On that memorable occasion, while Derry was showing off the new-found accomplishment of walking, an elderly man, white-haired and wiry, but of small stature, rode by on a mettlesome mustang. Power's face grew hard when he met the rider's stare of astonishment; but the expression fled instantly, and he waved a friendly greeting, which, however, received the curtest of responses, while the horse unexpectedly found his head free for a canter. MacGonigal, whose big eyes lost nothing within range, noted the bare nod which acknowledged Power's salute. "Old man Willard held out the marble mitt that-a time, Derry," said he. Power did not reply for a moment. When he answered, he quoted Dryden's couplet: "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong; But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." "Good fer you, Derry!" exclaimed the storekeeper appreciatively. "I've often wondered what you was connin' to yerself up thar," and he jerked his head in the direction of Power's bedroom; "but I never allowed it was po'try." "You were not mistaken, Mac. I was hard at work on dry prose. Those lines are not mine. They were written before Colorado was christened, and they will be true until men attain the millennium." "Huh!" MacGonigal took refuge in a noncommittal grunt, because he fancied that the millennium was the name of a Chicago vaudeville house, and, somehow, the notion did not seem to fit into its right place in the conversation. "For all that," mused Power aloud, "I'll call on Mr. Francis Willard, tomorrow." So this resolution explained the light conveyance standing outside the store next morning. Power was in the act of settling himself as comfortably as might be beside the driven, when One-thumb Jake galloped down the slope leading from the Gulch. The cowboy pulled up in the approved style of his tribe, swung out of the saddle, and banged into the veranda a decrepit portmanteau, which he had been carrying in the thumbless hand. "Room an' drink fer a single gent!" he shouted. "I'm an orfin, I am, a pore weak critter slung out inter a crool world!" "You're never leaving the Willard outfit, Jake?" said Power, who might well be surprised, since the man had been connected with the Dolores ranch since the first lot of cattle was turned loose on its pastures. "That's about the size of it," said the other. "But why?" "The old man says, 'Git!' an' I got." "No reason?" "Wall, if you squeeze it outer me, I'll be squoze. In a sort of a way, it had ter do with you." "With me?"