"That's fine," he exclaimed, with such a wonderful relief that it was impossible to doubt his appreciation. Then he glanced round the room. He found some pins and promptly pinned the sheets on the cupboard door. Then he stood back and surveyed them. "You're a good friend, Sunny," he said earnestly. "Now I can't never make a mistake. There it is all wrote ther'. An' when I ain't sure 'bout nothing, why, I only jest got to read what you wrote. I don't guess the kiddies can reach them there. Y'see, kiddies is queer 'bout things. Likely they'd get busy tearing those sheets right up, an' then wher'd I be? I'll start right in now on those reg'lations, an' you'll see how proper the kiddies'll grow." He turned and held out his hand to his benefactor. "I'm 'bliged, Sunny; I sure can't never thank you enough." Sunny disclaimed such a profusion of gratitude, but his dirty face shone with good-natured satisfaction as he gripped the little man's hand. And after discussing a few details and offering a few suggestions, which, since the acceptance of his efforts, seemed to trip off his tongue with an easy confidence which surprised even himself, he took his departure. And he left the hut with the final picture of Scipio, still studying his pages of regulations with the earnestness of a divinity student studying his Bible, filling his strongly imaginative brain. He felt good. He felt so good that he was sorry there was nothing more to be done until Wild Bill's return. CHAPTER XVII JESSIE'S LETTER Scipio's long day was almost over. The twins were in bed, and the little man was lounging for a few idle moments in the doorway of his hut. Just now an armistice in his conflict of thought was declared. For the moment the exigencies of his immediate duties left him floundering in the wilderness of his desolate heart at the mercy of the pain of memory. All day the claims of his children had upborne him. He had had little enough time to think of anything else, and thus, with his peculiar sense of duty militating in his favor, he had found strong support for the burden of his grief. But now with thought and muscles relaxed, and the long night stretching out its black wings before him, the gray shadow had risen uppermost in his mind once more, and a weight of unutterable loneliness and depression bore down his spirit. His faded eyes were staring out at the dazzling reflections of the setting sun upon the silvery crests of the distant mountain peaks. In every direction upon the horizon stretched the wonderful fire of sunset. Tongues of flame, steely, glowing, ruddy, shot up and athwart the picture in ever-changing hues before his unseeing eyes. It was all lost upon him. He stared mechanically, while his busy brain struggled amongst a tangle of memories and thought pictures. The shadows of his misfortune were hard besetting him.