“When two people is damn fools,” commented Tom Osby, gravely, “it’s all right for foreign powers to mediate a-plenty.”

“But what you goin’ to do?  She won’t bat a eye at him, and he ain’t goin’ to send for her.”

“Oh, yes he is,” corrected Tom Osby; and the forefinger, crowding tobacco into his pipe, worked vigorously.  “He’s got to send for her.”

“Looks to me like we can’t do nothin’,” replied his friend, pessimistically.  “I like that girl, too.  Say, I’ll braid her a nice hair rope and take it down to her.  Maybe that’ll kind o’ square things with her for losin’ out with Dan.”

“Yes,” scoffed Tom Osby, “that’s all the brains a fool cow puncher has got.  Do you reckon a hair lariat, or a new pair of spurs, is any decent remedy for a girl’s wownded affections?  No, sir, not none.  No, you go on down and take your old hair rope with you, and give it to the girl.  That’s all right; but you’re goin’ to take something else along with you at the same time.”

“What’s that?” “Why, you’re goin’ to take a letter to her,—­a letter from Dan Andersen’s death-bed.”

“Who—­me?  Death-bed?  Why, he ain’t on no death-bed.  He’s eatin’ three squares a day and settin’ up readin’ novels.  Death-bed nothin’!”

“Oh, no,” said Tom Osby, “that’s where you’re mistaken.  Dan Anderson is on his death-bed; and he writes his dyin’ confession, his message in such cases made and pervided.  He sends his last words to his own true love.  Says he, ‘All is forgiven.’  Then she flies to receive his dyin’ words.  You ain’t got no brains, Curly.  You ain’t got no imagi_na_tion.  Why, if I left all this to you, she’d get here too late for the funeral.  You’re a specialist, Curly.  You can rope and throw a two-thousand-pound steer, but you can’t handle a woman that don’t weigh over a hundred and twenty-five.  Now, you watch your Pa.”

Curly sat and looked at him in silence for a few minutes, but at last a light seemed to dawn upon him.  “Oh, I see,” said he, smiling broadly.  “You mean for us to get up a letter for him—­write it out and send it, like he done it hisself.”

Tom Osby nodded.  “Of course—­that’s the only way.  There wouldn’t either of them write to the other one.  That’s the trouble with these here States girls, and them men from the States, too.  You have to take care of ’em.  You and me has got to be gardeens for these two folks.  If we don’t, they’re goin’ to make all kinds of trouble for theirselves and each other.”

“Kin you disguise your handwritin’ any, Tom?” asked Curly.  “I can’t.  Mine’s kind of sot.”

“Curly,” answered Tom, with scorn, “what you call your brains is only a oroide imitation of a dollar watch.  Why, of course we can’t write a letter and sign his name to it deliberate.  That’s forgery, and we’d get into the penitentiary for it.  That ain’t the way to do.