"Oh, well," said I, "a man has to stand by his family." "He ain't my family." "He's Hetty's brother." "Sure. He's Hetty's brother and I ain't allowed to forget it, either. I tell you what, Dan--when a man marries a woman, he marries all her kin, too." With which bitter reflection Johnson borrowed some tobacco and rolled a cigarette. After a space he remarked that Ferrier planned to settle on a quarter-section within the Horne range, and that he required three hundred dollars to make a start. Mary Lou Hardin was included in this scheme of settlement, said Lafe, the idea being that two could live as cheaply as one and that Bob would never amount to a row of beans unless anchored and domesticated. He had nothing but scorn for such adolescent reasoning. "When I think of the way a young feller cares for a girl, I want to laugh," he said. "Pshaw, it's all mush. Nothing but talk, and those kids make the talk do instead of work. And if it ain't mush, it's wind. I tell you what--a man and a woman don't rightly care for each other, Dan, until they're married." I stared at him. "Is that so? Well, well. Suppose they only wake up then and find they don't care at all. That would be fierce." "Sure," he answered gravely. "It's a gamble. Why don't you take a chance?" "That's my business." "Well, you needn't get all swelled up about it. Hetty was saying to me only the other day--say, what're you so red in the face about?" "You and Hetty stick to housekeeping and let me run my own affairs," I retorted hotly. Their presumption passed all bounds. "Whenever a man's friends get married, they begin picking out a girl for him right off. I suppose misery likes company." Johnson chuckled and said: "All right, let's forget it." It was very apparent in what channel his thoughts moved, however, for he would keep turning on me a broad smile. "What good are bachelors, anyhow?" he demanded. "They'd ought for to tax 'em heavy." "You talk like a mothers' meeting, Lafe." "Well, I've got the rights of this thing, anyhow. Bachelors make me think of what Frank Hastings said once about a mule--up on the Plains, this was--'without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity,' Frank said." "Huh! Frank read that somewhere." For an hour we were silent. Night closed down over the Canon. The mountains seemed to take a long breath and settle to rest. It was warm, and so we were hopeful of rain within a week, or perhaps two. Our ponies swashed the dust lazily side by side, and we said no word, for the coming of dark in our country will still speech in anyone but a clod or a fool. A Jack-o'-Lantern rose in front of us, twinkling like a diamond against black velvet. It held steady for a moment, then flitted eerily in darting curves, soaring high until it appeared a tiny star. Our folk say that little Jack is a lost soul, doomed to haunt the place of his earthly woes; but I have a pleasanter theory.