Buck Devine, a valued retainer, rode into the yard and dismounted. She
at once looked searchingly about her. Then she raised her voice, which
is a carrying voice even when not raised: "You, Jimmie Time!"

Once was enough. The door of the bunk house swung slowly open and the
disgraced one appeared in all his shameful panoply. The cap was pulled
well down over a face hopelessly embittered. The shrunken little figure
drooped.

"None of that hiding out!" admonished his judge. "You keep standing
round out here where decent folks can look at you and see what a bad
boy you are."

With a glance she identified me as one of the decent she would have
edified. Jimmie Time muttered evilly in undertones and slouched forward,
head down.

"Ain't he the hostile wretch?" called Buck Devine, who stood with the
horses. He spoke with a florid but false admiration.

Jimmie Time, snarling, turned on him: "You go to--."

I perceived that Lew Wee the night before had delicately indicated by a
mere initial letter a bad word that could fall trippingly from the lips
of Jimmie.

"Sure!" agreed Buck Devine cordially. "And say, take this here telegram
up to the corner of Broadway and Harlem; and move lively now--don't you
stop to read any of them nickel liberries."