The Sagebrusher

und him, "take it one way with another, and I expect this

toward the speaker and resume his whittling. He smile

st, dirtiest hole in the whole state of Mont

ing the interior of the single-

tated tobacco shot at the cook stove, "I ain't saying she is and I ain't sayi

e only chairs, and resting an elbow on the oil cloth table cover, where stood a few broken dishes, showing no signs of any ablution in all their hopeless live

hrown across it, from under which the occupant had crawled out. Beneath might be seen the edges of two or three worn and dirty cotton quilts and a pair of blankets of like dinginess. Below this lay a wor

d some reason for his friend's dissatisfaction. His mouth began to work as it always did when he

de for her over there, and it's all tight and strong-it was there when I took this cabin over from the Swede. But I ain't never just

bed for four years, to my certain knowledge, and I know that in

her up?" demanded Sim Gage, hi

wed it ever' morning since I've knowed you here. Move

ther folks feel bad. I ain't never found fault with the w

rdner. "I ain't no angel, but I sure try to make some

suddenly, after a time spent in solemn

ily, throwing up into a sheet of silver the leaves of the willows which followed the water courses. A few quaking asps standing near the cabin door likewise gave motion and brightness to the scene. The air was brilliantly cool and keen. It was a pleasant spot, and at t

m Ioway more'n twenty-five years ago, when I was only a boy. When my pa died my ma, she moved back to Ioway. I stuck around here, like you and l

d nodded

o a mine, no matter what you've found fer a prospect. I got along somehow-seems like folks didn't use to pester so much, the way they do to-day. And you k

wouldn't," replied Wid. "Fact is,

, I'll leave it to you, Wid, if we didn't. We got as far as Big Springs, on the railroad. What did we hear then? Why, news comes up from down in Arizony that a railroad has went out into the desert, and that them mines has been disco

in around he

and killed elk for the market some, like you know, and fished through the ice over on the lakes, like you know. Some days I'd make three or four dollars a day fishing. So at last when that Swede, B

and neighbor. "Leastways, it's good e

me here. I'll bet you all my clothes that I'll cut six hundred ton of hay this season-leastways I would if my horse hadn't hurt his

ay enough to buy yourself flour and bacon for next winter, and that'll

o be h

that's abo

cooking and everything all the time in your own house. Just living along t

d he left the sentence unfinished

ing a woman ar

furtively around the room in which they sat, taking in, wit

d be a fine place to fetch a woman to, wouldn't it

complained the occupant of

sententiously. As he spoke he

e a man of some stature, rugged and bronzed, with scores of wrinkles on his leathery cheeks. His garb was the rude one of the West,

a certain hardiness and vigor gained in his outdoor life, but he had not even the rude grace of a stalwart manhood about him. He sank apologetically into a lax posture, even as he stood. His pale blue eyes lacked fire. His hair, uneven, ragged and hay-colored, seemed dry, as though hopeless, discouraged, done with life, fringing

ose of an Indian, were bare to the elbows. He was always thus, so far as any neighbor could have remembered him, save that in the winter time he cast a sheepskin coat over all. His short legs were clad in blue overalls, so far as their outside cover was concerned, or at least the overalls once had been blue, though now much faded. Under these, as might be seen by a glance at their bottoms, were two, three, or possibly even more, pairs of trousers, all borne

time any determination or even animation about him. And yet he longed, apparently, for some s

llow-covered banks of a creek which ran nearby. A half-dozen head of mixed cattle followed him up to the gate, seeking a wider world. A

ition. The wisp of grass which hung now from the corner of his mouth seemed t

dge of the willow bank toward the front gate of his own ranch, a half-mile up the stream

e began to walk more slowly. A touch of

e-speaking aloud as men of the wilderne

h like that of the one which but now he had left. He paused for a momen

e. "I don't know. Still and