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 "It's hard on you, Peck, and it's going to be harder when it gets twenty below along in the winter, but she'll give you a wagon before then. You may think she's cruel, but all she's trying to do is reform you from your town habits and make a man of you according to her own pattern. If she can put it through you'll be the one to win. Pull up your puckerin' string and stick to it. Just think of all the money Tippie brought out that time for current expenses, and only skinned the top of her pile."

"I am thinkin' of it, Rawlins," goggling up with his frog eyes knowingly, as if to say there was a lot in the back of his head on that subject which he was keeping to himself.

"I'll be riding on then, and leave you to your sheep and pleasant dreams. Is Mrs. Peck over at the ranch?"

"Maybe she is. I ain't seen her since she kicked me off down here and drove away. She'll be around somewhere, Rawlins; nothing ain't goin' to happen to her. It's her husbands that gits caught between two rocks in the crick and drownded. Nothing like that's ever goin' to happen to her."

Rawlins wished the discontented shepherd well, and went on his way. Peck was getting nothing more than he deserved, or would deserve if he never should succeed in breaking his bondage and escaping back to his lamented St. Joe. Peck came shouting after him as Rawlins was mounting the hill, waving his hat.

"Say, Rawlins," Peck panted, "it just struck me. Sell me that horse, will you, Rawlins? I'll give you