"It's ordered by the Pope or somebody. And it has something to do
with the Zodiac I don't know exactly, but I think it was invented by
the Egyptians."

"It's an all-right jubilee if the heathens did put their brand on
it," said Pearson; "or else Tonia wouldn't have anything to do with
it. And they pull it off at church, too. Suppose there ain't but
one hat in the Lone Elm store, Burr!"

"Then," said Burrows, darkly, "the best man of us'll take it back to
the Espinosa."

"Oh, man!" cried Pearson, throwing his hat high and catching it
again, "there's nothing like you come off the sheep ranges before.
You talk good and collateral to the occasion. And if there's more
than one?"

"Then," said Burrows, "we'll pick our choice and one of us'll get
back first with his and the other won't."

"There never was two souls," proclaimed Pearson to the stars, "that
beat more like one heart than yourn and mine. Me and you might be
riding on a unicorn and thinking out of the same piece of mind."

At a little past midnight the riders loped into Lone Elm. The half a
hundred houses of the big village were dark. On its only street the
big wooden store stood barred and shuttered.

In a few moments the horses were fastened and Pearson was pounding
cheerfully on the door of old Sutton, the storekeeper.