“I reckon that’s so, all right, Mac,” assented Curly, reflectively.  “I could have et one more oyster or so, but I can quit if it’s for the good of the country.”

“Well, I’m feeling just a little bit guilty as it is,” said Dan Anderson, who was in fairly good post-prandial condition.  “Here we are, eating like lords.  Now who knows what that poor family from Kansas is having for Christmas dinner?  Mac, I appoint you a committee of one to see how they are getting along.  Pass the hat.  Make it about ten for the cake.  Come on, now, let’s find out about these folks.”

Curly was distinctly unhappy all the time McKinney was away.  It was half an hour before the latter came back, but the look on his face betrayed him.  Dan Anderson made him confess that he still had the ten dollars in his pocket, that he had been afraid to knock at the door, and that he had learned nothing whatever of the household from Kansas.  McKinney admitted that his nerve had failed, and that he dared not knock, but he said that he had summoned courage enough to look in at the window.  The family had either finished its dinner long ago, had not eaten, or did not intend to eat at all.  “The table looked some shy,” declared McKinney.  Beyond this he was incoherent, distressed, and plainly nervous.  Silence fell upon the entire group, and for some time each man in Dan Andersen’s salon was wrapped in thought.  Perhaps each one cast a furtive look from the tail of his eye at his neighbors.  Of all present, Curly seemed the happiest.  “Didn’t see the Littlest Girl?” he asked.  McKinney shook his head.

“Well, I guess I’ll be gettin’ up to see about my wagon before long,” said Tom Osby, rising and knocking his pipe upon his boot-heel.  “I’ve got a few cans of stuff up here in my load that I don’t really need.  In the mornin’, you know—­well, so long, boys.”

“I heard that Jim Peterson killed a deer the other day,” suggested Dan Anderson.  “I believe I’ll just step over and see if I can’t get a quarter of venison for those folks.”

“Shore,” said McKinney, “I’ll go along.  No, I won’t; I’ll take a pasear acrost the street and have a look at a little stuff I brung up from the ranch yesterday.”

“No Christmas,” said Curly, staring ahead of himself into the tobacco smoke, and indulging in a rare soliloquy.  “No Christmas dinner—­and this here is in Ameriky!”

It is difficult to tell just how it occurred; but presently, had any one of us turned to look about him, he must have found himself alone.  The moonlight streamed brilliantly over the long street of Heart’s Desire. . . .  The scarred sides of old Carrizo looked so close that one might almost have touched them with one’s hand. . . .

It was about three miles from the street, up over the foot-hills, along the fiat canon which debouched below the spring where lay the snowbank.  There were different routes which one could take. . . .