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 days; he didn't even know I was around. Tell her I'll put her pony in a livery at Jasper. She can send somebody down after it."

"If I see her I'll tell her, Peck."

"You might tell her, if you want to do me a favor, to send me my and clothes. If she don't want to let go of 'em, case she picks up another man and wants to save dressin' him, tell her I'd request, special extra, that mauve silk shirt with red polka-dots, and that pair of pants with the pencil stripe. She can keep the rest if she's got another man in sight she thinks they'll fit. I'll charge it up to experience and let it go."

"Why, I'll tell her, Peck—I'll be glad to tell her—if I see her. But I don't know when I'll be around her way."

"Any time'll do. She may not be there, anyhow. Last I heard of her she was goin' along with a swarm of sheep to the mountains. I don't wish the old lady any bad luck, but I wouldn't grieve if one of them mountain lions was to jump on her neck."

"Who's been running your business while you've been experimenting out here in the sheep country?"

"Well, that's one of the things the old lady got sore at," Peck confessed. "I ain't got no shop of my own, you see, Rawlins. I work for the man I learnt the trade under, but I'm just the same as one of the firm, been there so long, you know. If I'd 'a' been wise, I'd 'a' married one of his girls—I could 'a' had the pick of three—and made my nest right there in St. Joe. But I didn't, Rawlins."

"No, you didn't, Peck. And now you can't."