"I mind once, me and Buf'lo went for eleven days on jerky and tobacco; more tobacco than jerky," he said, considering his son with a smile. "Nothing ever seemed to hurt us in them days, me and Buf'lo. Down in the Baccanochi, it was, where we went for some cattle. And of all the sorry steers, you never seen the like, Hetty. Honest, they couldn't throw a shadow. But we got some beef there. I ain't never tasted beef like it since--no, ma'am." "Ho, haven't you?" Hetty sniffed. His usual even spirits seemed to return during the after-supper smoke. He sat on the porch and listened to the cows lowing contentedly around the tanks. Some animal went light-footed through the underbrush of the slope opposite, and Lafe, Jr., was morally certain it was a wildcat; but, then, he never failed to detect bears and wolves and mountain lions in the least stirring of a twig. The dark deepened and a coyote yelped against the Canon's walls. The baby announced his intention of catching the prowler on the morrow with a pinch of salt, and by the exercise of cunning and stealth. Hetty came out on the porch to fill the canteen and to warn little Lafe that bedtime was close upon him. The boy denied it vehemently. "I mind once, when me and Buf'lo were sleeping at the ol' Palomino," her husband told her; "just a night like to this it was, and a couple of line riders come along with a deck of cards--" "That's all you need to say," Hetty said. "You never did understand the game." Shortly afterward she took the child from his father and put him to bed, Lafe, Jr., howling that he was wide awake and nothing under heaven would make him go. Yet he was asleep in a twinkling. His mother tiptoed out of the room. When she reached the porch, she gave vent to the long sigh a tired woman will give when the day's work is done and she can relax, and she began to rock in the wicker-chair. Her husband was walking meditatively near a tall cottonwood. He appeared to be pacing off the ground. "What're you doing?" she called. "Nothing. Nothing much." But when she joined him, he coughed and looked foolish. "Now," said Hetty, locking both arms about one of his and leaning against him, "tell me." "Why," Lafe said, "I was just sort of studying how a tent would fit here right snug. It's a slick place for a tent." Hetty squeezed his arm and looked at him with eyes of perfect understanding. "Do you want to see what I wrote to him?" she whispered. "Who? Buf'lo? You wrote to Buf'lo? When did you write to Buf'lo? Well, I swan." It is best at this juncture to stare for signs of the marauding coyote, or to gaze fixedly at the evening star blazing in line with the chimney, because those two often chose to forget that they had been married five years. This is what Hetty showed Lafe, bending over his shoulder as he read it by the light of a lamp. DEAR FRIEND: