Smoky grinned.  Being the son of an old settler, he held squatters in detestation.  Of late years they had invaded the foothills.  Pap Ransom was openly at feud with them.  They stole his cattle, cut his fences, and one of them, Jake Farge, had dared to take up a claim inside the old man’s back-pasture.

Smoky stared at Mintie.  Then he said abruptly—­

“You look kinder peaky-faced.  Anything wrong?”

“Nothing,” replied Mintie.

“You ain’t a-worryin’ about your Pap, air ye?  I reckon he kin take keer of himself.”

“I reckon he kin; so kin his daughter.”

“Shall I put my plug into the barn?”

“We’re mighty short of hay,” said Mintie inhospitably.

Smoky Jack stared at her and laughed.  Then he slipped from the saddle, pulled the reins over the horse’s head, and threw the ends on the ground.  With a deprecating smile he said softly—­

“Air you very extry busy, Mints?”

“Not very extry.  Why?”

“I’ve a notion to read ye something.  It come to me las’ Sunday week in the middle of the night.  An’ now it’s slicked up to the Queen’s taste.”

“Poetry?”

“I dunno as it’s that—­after the remarks you passed about that leetle piece I sent to the Tribune.”

“You sent it?  Of all the nerve——!  Did they print it?”

Smoky Jack shook his head.

“Never expected they would,” he admitted mournfully.  “I won’t deny that it was kind o’——­”

“Slushy?” hazarded Mintie.

“Wal—­yes.  You’d made all sorts of a dodgasted fool outer me.”

“Yer father and mother done that.”

“I’ve said as much to Maw, many’s the time.  ‘Maw’ I’d say, ’I ain’t a masterpiece—­and I know it.’  But las’ Sunday night I was inspired.”

He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.  Mintie frowned.  With a shy glance and heightened colour the man who had been inspired whispered softly—­

“It’s entitled, ‘To My Own Brown Bird.’”

“And who’s your brown bird?” demanded Mintie sharply.

“As if you didn’t know.”

“Meanin’ me?”

“Couldn’t naturally be nobody else.”

“I’m not yours; and as for bein’ brown, why, my skin is white as milk.”

“I’ll bet my life it is.”

“As for bein’ a bird, that ain’t no compliment.  Birds is first cousins to snakes.  Never knew that, did ye?”

“Never—­s’elp me!  Is that really so?”

Covered with mortification, he put the paper back into his pocket.

“Read it,” commanded the young lady.  “Let’s get it over an’ done with.  Then, mebbe, I’ll help ye to rechristen the durned thing.”

Emboldened by this gracious speech, Smoky began in a nasal, drawling voice—­

      “I’ve wandered far—­I’ve wandered wide——­”

“Ananias!” said Mintie.  “You was born in these yere foothills, and raised in ’em; and you’ve never known enough to git out of ’em.”