"Thar! That's better'n that pink axle-grease yuh been lavigatin' yuh pore old coco with, Woolly," vigorously massaging the viscid fat into the bald pate with his thumbs, much to the hilarious enjoyment of the inconstant crowd who laughed even louder at the last victim's discomfiture. It was a tradition that "Woolly" Priest had been born with exceedingly long hair in plenteous supply, losing it in the stress of a hard winter succeeding "thet awful calamity to Grand County," as the narrator generously put it, by reason of a goat's having dined upon it, mistaking it for wire grass! According to the veracious relator his head had been so soft and mushy that the goat had "pulled the bristles out by the roots 'n they wa'nt annythin' left fer a starter." Certain it is that the shiny poll was entirely devoid of any hirsute covering at the present time, despite its owner's unremitting applications of all the patent nostrums he could get--the latest being an unguent built by Red McVey's suggestion out of rattlesnake oil and Tobasco sauce! "Well," said one of the more optimistic among them as he kicked off his boots preparatory to turning in after supper, "this yeah life might be better, 'n it might be wuss. But I'm shore thankful fer this yeah leetle ole baid, an' thu knowin' that I'm goin' to roll out of it to-morrow mawnin' alive an' kickin'. They's a heap o' satisfaction in bein' able to ante when yuh are called to eat!" "An' thu daid don't eat none. Say, Hungry, haow d' yuh like to be Braun?" The speaker was the friend of the dead man who had discovered the mutilation of the revolver. The badinage ceased instantly and an ominous silence fell upon the whole assemblage. "Hungry" Thompson looked over to where Douglass was morosely glaring over the demolished ruins of his spring's labor. Even through the murk of the gathering night the clenched hands and swelling neck cords were visible to that sharp eye. "Haow d'yuh like to be Matlock?" A match snapped sharply as some inveterate smoker kindled his cigarette. A man sat bolt upright in his blankets and Hungry swore angrily. The camp sank to rest but not exactly to sleep, as the occasional clearing of a throat evinced. Eventually, when the fire had sunk to a heap of smouldering coals, tired nature asserted itself and the men slept. To Douglass alone came neither sleep nor rest. His mind was in a turmoil of doubt and anger--doubt as to the nature of the strange obsession under which he travailed, and anger directed chiefly against himself. His hatred of Matlock was very bitter, but it was inconsequential in comparison with his savage self-objurgation. He did not go to bed, as common sense would have dictated and overwrought frame pleaded, but sat by the dead coals smoking himself black in the face.