She come over and stood in front of me, and put her two hands on my arm.

"Alec," she says, tears and smiles all to oncet, "I'm goin' t'

start home to Oklahomaw."

"Start home to Oklahomaw"--them words made me think, of a suddent, about what Billy 'd said t' me at the train. I reached into my inside coat-pocket. "Wait, little gal," I says, "we must read _this_ first.

It's that other letter of Up-State's."

She opened it, her fingers all thumbs, she was so _ex_cited. And standin' there byside me, with the Perfessor a-watchin' us from a corner, she begun:

"_'Dear Alec Lloyd----_'Why, it ain't fer _me,_ Alec."

"Go right on, honey."

"Dear Alec Lloyd, you'll git this after Macie's gone to Noo York. Alec, you know now the trip was needful. Do you think you could 'a' helt her if she didn't have her try? Mebbe.

But you wouldn't 'a' been happy. All her life she 'd 'a felt sore about that career she give up, and been longin' and longin'.

"And, Macie, 'cause you'll read this, too--now you know they was somethin' else you wanted more 'n a singin'

chanst, and you won't hole it agin me fer sayin' I knowed you wouldn't make no go of it. The op'ra game at its best is a five-hunderd-to-one shot. A turrible big herd plays it, the foreigners git the main prizes, and the hull thing's fixed crooked by all kinds of inside pull.

"'Sides, you' voice don't match with crowded streets and sapped-out air. It fits the open desert. Mebbe so many won't listen to it out here, but they'll even things up by the way they'll feel. And this letter is to tell you how I thank y' fer singin' The Mohawk Vale. Gawd bless y', little gal!

"And, Alec, all kinds of good luck to you. What's in this letter ain't much, but it'll be a nest-aig."

Mace peeked inside the envelope. "Why, here's a bill!" she says.

"Alec!" And she drawed it out.

"A bill?" I turned it over. "Why--why, it's fer five hunderd dollars!

Macie!"

Long-Hair got up and started our way, grinnin'.

"But _you_ don't git a cent of it," I says, turnin' on him quick.

He dodged.

"You'd _better_ be keerful," I says. Then, to Macie, "Honey, here's another chanst t' make a try. You can git a _good_ teacher, _this_ time--yas, that's what I said, Perfessor, _a good teacher_--and you'll be the biggest singer in Amuricaw _yet._" And I helt the bill out to her.

The only answer she give was t' run to the door and pull at one of them round thing-um-a-jigs that brings a telegraph kid. Next, she come back to a table, found a piece of paper and writ somethin' on it.

"Here, Alec," she says, "here. Read this."

It said:

"Manager Harvey Eatin'-House, Briggs City, Oklahomaw. Please telephone paw that I'm comin' home, and Alec wants back his job."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A BOOM THAT BUSTED

SAY! wouldn't you 'a' figgered, after I'd brung Mace back t' the ole Bar Y, and made her paw so happy that the hull ranch couldn't hole him, and he had t' go streak up t' town and telephone Kansas City fer a grand pyano and a talkin'-machine--now _wouldn't_ you 'a' figgered that he'd 'a' treated me A1 when I come to ast him fer the little gal?

Wal,--listen t' this!

'Fore ever I spoke to him, I says to myself, "It ain't no use, when you want to start up a mule, to git behind and push 'r git in front and pull. No, ma'am. The only way is to hunt a pan of feed 'r a pick-axe.

"Now, Sewell's sh.o.r.e one of them long-eared critters--hardmouthed, and goin' ahaid like blazes whenever you wanted him to come short; then, again, balkin' till it's a case of grandfather's clock, and you git to thinkin' that 'fore he'll move on he'll plumb drop in his tracks.

So no drivin'. Coaxin' is good enough fer you' friend Cupid."

The first time I got a good chanst, I took in my belt, spit on my hands, sha.s.sayed up to the ole man, and sailed in--dead centre.

"Boss," I begun, "some fellers marry 'cause they git plumb sick and tired of fastenin' they suspenders with a nail, and some fellers marry----"

"Wal? wal? wal?" breaks in Sewell, offish all of a suddent, and them little eyes of hisn lookin' like two burnt holes in a blanket. "What you drivin' at? Git it out. Time's skurse."

"Puttin' it flat-footed, then," I says, "I come to speak to you about my marryin' Macie."

He throwed up his haid--same as a long-horn'll do when she's scairt--and wrinkled his forrid. Next, he begun to jingle his cash (_ba-a-ad_ sign). "So _that's_ what?" (He'd guessed as much a'ready, I reckon.) "Wal,--I'm a-listenin'."

Then I got a _turrible_ rush of words to the mouth, and put the case up to him right strong. Said they was no question how I felt about Mace, and that this sh.o.r.e was a life-sentence fer me, 'cause I wasn't the kind of a man to want to ever slip my matreemonal hobbles. And I tacked on that the little gal reckoned _she_ knowed her own mind.

"No gal ever _lived_ that knowed her own mind," puts in Sewell, snappy as the d.i.c.kens, and actin' powerful oneasy.

"But Mace ain't the usual brand," I says. "She's got a good haid--a _fine_ haid. She's like _you,_ Sewell."

"You can keep you' compliments to home," says the boss. Then, after a little bit, "S'pose you been plannin' a'ready where you'd settle."

(This sorta inquirin'.)

"Ya-a-as," I says, "we've talked some of that little house in Briggs City which Doc Trowbridge lets--the one over to the left of the tracks."

That second, I seen a look come over his face that made me plumb goose-flesh. It was the sorta look that a' ole bear gives you when you've got him hurt and into a corner--some appealin', y' savvy, and a hull lot mad.

"Gosh!" I says to myself, "I put my foot in it when I brung up Billy's name. Sewell recollects the time I stuck in my lip."

"You plan t' live in Briggs," he says. He squz his lips t'gether, and turned his face towards the ranch-house. Mace was inside, goin'

back'ards and for'ards 'twixt the dinin'-room and the kitchen.

She looked awful cute and pretty from where we was, and was callin'

sa.s.sy things to the Chinaman. Sewell watched her and watched her, and I _re_called later on (when I wasn't so all-fired anxious and _ex_cited), that the ole man's face was some white, and he was kinda all lent over.

"Ya-a-as," I continues (some trembley, though), "that place of Billy's 'd suit."

Two seconds, and Sewell come round on me like as if he'd chaw me into bits. "What you goin' to rent on?" he ast. "What you goin' to live on?"

"Wal," I answers, sorta took back, "I got about three hunderd dollars left of the money Up-State give me. Wal, that's my nest-aig. And I can make my little forty a month--_and_ grub--_any_ ole day in the week."

Sewell drawed his breath in, deep. (Look out when a man takes up air that-a-way: Somethin's sh.o.r.e a-comin'!) "Forty a month!" he says.