The man who thought Simpson’s system lacked science rubbed his hands in delight.  “She took the trick all right; swept his hand clean off the board!”

II

The Encounter

Simpson, from the seat to which he had been so rapidly transplanted, looked about him with blinking anxiety.  It was more than probable that the boys intended “to have fun with him,” though his talking, or rather trying to talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was, according to his ethics, plainly none of their business.  He knew he wasn’t popular since he had done for Jim Rodney’s sheep, though the crime had never been laid at his door, officially.  He had his way to make, the same as the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to get Jim Rodney’s sheep off the range, even if they treated him as a felon for the part he had played in their extermination.

Thus reasoned Simpson, while he marked with an uneasy eye that the temper of the company had grown decidedly prankish with the exit of the girl, who, after having caused all the trouble, had, with an irritating quality peculiar to her sex, vanished through the kitchen door.

Some three or four of the boys now ran to Simpson’s former seat at the table and rushed towards him with his half-eaten breakfast, as if the errand had been one of life and death.  They showered him with mock attentions, waiting on him with an exaggerated deference, and the pale, fat man, remembering the hideousness of some of their manifestations of a sense of humor, breathed hard and felt a falling-off of appetite.

Costigan, the cattle-man, a strapping Irish giant, was clearing his throat with ominous sounds that suggested the tuning-up of a bass fiddle.

“Sure, Simpson, me lad, if ye happen to have a matther av fifty dollars, ’tis mesilf that can tell ye av an illegint invistmint.”

Simpson looked up warily, but Costigan’s broad countenance did not harbor the wraith of a smile.  “What kin I git for fifty chips?  ’Tain’t much,” mused the pariah, with the prompt inclination to spend that stamps the comparative stranger to ready money.

“Ye can git a parrut, man—­a grane parrut—­to kape ye coompany while ye’re aiting—­”

Simpson interrupted with an oath.

“Don’t be hard on old Simmy; remember he’s studied for the ministry!  How did I savey that Simpson aimed to be a sharp on doctrine?” A cow-puncher with a squint addressed the table in general.  “I scents the aroma of dogma about Simpson in the way he throwed his conversational lariat at the yearling.  He urbanes at her, and then comes his ‘firstly,’ it being a speculation as to her late grazing-ground, which he concludes to be the East.  His ‘secondly’ ain’t nothing startling, words familiar to us all from our mother’s knee—­’nice weather’—­the congregation ain’t visibly moved.  His ‘thirdly’ is insinuating.  In it he hints that it ain’t good for man to be alone at meals—­”