Slim took the cup with a "thankee." He drank long and deeply. Then he paused, made a wry face, and danced his feet up and down, as a child does in anger or excitement. "What's the matter?" asked the girl, with a laugh. "If this yeah's coffee give me tea, an' if it's tea give me coffee." The Sheriff put down his cup with a shrug of the shoulders. "It's the best we've got," replied Polly. "Sage-brush got it." "Oh, that's it. I thought it tasted like sage-brush. How's Bud?" he suddenly demanded. Polly glanced nervously at the speaker. "All right, I s'pose." She tried to be noncommittal. Her nervousness almost betrayed her. "Ain't you seen him lately?" Slim insisted. Polly peeped into the wagon before she answered the question. "Yes--I see him every once in a while." In an effort to change the subject of conversation, and get him away from all thoughts of Bud, she asked: "Say, Slim, what's a boudoir?" "A what whar?" stuttered Slim. "A boudoir," Polly repeated. Slim was puzzled, and looked it. Then a new thought lighted up his face. "You don't mean a Budweiser, do you?" Polly, deeply serious, replied: "No--that ain't it--boudoir." Slim ransacked his memory for the word. "Boudoir," he continued reflectively. "One of them 'fo' de wah' things we ust to have down in Kentucky?" An explanation was demanded of him, and he proceeded to invent one. "Well, first you get a--get a--" Polly had fooled him so many times that he became suspicious in the midst of his creation, and asked: "Look a here--you're sure you don't know what boudoir is?" "Why, of course not," answered Polly simply. Slim was relieved by her reply. "All right," he resumed, crossing his legs, as if the position would help him better to think. "A boudoir is a see-gar." "A see-gar?" echoed Polly, distinctly disappointed. Bud's offer to duplicate the boudoir was now reduced to the proportions of "two fer a nickel." "Yep," assured the Sheriff. "They are named after a Roosian--one of them diplomat fellers." "What's a diplomat?" Polly was finding Slim a mine of information, but all of the sort that needed plenty of expansion. Slim chuckled, and with a twinkle in his eye drawled: "A diplomat is a man that steals your hat and coat, and then explains it so well that you give him your watch and chain. Sabe?" Polly did not understand. She felt that Slim was laughing at her, but she could not see any fun in his remark. To end the discussion, however, she said: "I sabe." Polly sauntered away from the wagon. As she passed Slim, he tried to put his arm about her waist. She skilfully evaded him. The Sheriff joined her in the shade of cottonwood. "You know I've been thinking a lot of you lately, Miss Polly?" "Only lately?" she asked mischievously. "Well, yes--that is--" This conversation was becoming too personal for Bud, who in an effort to hear all Slim had to say moved incautiously in the wagon. Slim heard him.