And the scout smoked a cigarette and got sick by it, and cried something fierce; so they made a fire, and the princess didn’t get sick when she smoked hers, but told them a couple of bully stories, like reading in a book, and ate every one of the greasy sugared crullers, because she was a genuine princess, and Boogies thought at this time that maybe the boundless West wasn’t what it was cracked up to be; so, after they met the madam, the madam said, well, if they was wanting to go out West they might as well come along here; and they said all right—­as long as they was wanting to go out West anyway, why, they might as well come along with her as with anybody else.

And that Chink would mighty soon find out if Little Sure Shot wasn’t the real Peruvian doughnuts, because that old murderer would sure have him hard to find, come sundown; still, he was glad he had come along with the madam, because back there it wasn’t any job for you, account of getting too fat for the uniform, with every one giving you the laugh that way—­and they wouldn’t get you a bigger one—.

I left Boogies then, though he seemed not to know it.  His needle worked swiftly on the red one he was making for the madam, and his aimless, random phrases seemed to flow as before; but I knew now where to apply for the details that had been too many for his slender gift of narrative.

At four that afternoon Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill, accompanied by one Buck Devine, a valued retainer, rode into the yard and dismounted.  She at once looked searchingly about her.  Then she raised her voice, which is a carrying voice even when not raised:  “You, Jimmie Time!”

Once was enough.  The door of the bunk house swung slowly open and the disgraced one appeared in all his shameful panoply.  The cap was pulled well down over a face hopelessly embittered.  The shrunken little figure drooped.

“None of that hiding out!” admonished his judge.  “You keep standing round out here where decent folks can look at you and see what a bad boy you are.”

With a glance she identified me as one of the decent she would have edified.  Jimmie Time muttered evilly in undertones and slouched forward, head down.

“Ain’t he the hostile wretch?” called Buck Devine, who stood with the horses.  He spoke with a florid but false admiration.

Jimmie Time, snarling, turned on him:  “You go to—.”

I perceived that Lew Wee the night before had delicately indicated by a mere initial letter a bad word that could fall trippingly from the lips of Jimmie.

“Sure!” agreed Buck Devine cordially.  “And say, take this here telegram up to the corner of Broadway and Harlem; and move lively now—­don’t you stop to read any of them nickel liberries.”

I saw what a gentleman should do.  I turned my back on the piteous figure of Jimmie Time.  I moved idly off, as if the spectacle of his ignominy had never even briefly engaged me.