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 like you that way, so different from these fresh brakeys and firemen."

Tom was so confused, but in a delightful warm confusion that seemed the scented air of paradise, that he was not equal to any sort of immediate reply.

"I'd like to see Maud marry a better man." Louise returned to her subject abruptly. "She's a good girl. By all the ratings of McPacken society she ought to have a conductor, or a fireman, at the very lowest."

"There's Pap," Tom suggested, coming to his senses slowly again. "He seems to consider himself a high premium for any lady."

"I think Pap is training right now to rush the new deputy county treasurer. You can't imagine how my prospects have brightened in this town, Tom."

"Glory is broadenin' over you like sunrise."

Their talk came back to the cattle, after a while, as it nearly always did from whatever lighter matter that might lend them a recess of relief from the vexatious problem. Tom said he had to see the roadmaster the first thing in the morning, and get his time check signed. Then he intended to hire a horse and take a ride out into the country.

"Do you know where your cattle are?" Louise inquired.

"Down somewhere between here and the Nation—you know the line is only forty miles south of McPacken. The sheriff's grazin' them on the land I engaged from that bal' faced old liar to pasture 'em on