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 said. "Ever I marry a woman I'll marry me a simple one, but what I git one that can laugh."

"Plenty of 'em to be had," the sheriff said.

"Simple ones, or laughin' ones?" Tom inquired, perking up as keenly all on a sudden as if he might be interested in the market.

"Both," the sheriff replied sententiously. "Take Eddie Kane's wife, down at Drumwell. When that woman opens her mouth to laugh you can see her lights. Her and Coburn's wife they're the limit of their kind, and between 'em—well, I guess there's some sensible ones between. You take Eudora Ellison: she grins, something like a man. I never heard a ha-ha out of that girl as long as I've knew her, and that's just about all her life."

Which would have made that young lady about five years old if it had been true. Sheriff Treadwell measured time by events, instead of years.

"I've never saw her," Wallace said, a little wistfully, a bit regretfully, as for something passed out of his province for good and all.

"You've got my permission to go and call on her," the sheriff bantered.

"She'd burn a brand on my old hide I couldn't git off with lye," Wallace said. "No big cowman's daughter ain't trainin' around with no bobtailed puncher the same as me."

"She was redheaded over the way that gang raided their place,"—the sheriff addressed himself to Tom—"I thought I'd have to hog-tie that girl to keep her from comin' with me. She certainly was redheaded and a rairin'."