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 don't hit on one you like better yourself. Maybe we'll make it a double weddin'."

Uncle Boley winked, in his quick and devilish way, and jerked his head triumphantly in the manner of a man who knows that he is uncovering an astonishing surprise.

"You don't tell me! I congratulate you, sir, and I doubly congratulate the lady, whoever she may be."

Uncle Boley's face wore a cast of high importance as he went to his little counter and opened the drawer. He took from it a photograph, which he passed to Texas.

"She's comin' down from Topeky in a week or two. She wants to see how fur I can jump."

The picture was of a woman past her prime, a long-necked woman, thin of features, ringlets of heavy hair on her shoulders. She was gaily dressed, in a vogue long past, with tight sleeves and little upstanding pokes on the shoulders. There were a good many flowers about her, and much jewelry. Her eyes were hollow, her cheeks sad, as if she had wept the passing of many men.

The photograph was old, and Texas knew it at once for one of those curios which came from the tents of traveling photographers when the art was in the infancy of the dry plate.