prairie country where the dry air corrugates the skin; his light-brown
hair curled loosely on the brow, graduating back to closer, crisper curls
which in their thickness made a kind of furry cap. It was like the coat
of a French poodle, so glossy and so companionable was it to the head. A
bright handkerchief of scarlet was tied loosely around his throat, which
was even a little more bare than was the average ranchman's; and his
thick, much-pocketed flannel shirt, worn in place of a waistcoat and
coat, was of a shade of red which contrasted and yet harmonized with the
scarlet of the neckerchief. He did not wear the sheepskin leggings so
common among the ranchmen of the West, but a pair of yellowish corduory
riding-breeches, with boots that laced from the ankle to the knee. These
boots had that touch of the theatrical which made him more fantastic than
original in the eyes of his fellow-citizens.

Also he wore a ring with a star-sapphire, which made him incongruous,
showy and foppish, and that was a thing not easy of forgiveness in the
West. Certainly the West would not have tolerated him as far as it did,
had it not been for three things: the extraordinary good nature which
made him giggle; the fact that on more than one occasion he had given
conclusive evidence that he was brave; and the knowledge that he was at
least well-to-do. In a kind of vague way people had come to realize that
his giggles belonged to a nature without guile and recklessly frank.

"He beats the band," Jonas Billings, the livery-stable keeper, had said
of him; while Burlingame, the pernicious lawyer of shady character, had
remarked that he had the name of an impostor and the frame of a fop; but
he wasn't sure, as a lawyer, that he'd seen all the papers in the case--
which was tantamount to saying that the Orlando nut needed some cracking.

It was generally agreed that his name was ridiculous, romantic and