players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa, played a brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerful drama of “East Lynne.”  Then Mr. McLean thought of the Lynn marshes that lie between there and Chelsea, and of the sea that must look so cool.  He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel; but, going to bed in the back part of the drug-store, he remembered how he used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water.

“I’m goin’,” he said.  Then he got up, and, striking the light, he inspected his bank account.  “I’m sure goin’,” he repeated, blowing the light out, “and I can buy the fatted calf myself, you bet!” for he had often thought of the bishop’s story.  “You bet!” he remarked once more in a muffled voice, and was asleep in a minute.  The apothecary was sorry to have him go, and Honey was deeply grieved.

“I’d pull out with yer,” he said, “only I can do business round Yuma and westward with the pinto.”

For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts of places, where they were welcome, and once more Lin rode a horse and was in his native element.  Then he travelled to Deming, and so through Denver to Omaha, where he was told that his trunk had been sold for some months.  Besides a suit of clothes for town wear, it had contained a buffalo coat for his brother—­something scarce to see in these days.

“Frank’ll have to get along without it,” he observed, philosophically, and took the next eastbound train.

If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, and with a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirt instead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft, gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but not the majority.  New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things.  As Iowa, with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare a little more, for you’re getting near the East, where cow-punchers are not understood.  But in those days the line of cleavage came sharp-drawn at Chicago.  West of there was still tolerably west, but east of there was east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next important stopping-place.  In Lin’s new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, and silence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Boston without change.  Had not home memories begun impetuously to flood his mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous.  Town clothes and conventions had their due value with him.  But just now the boy’s single-hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he was murmuring to himself, “To-morrow! tomorrow night!”