Cal Emmett blurted the real cause of their astonishment.  “You’ll have to sign the pledge, first pass,” he said.  “That’s going to be the ante in her game.  How—­”

“Well, I don’t play nobody’s hand, or stake anybody’s chips, but my own,” Irish retorted, the blood showing under the tan on his cheeks.

“And we won’t das’t roll a cigarette, even, by golly!” reminded Slim.  For Miss Martin, whether intentionally or not, had made plain to them the platform of the new society.

Irish got some deep creases between his eyebrows, and put back his saddle.  “You can do as yuh like,” he said, coldly.  “I’m going to stay and go to meeting this afternoon, according to her invite.  If it’s going to make that poor old freak feel any better thinking she’s a real missionary—­” He turned and walked out of the stable without finishing the sentence, and the Happy Family stood quite still and watched him go.

Pink it was who first spoke.  “I ain’t the boy to let any long-legged son-of-a-gun like Irish hit a gait I can’t follow,” he dimpled, and took the saddle reluctantly off Toots.  “If he can stand it, I guess I can.”

Weary loosened his latigo.  “If Cadwolloper is going to learn poetry, I will, too,” he grinned.  “Mama! it’ll be good as a three-ringed circus!  I never thought uh that, before.  I couldn’t miss it.”

“Oh, well, if you fellows take a hand, I’ll sure have to be there to see,” Andy decided.  “Two o’clock, did she say?”

* * * * *

“I hate to be called a quitter,” Pink remarked dispiritedly to the Happy Family in general; a harassed looking Happy Family, which sat around and said little, and watched the clock.  In an hour they would be due to attend the second meeting of the M.I.S.S.—­and one would think, from the look of them, that they were about to be hanged.  “I hate to be called a quitter, but right here’s where I lay ’em down.  The rest of yuh can go on being improved, if yuh want to—­darned if I will, though.  I’m all in.”

“I don’t recollect hearing anybody say we wanted to,” growled Jack Bates.  “Irish, maybe, is still burning with a desire to be nice and chivalrous; but you can count me out.  One dose is about all I can stand.”

“By golly, I wouldn’t go and feel that foolish again, not if yuh paid me for it,” Slim declared.

Irish grinned and reached for his hat.  “I done my damnettest,” he said cheerfully.  “I made the old girl happy once; now, one Irish Mallory is due to have a little joy coming his way.  I’m going to town.”

    “’Break, break, break, on thy cold, gray crags, oh sea,
    And I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that come over me.’

“You will observe, gentlemen, the beautiful sentiment, the euphonious rhythm, the noble—­” Weary went down, still declaiming mincingly, beneath four irate bodies that hurled themselves toward him and upon him.