Only I ain't got no father watching for me to come up Wind River."

The cow-puncher stated this merely as a fact, and without any note of
self-pity. But the bishops face grew very tender, and he looked away from
Lin. Knowing his man--for had he not seen many of this kind in his desert
diocese?--he forbore to make any text from that last sentence the
cow-puncher had spoken. Lin talked cheerfully on about what he should now
do. The round-up must be somewhere near Du Noir Creek. He would join it
this season, but next he should work over to the Powder River country.
More business was over there, and better chances for a man to take up
some land and have a ranch of his own. As they got out at Fort Washakie,
the bishop handed him a small book, in which he had turned several leaves
down, carefully avoiding any page that related of miracles.

"You need not read it through, you know," he said, smiling; "just read
where I have marked, and see if you don't find some more facts. Goodbye--
and always come and see me."

The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towards
Wind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little moving dot
went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into the
parade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manly
soul, he shook his head sorrowfully.





THE WINNING OF THE BISCUIT-SHOOTER