It was a harsh blow to know that her pet had consorted with such a person, who was not only a sheepman but had earned his nickname in a way that our best people thought not nice.  He’d gone home one day years ago and found his favourite horse had been took by an Injun.  Being a simple-mannered man of few words, he just said that by sundown to-morrow he would of et the liver of the Injun that done the stealing.  I don’t know, personally, what happened, except that he did come back the next night with his horse.  Anyway no one ever begrudged him his title after that.  And here was Shelley Vane Plunkett, who had been carefully raised on fruits and cereals, taking up with such a nauseous character as a social equal.

Arline had the sheriff out at once for her darling, but Shelley got word and beat it farther.  He finally got to Seattle, where he found various jobs, and kept his mother guessing for three years.  He was afraid she’d make him start the curls again if he come home.  But finally, when he was eighteen, he did come, on her solemn promise to behave.  But he was no longer the angel-faced darling that had left, and he still expected at least one fight a day, though no longer wearing what would cause fights.  He’d formed the habit and just couldn’t leave off.  A body could hardly look at him without starting something unpleasant.  He was round like a barrel now, and tough and quick, and when anything did happen to be started he was the one that finished it.  Also, he’d have his hair cut close every five or six days.  He always looked like a prisoner that had started to let it grow about a week before he left the institution.  Shelley was taking no chances, and he used to get a strange, glittering look in his eye when he regarded little Keats, his baby brother, who was now coming on with golden curls just as beautiful as Shelley’s had ever been.  But he done nothing sinister.

In time he might of settled down and become a useful citizen, but right then the war broke out, so no more citizen stuff for Shelley.  It was almost too good to be true that he could go to a country where fighting was legal; not only that, but they’d give him board and lodging and a little spending money for doing the only thing he’d ever learned to do well.  It sure looked like heaven.  So off he went to Canada and enlisted and got sent across and had three years of perfect bliss, getting changed over to our Army when we finally got unneutral so you could tell it.

Of course his mother was almost more anguished about his going to war than about having his curls fixed with the sheep shears.  She said even if he wasn’t shot he would be sure to contract light habits in France, consisting of native wine and dancing, and so forth, and she hoped at least he could be a drummer boy or something safe.