The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush

westward faring the railroad traffic manager, whose business followed him like an implacable Nemesis wherever he went, had wire instructions to

bridge spanning the clay-colored flood of the Missouri River at Omaha, and he was entering upon scenes which ought to have been familia

quaintanceships in the smoking-compartment. But it was not until the second day, after the dining-car luncheon and its aftermath of a well-chosen cigar had broken down some of the barriers of the acquired reserve, that he fell into talk with the prosperous-looking gentleman w

ewly devised Nessus shirt, to sustain an undivided half of it. The hawk-faced one, who had boarded the train at Omaha and whose section was direc

ern career would have given him little occasion to dip into the mining codes, he had specialized somewhat in mining law. Hence, when the hawk-faced man had told his s

ts in timber-lands, or, rather, in certain lumber companies operating "in the mountains"-bad investments, he feared, since the Government had lately taken such a decided stand against the cutting of timber in the mounta

t a little amused by the nervous anxiety of th

mouth," was the form the opinion took. "The plain citizen who isn't familiar with the methods of the timber sharks would do w

chair. "If you were a Government agent yourself you could

is fellow-men than a disposition to yield to the sudden joking impulse. But the hawk-faced man'

a Government agent?" he demande

ing on Government transporta

ler should have taken the trouble to make the discovery. But at the m

that," he countered, laughing. "A good many civilian employees of t

a swift eye-shot which Blount missed: "Especially if they happen to b

hat the department could make use of," returned Blount,

er on, after the talk had drifted back to mining, and from mining to politics, the nervous gentleman pleaded wear

ttle familiarity save in the broader outlines. Where he remembered only the fallow-dun prairie, dotted with dog-mounds, there were now vast ranches planted to sod corn; and upon the hills the cattle ranges were no longer open. The towns, too, at which the train made its momentary stops, were changed. The straggling shack hamlets of the cattle-shipping

d, the self-contained, found a curious transformation working itself out in quickened pulses and exhilarating nerve-tinglings. Boston, the Law School, the East of the narrow walk-ways and the still narrower rut of custom and convention, were fading into a past which already seemed age-old a

amiliar, the hum of talk, the hurrying of the waiters, and the subdued clamor drowning itself in the under-drone of the drumming wheels answered well enough for companionship. There are times when even the voice of a friend is an intrusion, and the returning exile

renewal of the heart-stirrings; and when he finally had the longed-for sight of a bunch of grazing cattle, with the solitary night-herd hanging by one leg in the saddle to watch the passing of the train, the call of the homeland was tru

ad become only a picturesque memory; and out of the heart-stirrings and pulse-quickenings came the answer: "I more than ha

lount turned quickly to find that a big, bearded man, smoking an ab

as any human being is when he is caught talking to himself. But with the transformation had com

cknowledged. "I thought I st

ppraisively. "You don't look like a man who has had to hang

back we passed a bunch of cattle, with the night man riding watch; I was just saying to mysel

ep-chested rumbling suggestive o

e got a li'l' blue horse out on my place in the Antelopes that'd plumb give his ears to have you try it; he shore

ture, if the chance should offer while I'm in the notion. I believe I'd take it. I haven

e as a bear's paw. Following the hand-grip he grew confidential. "'Long in the afternoon I stuck my head in at the door

tly. "He has the section opposi

," was the bearded man's comment. Then: "Tryin'

, n

p to the cross and skin you alive if there was any money in it for him. His

" said Blount

Simon Peter Judas. I don't blacklist no man in the dark, and I've said a heap more to that old ratter's face than I've ever said behind his back. Ump!

in the bit of gossip as in the big, red-faced ra

e bare justice of saying that he wasn't trying to sell me anything. The shoe was on the othe

askin' for advice? You've done stirred up my curiosity a whole heap, and

a special agent for the Government, trav

nd laid a swollen finger on Blount's knee. "Say, boy, before you

e long, heavy train came to a juggling stop. The ranchman sprang to his feet with

omething right slap in the middle of the yard! Let's make a bre

closer range, the accident appeared to be disastrous only in a material sense. The heavy "Pacific-type" locomotive had stumbled over the tongue of a split switch, leav

oint for the mines at Lewiston, thirty miles beyond the Lost Hills. Now, as it appeared, it had become a lumber-shipping station. To the left of the railroad there were numerous sawmills, each with its mountain of waste dominated by a black chimney, s

n upon him. Some forty-odd miles away to the northeast, just beyond the horizon-lifting lesser range, lay the "short-grass" region in which he had spent the happy boyhood. An hour's gallop through the hills to the westward the level rays of the setting sun would be playing upon the little station of P

in. The young man, fresh from the well-calculated East, threw up his head and sniffed the keen, cool breeze sweeping down from the northern hills. He was not given to impulsive plan-changing. On the contrary, he was slow to resolve and proportio

n of the heart-stirring recollections? Doubtless old Jason Debbleby was at this moment sitting on the door-step of his lonely ranch-house in the Pigskin foot-hills, smoking his corn-cob pipe and, quite possibly, wondering what had become of the boy whom he

his boyhood crossed quickly to a livery-stable opposite the station, bargained for a saddle-horse, borrowed a poncho and a pair of leggings, and prepared to break violently, for the moment at least, with all the civilized traditions. He wou

nt was on the point of recognizing his companion of the Pullman smoking-compartment as he rode past the hotel to take the trail to the northward, but a curious conviction that the gentleman with the bird-of-prey eyes was making him the subject of the earnest talk with the three men of doubtful occupation restrained him. A moment later, when he looked back from th

ith the squeak of the saddle-leather in his ears and the smell of it in his nostrils, and with the wide world of the immensities into which to ride unhampered and free, the lost boyhood w

the eastern mountains withdrawing and the Lost River Range looming larger as its lofty sky-line was struck out sharply against the sunset horizon. Farther on, in the transition darkness between sunset and moonrise, the trail disappeared entirely; but so long as he was sure of the general direction, Blount held on and gave the tireless littl

kind of cover, he could not make out the horseman who was evidently passing him and going in the same direction. At first he thought it was some one who was making a détour to avoid him. Then he smiled at the absurdity of the guess and concluded that he h

sign of a water-leading gulch to guide him to the Pigskin, and the bronco was patiently picking its way through the hogback of th

tted that the boyhood memories were hopelessly and altogether at fault in the deceptive moonlight. Blount gave the horse a breathing halt on one of the hogbacks