Said Browning:  “I say, Jim, did you mean that mustang story to go for an excuse for Miss Rose calling me ‘Jack?’”

“O, no!” said Sedgwick, “when she called you Jack, she was just a silly colt that could not discriminate.”

“I see,” said Browning, “but I say, Jim, you ought to have been here then.  By Jove, she might have even fancied you.”

“Don’t you dare to talk that way,” said Sedgwick, “or I will try to cut you out when we see her, unless, as is quite possible, she has already been some happy man’s wife for two or three years.”

“Jim, I say, stop that!” said Browning.  “It will be time to face that infernal possibility when I cannot help it.  Bless my soul, but the thought of it makes me sea-sick.”

They breakfasted together, and were smoking their after-breakfast cigars—­Nevada-like—­when the church bells began to ring.

“When did you attend church last, Browning?” asked Sedgwick.

“I have been a good deal remiss in that,” was the reply.

“Suppose we go.  It will be a novelty, and you will see more friends there than in any other place.”

“A good thought, old boy,” said Browning, “and we shall have time only to dress.”

A few minutes later they emerged from the hotel, and proceeded to the old church that Browning had attended during all his childhood.

Queerly enough, the sermon was on the return of the Prodigal Son.  The good clergyman dilated on his theme.  He told what a tough citizen the Prodigal Son was in his youth, how he was given to boating and steeple-chasing, and staying out nights and worrying the old father, until finally he ran away.  “Photographing you, Jack,” whispered Sedgwick.  When he came to the part where the Prodigal ate the husks, Sedgwick whispered again:  “He means the hash in that restaurant on the Divide, Jack.”

Then the picture of the joy of the father on the return of this son, and the moral which the parable teaches, were graphically given.  At last the service was over, and as the congregation filed out there was a general rush for Browning, for the whole congregation recognized him, though the almost beardless boy that went away had returned in the full flush of manhood.  He was overwhelmed with greetings and congratulations over his safe return, and as Sedgwick was introduced as Browning’s friend the welcomes to him were most cordial, though there was many a glance at the fashionably-cut clothing of the young men.

The people were all in Sunday attire, many of the ladies wearing gay colors.  The day was warm and sunny and they lingered on the green, talking joyously, when suddenly a cry of terror arose, and looking, the young men saw a two-year old Hereford bull coming at full speed at the crowd, and with the evident intention of charging direct into it.  Every one was paralyzed; that is, all but one.  That one was Sedgwick.  Near him was a woman who had a long red scarf doubled