"That you ain't," he reassured her. "You're jest a dandy gal as 'ud make any feller with a good patch o' pay dirt a real elegant sort o' wife." The golden head snuggled closer into his shirt. "You ain't got no patch o' pay dirt, Toby?" she inquired. Toby shook his head all unsuspiciously. "No sech luck," he asserted. Then with a sudden burst of gallantry, "If I had I don't guess there'd be no Birdie Mason chasin' around these parts unbespoke." The girl's eyes developed an almost childish simplicity as they looked up into his foolish face. "What d'you mean?" "Mean? Why, jest nothin', only--" Toby laughed uneasily. And a shadow crossed Birdie's face. "I don't guess the patch o' pay dirt matters a heap," she said, with subtle encouragement. "That's so," agreed Toby. "Y'see, a gal don't marry a feller fer his patch o' pay dirt," she went on, doing her best. "Sure she don't." But Toby's enthusiasm was rapidly cooling. The girl breathed a sigh of perfect content. And her heavy breathing was fast making a moist patch amidst the gravel stains on his shirt front. "She jest loves a feller--" Toby's arm slipped from her waist, and a hunted look crept into his foolish eyes. "An' she don't care nothin'--" The man was suddenly seized with a racking fit of coughing, which somehow jolted the girl into an upright position. "Course she don't," he agreed, when his paroxysm had passed. "Say, you don't think I got newmony?" he inquired, feeling the need for an abrupt change of subject. "I was allus weak-chested as a kid. An' talkin' o' kids," he hurried on, in his terror recalling the object of his visit, "guess you ken put me wise." "Kids? I wasn't talkin' of kids," protested the girl a little angrily. She was hurt. Cruelly hurt. All her best efforts had gone for nothing. A moment before Toby had seemed so nearly hers, and now-- "No. I didn't guess you were. But--that is--you see--" The man floundered heavily and broke off. His look was one of comical confusion and trouble. So much so that it was too much for the girl's good nature. "Whose kids?" she demanded, the familiar smile creeping back into her eyes, and her lips pursing dryly. "Yours?" "Oh, no," denied the man quickly. "Not mine. It's Zip's. Y'see, since his wife's lit out he's kind o' left with 'em. An' he's that fool-headed he don't know how to raise 'em proper. So I guessed I'd help him. Now, if you put me wise--" "You help raise Zip's kids? Gee!" The girl slid off the table and stood eyeing him, her woman's humor tickled to the limit. But Toby did not realize it. He was in deadly earnest now. "Yes," he said simply. Then, with a gleam of intelligence, "How'd you raise 'em?" The girl was suddenly stirred to a feeling of good-humored malice. "How'd I raise 'em? Why, it ain't jest easy." "It sure ain't," agreed Toby heartily. "Now, how'd you feed 'em?" Birdie became judicially wise.