“No,” replied Lin, uneasily.

“There!  I told him a man didn’t, an’ he said then a man went to hell.  ‘You lie; father ain’t going to hell,’ I says, and you’d ought to heard the first class laugh right out loud, girls an’ boys.  An’ he was that mad!  But I didn’t care.  I came here with fifty cents.”

“Yu’ must have felt like a millionaire.”

“Ah, I felt all right!  I bought papers an’ sold ’em, an’ got more an’ saved, ant got my box an’ blacking outfit.  I weren’t going to be licked by her just because she felt like it, an’ she feeling like it most any time.  Lemme see your pistol.”

“You wait,” said Lin.  “After this show is through I’ll put it on you.”

“Will you, honest?  Belt an’ everything?  Did you ever shoot a bear?”

“Lord! lots.”

“Honest?  Silver-tips?”

“Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cub onced.”

“O-h!  I never shot a bear.”

“You’d ought to try it.”

“I’m a-going to.  I’m a-going to camp out in the mountains.  I’d like to see you when you camp.  I’d like to camp with you.  Mightn’t I some time?” Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly.

“You bet!” said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy.  As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he met—­ the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite play for him, and his hand went to the boy’s shoulder.

“Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off.  Father gets awful drunk, too.  I’ve quit Laramie for good.”

Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy.  “Laramie!” said he, almost shouting it.  “Yu’—­yu’—­is your name Lusk?”

But the boy had shrunk from him instantly.  “You’re not going to take me home?” he piteously wailed.

“Heaven and heavens!” murmured Lin McLean.  “So you’re her kid!”

He relaxed again, down in his chair, his legs stretched their straight length below the chair in front.  He was waked from his bewilderment by a brushing under him, and there was young Billy diving for escape to the aisle, like the cornered city mouse that he was.  Lin nipped that poor little attempt and had the limp Billy seated inside again before the two in discussion beyond had seen anything.  He had said not a word to the boy, and now watched his unhappy eyes seizing upon the various exits and dispositions of the theatre; nor could he imagine anything to tell him that should restore the perished confidence.  “Why did yu’ lead him off?” he asked himself unexpectedly, and found that he did not seem to know; but as he watched the restless and estranged runaway he grew more and more sorrowful.  “I just hate him to think that of me,” he reflected.  The curtain rose, and he saw Billy make up his mind to wait until they should all be going out in the crowd.