a funny side struck him, and he laughed, half forlornly, and half in thorough enjoyment.  He suddenly sobered down.  “She’s worth it, anyway,” said he.  “She’s the best there is, and I ought to feel kind of leery of the outcome—­Well—­Now, I guess I won’t say anything till there’s a downright good chance.  I see I didn’t savvy this kind of business like I thought I did.  ’Twouldn’t be no kind of manners to step up to a lady and shout, ’I’d like to have you marry me, if you feel you’ve got the time!’ That don’t go no more than a Chinaman on roller-skates.  Your work is good, Red, but it’s a little lumpy in spots; them two left feet bother you; you’re good in your place, but you’d better build a fence around the place—­damn the luck!  Smotheration!  I think she likes me, all right, but when it comes to more’n that—­oh, blast it, I’ll just have to wait for a real good chance; now come, old man, get four feet on the ground and don’t roll your eyes, take it easy till the chance comes.”

Little he knew the chance was coming up the street at that moment.  He only saw Miss Mattie step out into the bed of flowers, her face looking unusually pretty and youthful under the big straw hat, and start to reduce the weeds to order.  She glanced around as though in search of some one, and Red felt intuitively that the one was himself.

“Here’s where I ought to act as if I wore long pants,” said he; “now, what’s to hinder me from going out there and get a-talking?” And then he sat down hastily, more disgusted than ever, and smote the air with his fist.  “You’d think the nicest, quietest woman that ever lived was a wild beast, the way I act; yes sir, you would!”

Meantime the chance drew nearer.  It was not a pleasant looking opportunity.  Its eyes, full of dread and dreadful, peeped out from beneath a brush of matted hair; a tough, ropy foam hung from its mouth.  If you put as much of that foam as would go on the point of a pin in an open cut, you would have an end that your worst enemy would shudder at.  For this was the most horrifying of dangerous animals—­a mad dog.  Poor brute!  As he came shambling down the road, he was the grisly mask of tragedy.

It was near noon, intensely hot, and the street of Fairfield was deserted.  No one saw the dog, and if his occasional rattling, strangling howl reached any ears, they were dead to its meaning.  He was unheeded until he lurched through the gate which Lettis had left open, as usual, and spinning around in a circle gave voice to his cry.

It brought Miss Mattie to her feet in an unknown terror; it brought Red from the barn in a full cognizance—­he had heard that sound before, when a mad coyote landed in a cabin-full of fairly strong nerved cowmen, and set them screeching like hysterical women before a chance shot ended him.

Red saw the brute jump toward Miss Mattie.  Instantly his hand flew to his hip, and as instantly he remembered there was nothing there.  Then with great, uneven leaps he sprang forward.  “Keep your hands up, Mattie, and don’t move!” he screamed.  “Let him chew the dress!  For God’s sake, don’t move!”