in the mines, didn’t you?  No?  Well, that’s so; you dint seen many people out on the flat, have you?  Hum.  I don’t know principally where to begin.  You remember Wind-River Smith’s pardner that the boys called Shadder, because he was so thin?  Nice feller, always willing to do you a favour, or say something comical when you least expected it—­had kind of a style with him, too.  Yes, sir, that’s the man.  Well him and me was out in the Bend one day, holding a mess of Oregon half-breeds that was to be shipped by train shortly, when old Smithy comes with the mail.  ’Letter for you, Shadder,’ says Smith, and passes over a big envelope with wads of sealing wax all over it.  Shadder reads his letter, and folds it up.  Then he takes a look over the county—­the kind of a look a man gives when he’s thinking hard.  Then says he, ’Red, take off your hat.’  I done it.  ‘Smithy, take off your hat.’  ‘All right,’ says Smith; ’but you tell me why, or I’ll snake the shirt off you to square things.’

“‘Boys,’ says Shadder, ‘I’m Lord Walford.’

“‘Lord Hellford;’ hollers Smithy.  ’You’d better call somebody in to look at your plumbing—­what you been drinkin’, Shadder?’

“‘Read for yourself,’ says Shadder, and he handed him the letter.

“Wish’t you could have seen old Smithy’s face as he read it!  He thought his pardner had been cut out of his herd for ever.

“‘It’s the God’s truth, Red,’ says he slowly, and he had a sideways smile on his face as he turned to Shadder.  ‘Well, sir,’ says he, ‘I suppose congratulations are in order?’

“Shadder’s hand stopped short on its way to the cigarette, and he looked at Smithy as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.

“’To hell with ’em!’ says he, as savage as a wildcat, and he jabbed the irons in and whirled his cayuse about on one toe, heading for the ranch.

“‘Now you go after him, you jealous old sore-head,’ says I.  ’Go on!’ I says, as he started to argue the point, ’or I’ll spread your nose all the way down your spinal column!’ The only time to say ‘no’ to me is when I’m not meaning what I say, so away goes Wind-River, and they made it up all right in no time.  Well, Shadder had to pull for England to take a squint at the ancestral estates, and all of us was right here at this station to see him off—­Lord! it seems as if that happened last world!—­well, it took a little bit the edge off any and all drunks a ranch as an institution had ever seen before.  There was old Smithy crying around, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and explaining to a lot of Eastern folks that it wasn’t Shadder’s fault—­gad-hook it all!  He was the best, hootin’, tootin’ son-of-a-sea-cook that ever hit a prairie breeze, in spite of this dum foolishness.

“‘They can’t make no “lord” of Shadder!’ hollers Smithy.  ’That is, not for long—­he’s a man, Shadder is—­ain’t cher, yer damned old gangle-legged hide-rack?’