The young fellow gave a self-conscious laugh that made the old man glance at him from under his weather-beaten straw hat. "Your mind seems to run on marryin'," he said; "guess you're hungry. Set up and have some breakfast." The visitor drew up a wooden chair, and the old man poured two cups of black coffee from the smoke-begrimed coffee-pot and returned it to the stove. Then he took off his hat and seated himself opposite his guest. The latter stirred three heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar into his cup, muddied the resulting syrup with condensed milk, and drank it with the relish of abnormal health. "I tell you what, Mosey," he said, reaching for a slice of bacon and dripping the grease across the table, "there ain't any flies on the women when it comes to housekeeping. Now, a woman would turn on the soapsuds and float you clean out of this house; then she'd mop up, and put scalloped noospapers on all the shelves, and little white aprons on the windows, and pillow-shams on your bunk, and she'd work a doily for you to lay your six-shooter on, with 'God bless our home' in the corner of it; and she'd make you so comfortable you wouldn't know what to do with yourself." "I'm comfortable enough by myself," said the old man uneasily. "When you work for yourself, you know who's boss." "Naw, you don't, Mosey, not by a long shot; you don't know whether you're boss or the cookin'. I tried bachin' once"--the speaker made a grimace of reminiscent disgust; "the taste hasn't gone out of my mouth yet. You're a pretty fair cook, Mosey, but you'd ought to see my girl's biscuits; she makes 'em so light she has to put a napkin over 'em to keep 'em from floating around like feathers. Fact!" He reached over and speared a slice of bread with his fork. "If I keep this job on the trail, maybe you'll have a chance to sample them biscuits. I'm goin' to send East for that girl." "Where you goin' to live?" "Well, I didn't know but we could rent this ranch and board you, Mosey. Seems to me you ought to retire. It ain't human to live this way. If you was to die here all by yourself, you'd regret it. Well, I must toddle." The visitor stood a moment on the step, sweeping the valley with his fresh young glance; then he set his hat on the back of his head and went whistling down the road, waving his stick at old Mosey as he disappeared among the sycamores in the wash. The old man gathered the dishes into a rusty pan, and scalded them with boiling water from the kettle. "I believe I'll do it," he said, as he fished the hot saucers out by their edges and turned them down on the table; "it can't do no harm to write to her, no way." II