Had Homer the shadow of an excuse?  We shall see.

Well, then, this here celluloid imitation of a cowman that I been using violent words about come into the valley three years ago and rapidly got a lot of fame by reason of being a confirmed bachelor and hating the young of the human species with bitterness and constancy.  I was the one that brought him in; I admit that.  First time I seen him he was being a roistering blade in the Fashion Waffle Kitchen down at Red Gap.  He was with Sandy Sawtelle and a couple other boys from the ranch here, and Sandy tells me later that he is looking for work, being a good cowhand.  I said he looked like something else, being dressed in an uproarious check suit of clothes that would instantly of collected a crowd in most city streets.  But Sandy says that’s all right; he’s a regler cowman and had to wear these startling garments for a disguise to get him safe out of Idaho.

It seems he’d been crowded out of that thriving state by a yearning and determined milliner that had witnesses a-plenty and intended to do something about it.  Defendant claimed he hadn’t even meant anything of the sort and was just being a good pal; but it looked like the cruel teeth of the law was going to bite right into his savings if this breach-of-promise suit ever come to trial, the lady having letters from him in black and white.  So Homer had made a strategic retreat, avoiding contact with the enemy, and here he was.  And how about taking him on at the Arrowhead, where he could begin a new life?

Needing another hand just then, I fussed none at all about Homer’s scandalous past.  I said he could throw in with us; and he did.  When he got dressed in a legal manner he looked like he couldn’t be anything else but a cowhand.  About forty and reliable, he looked.  So I sent him to a summer camp over on the Madeline plains, where I had a bunch of cattle on government range.  Bert Glasgow lived in a shack with his wife and family there and had general charge, and Homer was to begin his new life by helping Bert.

His new life threatened to be short.  He showed up here late the third night after he went over, looking sad and desperate and hunted.  He did look that way more or less at all times, having one of these long, sad moustaches and a kind of a bit-into face.  This night he looked worse than usual.  I thought the hellhounds of the law from Idaho might of took up his winding trail; but no.  It was the rosy-cheeked tots of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Glasgow that had sent him out into the night.

“Say,” he says, “I wouldn’t have you think I was a quitter, but if you want to suicide me just send me back to that horrible place.  Children!” he says.  “That’s all; just children!  Dozens of ’em!  Running all over the place, into everything, under everything, climbing up on you, sticking their fingers into your eyes—­making life unbearable for man and beast.  You never once let on to me,” he says reproachfully, “that this Bert had children.”