Weary gave her a startled glance and almost dropped his cigarette.
This seemed going rather far, he thought--but of course she didn't
really mean it; the schoolma'am, he heartened himself with thinking,
was an awful, little bluffer.

"Don't go off mad, Girlie. I'm sorry I killed your gopher--on the
dead, I am. I just didn't think, That's a habit I've got--not thinking.

"Say! You stay, and we'll have a funeral. It isn't every common,
scrub gopher that can have a real funeral with mourners and music when
he goes over the Big Divide. He--he'll appreciate the honor; I would,
I know, if it was me."

The schoolma'am took a few steps and stopped, evidently in some
difficulty with her glove. From the look of her, no human being was
within a mile of her; she certainly did not seem to hear anything Weary
was saying.

"Say! I'll sing a song over him, if you'll wait a minute. I know two
whole verses of 'Bill Bailey,' and the chorus to 'Good Old Summertime.'
I can shuffle the two together and make a full deck. I believe they'd
go fine together.

"Say, you never heard me sing, did yuh? It's worth waiting for--only
yuh want to hang tight to something when I start. Come on--I'll let
you be the mourner."

Since Miss Satterly had been taking steps quite regularly while Weary
was speaking, she was now several rods away--and she had, more than