I am not learned in the science of music, but I should call her an
uncommonly good performer. She has technic and more than ordinary
power."

The moon was very bright, you will understand, and I saw upon Kinney's
face a sort of amused and pregnant expression, as though there were
things behind it that might be expounded.

"You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork," he said promisingly.
"As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted /jacal/ to your
left under a comma mott."

"I did," said I. "There was a drove of /javalis/ rooting around it. I
could see by the broken corrals that no one lived there."

"That's where this music proposition started," said Kinney. "I don't
mind telling you about it while we smoke. That's where old Cal Adams
lived. He had about eight hundred graded merinos and a daughter that
was solid silk and as handsome as a new stake-rope on a thirty-dollar
pony. And I don't mind telling you that I was guilty in the second
degree of hanging around old Cal's ranch all the time I could spare
away from lambing and shearing. Miss Marilla was her name; and I had
figured it out by the rule of two that she was destined to become the
chatelaine and lady superior of Rancho Lomito, belonging to R. Kinney,
Esq., where you are now a welcome and honoured guest.

"I will say that old Cal wasn't distinguished as a sheepman. He was a
little, old stoop-shouldered /hombre/ about as big as a gun scabbard,
with scraggy white whiskers, and condemned to the continuous use of
language. Old Cal was so obscure in his chosen profession that he