“No more than I can from you,” Jose sprang to his feet with light agility and, leaning forward, made as if about to imprint a kiss upon her forehead.

But he had reckoned without his host.  Mrs. Nitschkan’s arm shot out before he saw it, and he was sent staggering halfway across the room.  “A poor, perishin’ brother tried that on me once,” she remarked casually.  “It was in Willy Barker’s drug store over to Mt.  Tabor.  Celora was with me—­she was about four—­and I just set her down on the counter and said, ’Now, Celora, set good and quiet and watch Mommie go for the masher real pretty.’”

“I don’t see why you got to be so rough on the boys, Sadie,” deplored Mrs. Thomas, rocking slowly back and forth in a large chair. “’Course we know they’re devils and all, but if it wasn’t for their goin’s on, trying to snatch a kiss now and then, life would seem awful tame for us poor, patient women.  And even the worst of ’em’s better’n none at all.  Look at me!  I had the luck to get a cross-grained, cranky one, as you know.  Poor Seth!” She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes.  “But you got to admit, Sadie, that even he was white enough to up and die before I got too old for other gentlemen to take notice of me.”

“What’d you want ’em to take notice of you for?” asks Mrs. Nitschkan abstractedly, her mind on her flies.

“It’s easy enough for you to talk that way,” Mrs. Thomas spoke with some heat.  “You got the what-you-may-callems—­accomplishments—­that gets their notice.  You’re apt to skin ’em at cards, you can easy out-shoot ’em, and there ain’t a lady miner in the mountains that can pass off a salted property as cute as you.”

“What’s the use of livin’ in a world of tenderfoots if you don’t use ’em?” growled Mrs. Nitschkan.

“’Course.  And don’t think I’m blaming you, Sadie; I ain’t.”  Mrs. Thomas spoke more gently.  “All I’m sayin’ is that you can’t understand the women that’s born feeling the need of a strong right arm to lean on, and has nothing but a nice complexion and a loving heart to offer.  The game’s a hard one for them, ’cause there’re so many others in the field.  It ain’t always a complexion; sometimes it’s a head of hair, or eyes, but whatever it is, competition’s keen.  I leave it to you, Mr. Jose, if a lady can say to a gentleman the first time she meets him, ’I got a dandy temper,’ or ’I can bake a pie that’ll coax the coyotes down from the hills.’  No, you got to let the hair or complexion do its work first and sort o’ insinuate the rest as acquaintance grows.”

“There’s a man comin’ up here to-morrow, Marthy, but he won’t know whether you got a strand of hair or a tooth in your head; he’ll never see you.”

“Maybe he can’t help it—­not if I stand right in his way,” said Mrs. Thomas, with a coy glance from under her lashes at Jose.

“Oh, yes, he can,” returned Mrs. Nitschkan.  “No matter who’s in the way he can’t see but one person, and that’s that sulky Pearl; for it’s good old Bob Flick, one of the best ever.”