“Haw-Haw,” answered Mac Strann, “Will
you gimme a hand saddlin’ my hoss? I got
an appointment, an’ I’m two minutes late
already.”
DOCTOR BYRNE ANALYSES
In the room which had been assigned to his use Doctor
Randall Byrne sat down to an unfinished letter and
began to write.
“Dinner has interrupted me, my dear Loughburne.
I have dined opposite Miss Cumberland—only
the two of us at a great table—with a wide
silence around us—and the Chinese cook padding
to and fro from the kitchen. Have I told you
of that room? No, I believe that I have made no
more than casual mention of my environment here, for
reasons which are patent. But to-night I wished
that you might look in upon the scene. Along
the walls hang a rope with which Mr. Cumberland won
a roping and tieing contest in his youth—a
feat upon which he prides himself highly; at another
place hang the six-shooters of a notorious desperado,
taken from his dead body; there is the sombrero of
a Mexican guerilla chief beside the picture of a prize
bull, and an oil painting of Mr. Cumberland at middle
age adjoins an immense calendar on which is portrayed
the head of a girl in bright colours—a creature
with amazing quantities of straw-coloured hair.
The table itself is of such size that it is said all
the guests at a round-up—a festival of note
in these barbaric regions—can be easily
seated around it. On one side of this table I
sat—and on the other side sat the girl,
as far away as if an entire room had separated us.
“Before going down to the meal I had laid aside
my glasses, for I have observed that spectacles, though
often beneficial to the sight, are not always equally
commendable in the opinion of women; and it should
assuredly be one’s endeavour to become agreeable
to those about us.
“Be it noted at this point, my dear Loughburne,
that I have observed peculiar properties in the eyes
of Miss Cumberland. Those of all other humans
and animals that have fallen under my observance were
remarkable only for their use in seeing, whereas the
eyes of Miss Cumberland seem peculiarly designed to
be seen. This quality I attribute to the
following properties of the said eyes. First,
they are in size well beyond the ordinary. Secondly,
they are of a colour restful to behold. It is,
indeed, the colour of the deep, blue evening sky into
which one may stare for an incalculable distance.
“As I have said, then, I noted a glow in these
eyes, though they were so immediately lowered that
I could not be sure. I felt, however, an extraordinary
warmth beneath my collar, the suffusion of blood passing
swiftly towards my forehead. I inquired if she
had smiled and for what reason; whereat she immediately
assured me that she had not, and smiled while making
the assurance.
“I was now possessed of an unusual agitation,
augmented by the manner in which Miss Cumberland looked
at me out of twinkling but not unkindly eyes.
What could have caused this perturbation I leave to
your scientific keenness in analysis.
