girl from down East, on a holiday tour, had looked over his mine. Her eloquent blue eyes had made him feel decidedly sheepish. Colorado Jim, who had tackled most of the bad men around Medicine Bow, and had tamed the wildest bronchos that ever roved prairie, was lamentably lacking where the fair sex was concerned. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to say it.

“Dan,” he said, “you hev to have a gift that way—an’ I ain’t got it.”

“My lad, you’ve got a figure and a ’physog’ that’ll sure turn every gal’s head that takes a slant at ’em.”

“Let up!” growled Jim. 8

“It’s honest truth, laddie. Gee! I gotta hankering for the bright lights myself. I lived in New York once. Some village. And with a million in your wallet ... Ah!”

He gave a long sigh as he reflected upon the quantity of “bright lights” a million would purchase.

“I’d have three houses, a hundred suits, a footman with a powdered wig like I seen in the magazine pictures. I’d have a bath each night in eau-de-Cologne, and go to roost in real silk peejamas. I’d larn to dance, and have a valee to dress me and shave me....”

“Yep,” mused Jim, “and then you’d wake up, Dan. Here, where’s that bill? You talk too much. What in hell is that?”

A terrific hullabaloo came up from below. A roar of laughter and the babble of male voices was mixed with the rumble of wheels and the pistol-like crack of a whip.

“Looks like a celebration,” said Dan.

Jim sauntered to the window. Underneath was Rob’s coach, packed full of miners. They slid from the roof of the vehicle and from inside, 9 and began to fire revolvers and dance around like niggers. Then one of them saw Jim.

“Hi, Colorado Jim, come out of that!” he bawled.

Jim ducked back from the window as a roar came up from below.

“Looks like they’re for giving you a send-off,” said Dan.

“Who told them? I kept it quiet—can’t stand ceremonies.”

“It must have been Rob.”

“Confound him! There’s no time for kissing. It’s fifty miles to Graymount, and the train is scheduled for noon. Send ’em away.”

Dan opened his eyes with horror at the suggestion.

“I ain’t takin’ risks. You got heaps of time. It’s only five o’clock and the road is good to Graymount.”

“More’n Rob’s hosses are. That off-side mare’s like a sausage on four crooked sticks.”

“Jim! We want Colorado Jim!” was howled up from below.

The much desired went to the window. 10

“Boys,” he bawled, “you all run along home. I gotta catch a train.”

His voice was drowned by horrible threats of what they would do if he didn’t hike down immediately. He turned to Dan.

“They’re a darn fine lot of boys, but I wish they wouldn’t git so worked up. Where’s Emily?”

Emily, who was standing in the doorway, ogling him unseen, came forward.

“There’s something to buy a dress with, and see here, don’t get a draughtboard pattern. If there’s any money over, buy soap—scented soap.”

Emily’s eyes almost fell from her head at the sight of the fifty-dollar note. She rubbed her hands down her dress and took it. Jim had grabbed the heavy bag and was half-way down the stairs before she could summon enough breath to murmur the incessant refrain, “Ain’t he jest wonderful!”

At the door Jim was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag, and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, 11 much to Rob’s disgust. The hurtling missile came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly went through the roof.

“Don’t get fresh, boys,” pleaded Jim. “These are my Sunday clothes.”

They ran him twice up the main street, yelling and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. A queer awry figure stuck its head from the window of a tumble-down shop and, seeing the cause of the disturbance, shook his fist and yelled:

“The sheriff ought to be fired, to allow ...”

A shot from a revolver shivered his shop-window to atoms, and a ten-dollar note was flung at him. He slammed down the window, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor. The high-spirited men went on their way, rousing the whole population as they progressed. After about twenty minutes of these capers they reached the hotel again. Jim was praying that the business was over. He fought his way to the ground, but was immediately hoisted on to the top of Rob’s coach.

“Give over, boys ...”

“Who is the whitest man in Medicine Bow?” sang Ned Blossom. 12

“Colorado Jim!” howled the chorus.

“Who is the huskiest two-hundred-pounder in the hul of Ameriky?”

“Colorado Jim!”

“Who is it the gals all lu-huv?”

“Colorado Jim—sure!”

Jim swung his big figure over the side of the coach. He grabbed two of his tormentors by the scruffs of their necks and jerked them on to the ground.

“I’m through with all this,” he cried. “Rob, get that animated bunch of horse-hair going.”

Ned Blossom held up his hand.

“Cut it out, boys,” he ordered. “See here, Jim, we got wise to this absconsion of yours, and we thought we’d jest bunch in. The boys are feeling queer about it, though there ain’t much show of handkerchiefs. We—we thought mebbe you’d accept a little—kinder keepsake. It—it ain’t much, but—but—— Wal, here it is.”

He jerked something from his pocket and put it into Jim’s hand. It was a gold cigarette-case, with an inscription worked in small diamonds: “To Colorado Jim from his chums.” Jim stood gazing at this token of their regard. He hated 13 sentiment, and yet was as big a victim of it as anyone. When he spoke his great voice wavered.

“I’m going a hell of a distance before I find boys like you. I wish I wasn’t going. I—wish——”

He grabbed Ned’s hand quickly, and then that of each of the other men, and jumped into the coach. They understood the emotion in the big heart of him. Rob started the team and away went the coach in a cloud of dust. Hats went up in the air and revolvers barked.

“Good-bye, Colorado Jim! Good-bye!”

Emily at the door, clasping the fifty-dollar note in her grimy paw, waited until the coach was a mere dot in the distance. Then she rubbed a sorrowful eye.

“Gee, but he was jest wonderful!” she moaned.

New York brought Jim Conlan up with a start. Everything was amazing; everything was bewildering. He felt like a lost soul, stunned with the noise, dazed by the sights. In the fastnesses of his beloved West he had never imagined that such a place existed on the face of the earth. He felt stifled and ill at ease. His clothes were different to those worn in this city. People gave him a quick passing glance, knowing him at once for a Westerner. Feeling a trifle embarrassed under their glances, he reflected upon the advisability of buying new and more appropriate garb. A tailor was requisitioned and, finding his client to be indifferent in the matter of costs, fixed him up with a fine wardrobe—and a fine bill.

Jim spent the best part of two hours trying on the new things. The long mirror in his bedroom 15 did its best, but it wasn’t good enough for Jim. He groaned as he saw this stranger staring at him from the