Angus was dead sure. 'I shall thwart your murderous design,' says he. So
Everett with a stung look helped him saddle this one. He had his alibi
all right, and besides, nothing ever did worry that buckaroo as long as
his fingers wasn't too cold to roll a cigarette.

"The beast was still asleep when Angus forked him. Without seeming to
wake up much he at once traded ends, poured Angus out of the saddle, and
stacked him up in some mud that was providentially there--mud soft
enough to mire your shadow. Angus got promptly up, landed a strong kick
in the ribs of the outlaw which had gone to sleep again before he lit,
shook hands warmly with Everett and says: 'What does a man need with two
trades anyway? Good-bye!'

"But when Lysander John hears about it he says Angus has just the right
stuff in him for a cowman. He says he has never known one yet that you
could tell anything to before he found it out for himself, and Angus
must sure have the makings of a good one, so he persuades him to stay
round for a while, working at easy jobs that couldn't stack him up, and
later he sent him to Omaha with the bunch in charge of a trainload of
steers.

"The trip back was when his romance begun. Angus had kept fancy-free up
to that time, being willing enough but thoroughly cautious. Do you
remember the eating-house at North Platte, Nebraska? The night train
from Omaha would reach there at breakfast time and you'd get out in the
frosty air, hungry as a confirmed dyspeptic, and rush into the big red
building past the man that was rapidly beating on a gong with one of
these soft-ended bass-drum sticks. My, the good hot smells inside!
Tables already loaded with ham and eggs and fried oysters and fried
chicken and sausage and fried potatoes and steaks and hot biscuits and