“Oh, well—­take it from the shoulder, then; I was only trying to lead up to it gradual, but yuh will have it raw.  You poor, dear cowboys, that live your lonely lives watching over your cattle with your faithful dogs and the stars for company, you’re going to be improved. (You’ll sure stand a lot of it, too!) A woman’s relief club back East has felt the burden of your no-accountness and general orneriness, and has sent one of its leading members out here to reform yuh.  You’re going to be hazed into a Cowboys’ Mutual Improvement and Social Society, and quit smoking cigarettes and cussing your hosses and laying over Rusty’s bar when yuh ride into town; and for pleasure and recreation you’re going to read Tennyson’s poems, and when yuh get caught out in a blizzard yuh’ll be heeled with Whittier’s Snowbound, pocket edition.  Emerson and Browning and Shakespeare and Gatty” (Andy misquoted; he meant Goethe) “and all them stiffs is going to be set before yuh regular and in your mind constant, purging it of unclean thoughts, and grammar is going to be learnt yuh as a side-line.  Yuh—­”

“Mama mine,” broke in Weary.  “I have thought sometimes, when Andy broke loose with that imagination uh his, that he’d gone the limit; but next time he always raises the limit out uh sight.  He’s like the Good Book says:  he’s prone to lie as the sparks fly-upward.”

Andy gazed belligerently at the skeptical group.  “I brought her out from town,” he said doggedly, “and whilst I own up to having an imagination, she’s stranger than fiction.  She’d make the fellow that wrote “She” lay down with a headache.  She’s come out here to help us cowboys live nobler, better lives.  She’s going to learn yuh Browning, darn yuh! and Emerson and Gatty.  She said so.  She’s going to fill your hearts with love for dumb creatures, so when yuh get set afoot out on the range, or anything like that, yuh won’t put in your time cussing the miles between you and camp; you’ll have a pocket edition of ’Much Ado About Nothing’ to read, or the speech Mark Anthony made when he was running for office.  Or supposing yuh left ’em all in camp, yuh’ll study nature.  There’s sermons in stones, she says.  She’s going to send for a pocket library that can easy be took on roundup—­”

“Say, I guess that’s about enough,” interrupted Pink restlessly.  “We all admit you’re the biggest liar that ever come West of the Mississippi, without you laying it on any deeper.”

Whereupon Andy rose in wrath and made a suggestive movement with his fist.  “If I was romancing,” he declared indignantly, “I’d do a smoother job; when I do lie, I notice yuh all believe it—­till yuh find out different.  And by gracious yuh might do as much when I’m telling the truth!  Go up to the White House and see, darn yuh!  If yuh don’t find Miss Verbena Martin up there telling the Little Doctor how her heart goes out to her dear cowboys and how she’s going to get in touch with ’em and help ’em lead nobler, better lives, you can kick me all round the yard.  And I hope, by gracious, she does improve yuh!  Yuh sure do need it a lot.”