Part Five - Page 2

did from a place where every man hailed him jovially by his adopted name.

There was little that he could do--or would do. He tried digging ditches for the city, along with a motley collection of the sons of all nations but his, seemingly.

The first day be blistered both hands and got a "crick" in his back.

The second day, he quit.

On the third day, he brought up at the door of a livery stable. A man with a slate-colored, silk waistcoat was standing aggressively in the doorway, one hand deep in his pocket and the other energetically punctuating the remarks he was making to a droop-shouldered hostler. Some of the remarks were interesting in the extreme and Weary, listening, drew a deep sigh of thankfulness that they were not directed at himself, because his back was still lame and his hands sore, and in Portland law-abiding citizens are not supposed to "pack" a gun.

The droop-shouldered man waited humbly for the climax--which reached so high a tension that the speaker rose upon his toes to deliver it, and drew his right hand from his pocket to aid in the punctuation--when he pulled his hat down on his head and slunk away.

It was while the orator was gazing contemptuously after him that he heard Weary cheerfully asking for work. For Weary was a straight guesser; he knew when he stood in the presence of the Great and Only. The man wheeled and measured Weary slowly with his eyes--and there being a good deal of Weary if you measured lengthwise, he consumed several seconds doing it.

"Humph!" when the survey was over. "What do you know about horses?" His tone was colored still by the oration he had just delivered, and it was not encouraging.

Weary looked down upon him and smiled indulgence of the tone. "If you aren't busy right now, I'll start in and tell yuh. Yuh better sit down on that bucket whilst I'm doing it--if I'm thorough it'll take time."

"Humph!" said the man again and carefully pared the end of a fat, black cigar. "You seem to think you know it all. What's your trade?"

"Punching cows--in Northern Montana," answered Weary, mildly.

The man took the trouble to look at him again, this time more critically--and more favorably, perhaps. "Bronco-buster?" he demanded, briefly.

"Some," grinned Weary, his thoughts whirling back to the dust and uproar in the Flying U corrals--and to Glory.

The man seemed to read what was in his eyes. "You ought to know better than to founder a three-hundred-dollar trotter, then," he remarked, with some of the growl smoothed out of his voice.

"I sure had," agreed Weary, sympathetically.

"That's why I fired that four-or-five-kinds-of idiot just now," confided the other, rising to the sympathy in Weary's tone. "I need men that