“I want to see that engine-man,” muttered Lin.  “I don’t like your smokin’ friend.”

“Pete Goode?  Why, he’s awful smart.  Don’t you think he’s smart?”

“Smart’s nothin’,” observed Mr. McLean.

“Pete has learned me and Sidney a lot,” pursued Billy, engagingly.

“I’ll bet he has!” growled the cow-puncher; and again Billy was taken aback at his language.

It was not so simple, this case.  To the perturbed mind of Mr. McLean it grew less simple during that day at Golden, while Billy recovered, and talked, and ate his innocent meals.  The cow-puncher was far too wise to think for a single moment of restoring the runaway to his debauched and shiftless parents.  Possessed of some imagination, he went through a scene in which he appeared at the Lusk threshold with Billy and forgiveness, and intruded upon a conjugal assault and battery.  “Shucks!” said he.  “The kid would be off again inside a week.  And I don’t want him there, anyway.”

Denver, upon the following day, saw the little bootblack again at his corner, with his trade not lost; but near him stood a tall, singular man, with hazel eyes and a sulky expression.  And citizens during that week noticed, as a new sight in the streets, the tall man and the little boy walking together.  Sometimes they would be in shops.  The boy seemed as happy as possible, talking constantly, while the man seldom said a word, and his face was serious.

Upon New-year’s Eve Governor Barker was overtaken by Mr. McLean riding a horse up Hill Street, Cheyenne.

“Hello!” said Barker, staring humorously through his glasses.  “Have a good drunk?”

“Changed my mind,” said Lin, grinning.  “Proves I’ve got one.  Struck Christmas all right, though.”

“Who’s your friend?” inquired his Excellency.

“This is Mister Billy Lusk.  Him and me have agreed that towns ain’t nice to live in.  If Judge Henry’s foreman and his wife won’t board him at Sunk Creek—­why, I’ll fix it somehow.”

The cow-puncher and his Responsibility rode on together toward the open plain.

“Sufferin Moses!” remarked his Excellency.

SEPAR’S VIGILANTE

We had fallen half asleep, my pony and I, as we went jogging and jogging through the long sunny afternoon.  Our hills of yesterday were a pale-blue coast sunk almost away behind us, and ahead our goal lay shining, a little island of houses in this quiet mid-ocean of sage-brush.  For two hours it had looked as clear and near as now, rising into sight across the huge dead calm and sinking while we travelled our undulating, imperceptible miles.  The train had come and gone invisibly, except for its slow pillar of smoke I had watched move westward against Wyoming’s stainless sky.  Though I was still far off, the water-tank and other buildings stood out plain and complete to my eyes, like children’s blocks arranged and forgotten on the floor.  So I rode along, hypnotized by the sameness of the lazy, splendid plain, and almost unaware of the distant rider, till, suddenly, he was close and hailing me.