Well, I bring back the minister at the same time. Angevine, he
loses the Jersey cow over in the cane-break, and uncle and Angevine
go hunting her, for not even Loys is ace high in uncle's mind
alongside that cow. The rest is easy.'

"'Red, you're a brick--you're the best fellow alive,' says Kyle,
nearly squeezing the hand off me.

"'I've tried to conceal it all my life, but I knew it would be
discovered some day,' says I. 'Well, I suppose I'd better break
the news to Loys--'twouldn't be any more than polite.'

"'Oh, Lord! I wonder if she'll be willing?' says he.

"'No reason I shouldn't turn an honest dollar on the
transaction--I'll bet you a month's wages she is,' says I. He
wanted to do it, thinking I was in earnest, but I laughed at him.

"She was willing all right--even anxious. There's some women, and
men, too, for that matter, who go through life like a cat through a
back alley, not caring a cuss for either end or the middle. They
would have been content to wait. Not so Loys. She wanted her
Kyle, her poor Kyle, and she wanted him quick. That's the kind of
people for me! Your cautious folk are all the time falling down
wells because their eyes are up in the air, keeping tabs so that
they can dodge shooting stars.

"Now, I had a minister friend up in town, Father Slade by name.
No, he was not a Catholic, I think. They called him 'Father'
because it fitted him. His church had a steeple on it, anyhow, so