"He's had a hist'ry, too. When he reaches man's real-estate the Injun agent ropes, throws, and hog-ties him, then sends him East to be cultivated. He spends four years kickin' a football--" Speed interrupted, with an exclamation of genuine interest. "Oh, it's true as gospel," the foreman averred. "When he goes lame in his off leg they ship him back, and in spite of them handicaps he has become one rustlin' savage at a round-up." "What college did you attend?" inquired Speed, politely. The question fell upon unresponsive ears. Cloudy did not stir nor alter the direction of his sombre glance. "He don' talk none," Stover explained. "Conversation, which I esteem as a gift deevine, is a lost art with him. I reckon he don't average a word a week. What language he did know he has forgot, and what he ain't forgot he distrusts." Turning to the near-sighted man who had been staring at the college youth meanwhile, the spokesman took a deep breath, and said, simply yet proudly, as if describing the _piece de resistance_ of this exhibition: "The four-eyed gent is Willie, plain Willie, a born range-rider, _and the best hip shot this side of the Santa Fe trail!_" Speed beheld an undersized man of indeterminate age, hollow- chested, thin-faced, gravely benignant. It was not alone his glasses that lent him a scholarly appearance; he had the stooped shoulders, the thoughtful intensity of gaze, the gentle, hesitating backwardness of a book-raised man. There were tutors at Yale quite as colorless, characterless and indefinite, and immensely more forceful. In place of the revolver at his belt, it seemed as if Willie should have carried a geologist's pick, a butterfly-net, or a magnifying-glass: one was prepared to hear him speak learnedly of microscopy, or even, perhaps, of settlement work. As a cowboy he was utterly out of place, and it was quite impossible to take Stover's words seriously. Nevertheless, Speed acknowledged the introduction pleasantly, while the benevolent little man blinked back of his lenses. Stover addressed himself to Miss Blake. "I told the boys what you said, miss, and we four has come as a delegation to find out if it goes." "Mr. Speed and I were just talking about it when you came," said Helen. "I'm sure he will consent if you add your entreaties to mine." "It would sure be a favor," said the cow-man, at which the others