at a safe distance. "No, he sure can't lick her agin, an' me an' you
kin rustle fer ourselves, I reckon."

* * * * *

Sixteen years later, in the early gray of another morning, a young man
crawled from beneath a stack of straw on the outskirts of Boyd City,
a busy, bustling mining town of some fifteen thousand people, in one
of the middle western states, many miles from the rude cabin that stood
beneath the hill.

The night before, he had approached the town from the east, along the
road that leads past Mount Olive, and hungry, cold and weary, had
sought shelter of the friendly stack, much preferring a bed of straw
and the companionship of cattle to any lodging place he might find in
the city, less clean and among a ruder company.

It was early March and the smoke from a nearby block of smelters was
lost in a chilling mist, while a raw wind made the young man shiver
as he stood picking the bits of straw from his clothing. When he had
brushed his garments as best he could and had stretched his numb and
stiffened limbs, he looked long and thoughtfully at the city lying
half hidden in its shroud of gray.

"I wonder"--he began, talking to himself and thinking grimly of the
fifteen cents in his right-hand pants pocket--"I wonder if--"

"Mornin' pard," said a voice at his elbow. "Ruther late when ye got
in las' night, warn't it?"