“Yes, he beat Tommy,” said the Virginian.  “Some folks, anyway, get what they want in this hyeh world.”

From which I inferred that Miss Molly Wood was harder to beat than Tommy.

LIN McLEAN’S HONEY-MOON

Rain had not fallen for some sixty days, and for some sixty more there was no necessity that it should fall.  It is spells of weather like this that set the Western editor writing praise and prophecy of the boundless fertility of the soil—­when irrigated, and of what an Eden it can be made—­with irrigation; but the spells annoy the people who are trying to raise the Eden.  We always told the transient Eastern visitor, when he arrived at Cheyenne and criticised the desert, that anything would grow here—­with irrigation; and sometimes he replied, unsympathetically, that anything could fly—­with wings.  Then we would lead such a man out and show him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if he was thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-five thousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden.  One of these Eastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with the Governor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to him the glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country.  Now the Governor was about thirty-two, and until twenty-five had never gone West far enough to see over the top of the Alleghany Mountains.  I was not a pioneer myself; and why both of us should have pitied the New-Yorker’s narrowness so hard I cannot see.  But we did.  We spoke to him of the size of the country.  We told him that his State could rattle round inside Wyoming’s stomach without any inconvenience to Wyoming, and he told us that this was because Wyoming’s stomach was empty.  Altogether I began to feel almost sorry that I had asked him to come out for a hunt, and had travelled in haste all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne expressly to meet him.

“For purposes of amusement,” he said, “I’ll admit anything you claim for this place.  Ranches, cowboys, elk; it’s all splendid.  Only, as an investment I prefer the East.  Am I to see any cowboys?”

“You shall,” I said; and I distinctly hoped some of them might do something to him “for purposes of amusement.”

“You fellows come up with me to my office,” said the Governor.  “I’ll look at my mail, and show you round.”  So we went with him through the heat and sun.

“What’s that?” inquired the New-Yorker, whom I shall call James Ogden.

“That is our park,” said I.  “Of course it’s merely in embryo.  It’s wonderful how quickly any shade tree will grow here wi—­” I checked myself.

But Ogden said “with irrigation” for me, and I was entirely sorry he had come.

We reached the Governor’s office, and sat down while he looked his letters over.

“Here you are, Ogden,” said he.  “Here’s the way we hump ahead out here.”  And he read us the following: