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 been more, the herders said; the sheriff had called them off to chase the bank robbers, and they never had come back. Sick of the job, just like themselves, the office 'man said; glad to get back to town, and stay there. Nothing to it down there on the edge of nowhere watching a lot of fool cows at two dollars a day. A man could make more than that shootin' pool up in town.

"Just as well not have us here, they go where they darn please anyhow," the youth complained.

"That's right," Maud agreed. "There's no more need for a man along with a bunch of cattle this time of the year, especially a little bunch like this, than I've got foranurse. How's the grub?"

"Bum!" said the office man, with explosive disgust. "I'd give six dollars for a dish of steak and onions like you used to bring us up at the hotel, Louise."

"That's one of the luxuries of your past that you'll never enjoy from my fine Italian hand again," Louise told him. "There's another lady on that job now."

"You don't mean to tell me you've quit the hotel, Louise?"

"Yes, I'm a tax-eater now, the same as you."

"Court house job, you mean, Louise?"

"Sure," said Maud. "She's got my job."

The young man was voluble in his congratulations. He was also somewhat astonished by the sudden and spectacular rise of a biscuit-shooter to a position at the public manger. But he was shrewd enough to run the mystery of her rise quickly to its source. That source was old man Kelly. He was still a dictator in the party