clean shirt, indeed! I'm surprised at you, William."

"Gee, Ma called him Willum!" whispered Andy. "Bill better fade."

The men tramped in, nodded to Mrs. Bailey, and sat down. Eating was a
serious matter with them. They said little. It was toward the end of
the meal, during a lull in the clatter of knives and forks, that Andy
White suggested, _sotto voce_, but intended for the assemblage, "That
Bill always was scared of a wash-basin." This gentle innuendo was lost
on the men, but Bill Haskins vowed mighty vengeance.

It was evident from the start that Pete and Andy would run in double
harness. They were the youngsters of the outfit, liked each other, and
as the months went by became known--Ma Bailey had read the book--as
"The Heavenly Twins." Bailey asked his good wife why "heavenly." He
averred that "twins was all right--but as for 'heavenly'--"

Mrs. Bailey chuckled. "I'm callin' 'em 'heavenly,' Jim, to kind of
even up for what the boys call 'em. I don't use that kind of language."

Pete graduated from peeling potatoes and helping about the house to
riding line with young Andy, until the fall round-up called for all
hands, the loading of the chuck-wagon and a farewell to the lazy days
at the home ranch. The air was keen with the tang of autumn. The
hillside blue of spruce and pine was splashed here and there with the
rich gold of the quaking asp. Far vistas grew clearer as the haze of
summer heat waned and fled before the stealthy harbingers of winter.
In the lower levels of the distant desert, heat waves still pulsed
above the grayish brown reaches of sand and brush--but the desert was
fifty, sixty, eighty miles away, spoken of as "down there" by the