"That'll make it about break even," Curly answered simply.

"Now," said Doc Tomlinson, "if either of them twins should need any drugs--"

"Drugs!" snorted Dan Anderson. "What would they want with drugs?

After they've run around in here for two weeks, you couldn't kill 'em with an axe. If the coyotes don't catch 'em, there's nothing else can happen to 'em."

"I'll give you about eight dollars for the green canary, Tom," said Doc Tomlinson. "I want to hang him in my store."

"But I want to hang him in my wagon," objected Tom Osby. "He's company. You fellers plumb rob me every time I come to town." His voice was plaintive.

"The court rules," observed Dan Anderson, judicially, "that the parrot goes with the twins." And it was finally so decided by the referendum.

Whereupon Tom Osby, grumbling and bewailing his hard lot as common carrier, drove off with Curly across the _arroyo_ in search of a new mother for the twins.

The Littlest Girl, Curly's wife, read the letter which Tom offered.

Tears sprang to her eyes; and then, as might have been expected of the Littlest Girl, she reached up her arms to the homeless waifs, who stood at the wagon front, each clasping a stubby forefinger of Tom Osby's hand.

"Babies!" cried she. "You poor little babies! Oh!" And so she gathered them to her breast and bore them away, even though a curly head over each shoulder gazed back longingly at the gnarled freighter on his wagon seat. Tom Osby picked up his reins and drove back across the _arroyo_. Thus, without unbecoming ostentation, Heart's Desire became possessed of certain features never before known in its history.

Within a few weeks the parrot and the twins had so firmly established themselves in the social system of the place as to become matters of regular conversation. Curly never appeared at the forum of Whiteman's corral without finding himself the recipient of many queries.

"Why, them twins," he replied one day, "they're in full charge of the _rodeo_. They've got me and the woman hobbled, hitched, and side-lined for keeps. Dead heat between them and Bill, the parrot.

They're in on all the plays together. Wherever they go, he's right after 'em, and he night-and-day-herds 'em closer'n a Mexican shepherd dog does a bunch of sheep. Now, I blew in last night, intoe their room, and there was old Bill, settin' on the foot of the bed, watchin'

of 'em, them fast asleep. 'Too late now,' says he to me. 'Too late.

All over now!' I didn't know what he meant till I looked under the bedclothes; and there was a pan full of ginger cakes the woman had made for the fam'ly. You needn't tell me a parrot can't think."

"It would seem," said Dan Anderson, meditatively, "that we may report progress in civilization."

"But say, fellers," remarked Curly, taking off his hat and scratching his head perplexedly, "sometimes I wish Bill was a chicken hawk instead of a talker. There is rats, or mice, or something, got into this valley at last."

"Do you want any drugs?" asked Doc Tomlinson, suddenly.

"No, not yet," Curly shook his head. "Never did see airy rat or mouse round here, but still, things is happenin' that looks right strange.

"It's this-a-way, fellers," he continued, "--set down here and let me tell you." So they all sat down and leaned back against the fence of Whiteman's corral.

"Last Christmas," Curly began at the beginning, "why, you see, my girl, she got a Christmas present from some of her folks back in Kansas, in the States. It was a pair of candy legs."

"What's that, Curly?" said Dan Anderson, half sitting up.

"Legs," said Curly, "made out of candy, about so long, or maybe a little longer. Red, and white, and blue--all made out of candy, you know. Shoes on the feet, buckles on the shoes, and heels. Sort of frill around on top. The feller that made them things could sh.o.r.e do candy a-plenty. They was too pretty to eat up, so the little woman, she done put 'em in the parlor,--on the table like, in the middle of the floor; tied 'em together with a blue ribbon and left 'em there.

Now, you all know right well that's the only pair of candy legs in Heart's Desire."

"That's legitimate distinction, Curly," Dan Anderson decided. "It ent.i.tles your family to social prominence."

