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 whose vivaciousness was rising in him like a fever. He passed up his cup toward Edith, smirking familiarly as he held it out. Edith ignored the appeal for refreshment. She brought the coffee-pot from the stove and stood it in its accustomed place on the tray at Mrs. Peck's hand, and retreated.

"I put one over on you, didn't I?" Peck turned to's hoot after her as she left the room. "Ain't you goin' to come and kiss your unkey-punky, tweet?"

"Oh, shut up!" Mrs. Peck ordered, altogether displeased with this attempt to play up his shrewdness in his dealings with the marriageable women of that ranch.

"Comin'," the humorous, irrepressible Mr. Peck returned. He presented his big coffee cup to his wife, giving her the smile that used to knock them over back in St. Joe.

Rawlins excused himself; Tippie pushed back without a word, his pipe already out of his pocket, the other hand fishing around for his sack of tobacco.

"Well, Tippie, did you pay off them guys?" Peck inquired briskly, looking as much like a proprietor as his doubtful standing allowed.

Tippie grubbed around for matches, the little sack of bran in his hand, its yellow strings dangling between his blunt, calloused fingers. He might have been a mile away from any voice of interrogation, assuming from the expression of his face.

"Of course he did, Dowey," the new wife replied for her glum foreman, pleased, and very plainly pleased, to see her husband taking interest in such an essential feature of the business.