I not?" said she. "Well, I show myself now; and if you object to young girls not showing their real selves, you begin and set ’em the example. You go down to the Half-Way House and show that Miss Pinkerton your real self, and——" "Mrs. Laughlin!" he said. "I would not have expected this——" "Why!" she cried, "I’m old enough to be your grandmother. Well, well! I see the lad is all right; that’s what I came up for, so I ’ll get away down again." "Laughlin has certainly a jewel of a wife," said Apache Kid, after she departed, and that was all on the matter. Miss Pinkerton herself was not mentioned again by either of us, and the other subject of our talk we settled two days later, when I, having "got to my legs" again on the day following that chat, accompanied Apache Kid to the jail where the sheriff unlocked the safe for us and gave us our property, which he had in keeping. The horse, I heard then, had been returned to the livery stable from which Canlan had hired it. All that the sheriff had to say on the matter of our property was to the effect that though two of the Lost Cabin owners had been often enough known to say that they had no living relative, the other—Jackson—was supposed to have a sister living. "If you want to do the square thing," said he, "you ought to advertise for her." Apache turned to me. "I forgot that," said he; "I forgot to tell you," and he drew a newspaper from his pocket. "Don’t you get the ’Tribune,’ Sheriff!" He opened the paper and pointed to his announcement for relatives of J. E. Jackson. "I have put it in this local rag," said he, "and a similar one in a dozen leading papers over the States, and in three of the smaller papers in his own State. I heard he was an Ohio man." The sheriff held out his hand.