“What’s a passive verb, Bill?”

“I didn’t never figure it out, exactly.  However, it seems like they’re something that slows you up the way a muddy road slows up a hoss.  And then she begun talking about the mountains, and then she begun asking—­

“About you!” suggested Ronicky with a grin.

“Confound you,” said Bill Gregg.  “How come you guessed that?”

“I dunno.  I just sort of scented what was coming.”

“Well, anyways, that’s what she done.  And pretty soon she sent me a snapshot of herself.  Well—­”

“Lemme see it,” said Ronicky Doone calmly.

“I dunno just where it is, maybe,” replied Bill Gregg.

“Ill tell you.  It’s right around your neck, in that nugget locket you wear there.”

For a moment Bill Gregg hated the other with his eyes, and then he submitted with a sheepish grin, took off the locket, which was made of one big nugget rudely beaten into shape, and opened it for the benefit of Ronicky Doone.  It showed the latter not a beautiful face, but a pretty one with a touch of honesty and pride that made her charming.

“Well, as soon as I got that picture,” said Bill Gregg, as he took back the locket, “I sure got excited.  Looked to me like that girl was made for me.  A lot finer than I could ever be, you see, but simple; no fancy frills, no raving beauty, maybe, but darned easy to look at.

“First thing I done I went in and got a copy of my face made and rushed it right back at her and then—­” He stopped dolefully.  “What d’you think, Ronicky?”

“I dunno,” said Ronicky; “what happened then?”

“Nothing, not a thing.  Not a word came back from her to answer that letter I’d sent along.”

“Maybe you didn’t look rich enough to suit her, Bill.”

“I thought that, and I thought it was my ugly face that might of made her change her mind.  I thought of pretty near everything else that was bad about me and that she might of read in my face.  Sure made me sick for a long time.  Somebody else was correcting my lessons, and that made me sicker than ever.

“So I sat down and wrote a letter to the head of the school and told him I’d like to get the address of that first girl.  You see, I didn’t even know her name.  But I didn’t get no answer.”

Ronicky groaned.  “It don’t look like the best detective in the world could help you to find a girl when you don’t know her name.”  He added gently:  “But maybe she don’t want you to find her?”

“I thought that for a long time.  Then, a while back, I got a letter from San Francisco, saying that she was coming on a train through these parts and could I be in Stillwater because the train stopped there a couple of minutes.  Most like she thought Stillwater was just sort of across the street from me.  Matter of fact, I jumped on a hoss, and it took me three days of breaking my neck to get near Stillwater and then—­” He stopped and cast a gloomy look on his companion.