three weeks and had run out of bacon. We had been eating beef, and
venison, and antelope for a week until it didn't taste right any longer,
so I sent the outfit on ahead and rode down to the store in the hope of
getting a piece of bacon. Shepherd had just established the place at the
time, and when I asked him if he had any bacon, he said he had, 'But is
it good?' I inquired, and before he could reply an eight-year-old boy of
his stepped between us, and throwing back his tow head, looked up into
my face and said: 'Mister, it's a little the best I ever tasted.'"

"Now, June," said Uncle Lance, as we rode along, "I want you to let
Henry Annear's wife strictly alone to-night. You know what a stink it
raised all along the river, just because you danced with her once, last
San Jacinto day. Of course, Henry made a fool of himself by trying to
borrow a six-shooter and otherwise getting on the prod. And I'll admit
that it don't take the best of eyesight to see that his wife to-day
thinks more of your old boot than she does of Annear's wedding suit,
yet her husband will be the last man to know it. No man can figure to a
certainty on a woman. Three guesses is not enough, for she will and she
won't, and she'll straddle the question or take the fence, and when you
put a copper on her to win, she loses. God made them just that way,
and I don't want to criticise His handiwork. But if my name is Lance
Lovelace, and I'm sixty-odd years old, and this a chestnut horse that
I'm riding, then Henry Annear's wife is an unhappy woman. But that fact,
son, don't give you any license to stir up trouble between man and wife.
Now, remember, I've warned you not to dance, speak to, or even notice
her on this occasion. The chances are that that locoed fool will come
heeled this time, and if you give him any excuse, he may burn a little
powder."

June promised to keep on his good behavior, saying: "That's just what