"Oh, we wasn't stuck up none over that," laughed Curly, modestly, "but we always felt kind of comfortable, thinkin' them there legs was right there on the parlor table in the other room. You can't help feelin'

good to have some little ornyment like that around the place, you know, special if there's women around. But now, fellers, what I was goin' to say is, there's mice, or rats, got in on this range some how, and they--"

"Why didn't you put 'em in a box?" asked McKinney, severely. "You ain't got sense enough to know the difference between a hair rope and a can of California apricots."

"Put 'em in a box?" cried Curly. "Why? Them was _ornyments_! Now you ain't got a ornyment on your whole place, except a horned toad and four tarantulas in a teacup. Now a real ornyment is somethin' you put on the parlor table, man, and show it free and open. It's sort of sacred like."

"Not for rats," said McKinney.

"You'd better keep your eye on that parrot," warned Doc Tomlinson.

"About to-morrow, you tell us what you find out."

But on the morrow the mystery remained unsolved. "One heel's plumb gone," said Curly, sighing. "And they've begun on the toe of the other foot."

Bill, the parrot, remained under increasing suspicion. "He's got a wall eye," said McKinney, "and I never seen a wall eye in a man, woman, or mustang, that it didn't mean bad. This here bird ain't no Hereford, nor yet a short-horn. He's a dogy that ain't bred right, and he ain't due to act right." All Curly could do was to shake his head, unpersuaded.

Meantime, there went on in the little cabin across the _arroyo_, a reproduction of an old, old drama. Should we, after all, criticise these two descendants of the first sweet human woman of the world?

Consider; to their young and inexperienced eyes appealed all the fascinations of this august but tempting object, new, strange, appealing. For a time their hearts were strong, upon their souls rested the ancient mandate of denial. They gazed, short breathed, in awe, upon this radiantly bestriped, unspeakably fascinating, wholly and resplendently pulchritudinous creation. They must have known that it was a part of the family pride, a part of the parlor--a part, indeed, of the intermingled fabric of the civilization of Heart's Desire! And yet--alas!

One morning the twins foregathered in the parlor. The hour of temptation, as is always the case, found all things well ordered for the success of evil.

"Everybody's gone," whispered Suzanne. "There ain't n.o.body here at all."

"Only Bill," said Arabella, looking at the parrot, which regarded them with a badly bored aspect. "I wonder if he'd tell?"

"Oh, dang it all!" remarked Bill; "I'm tired!"

"He's awful," remarked Arabella. "He swears. Folks that swears goes to the bad place. Besides, Bill wouldn't tell, would you, Bill?"

"He'll go to sleep," said Suzanne. "Besides, we ain't goin' to bite off only just a little _bit_ of a _bite_! n.o.body'll never notice it."

Twofold Eve edged up to the centre table. "You first," said Arabella.

"No, you."

"You first," insisted Arabella. "I'm afraid. Bill, he's lookin'."

"I ain't afraid," Suzanne a.s.serted boldly, and stretched out her hand.

That was the time when the first heel disappeared. Even as Suzanne's white teeth closed upon it, the parrot gave a vast screech of disapproval. "Quork!" cried he. "Look out! Look out!" At which warning both the twins fled precipitately underneath the bed; whence presently their heads peered out, with wide and frightened eyes.

"I didn't have my bite," whimpered Arabella.

"It's only Bill!" Suzanne was disgusted with herself for running.

"Come on. Who's afraid?" Arabella chose the toe of the other foot.

Thus it was that temptation, at first insidious, at length irresistible, had its way. The l.u.s.tre paled and dimmed on one gaudily bepainted leg. The remaining heel disappeared. A slight nick became visible on the cap of the right knee.

"Well, I'll be darned!" said Curly, scratching his head, as he observed these developments.

"So'll I," remarked Bill, in frank friendship. "Ha! Ha!"

Curly looked at him pugnaciously for a moment. "For one cent, Bill,"

said he, "I'd wring your cussed green neck for you. I'll bet a hundred you're the feller that's been a-doin' all this devilment. Here you,--Susy--Airey,--have you seen Bill a-eatin' the ornyment?" Both the young ladies solemnly and truthfully declared that they had never noticed any such thing; and pointed out that parrots, in their belief, did not eat candy.