last always if I ever came back.

"When the year was up I had saved $212 at regular cowboy wages and would
accept no more, though Jordan begged me to take 'sunthun decent.'

"I came West, learned a little of mining--how to hold and hit a drill--in
Colorado, then took a run up into Montana, came down across Idaho and
finally reached this place. Liking the ways of things here I went to
work. I have not missed a dozen shifts in three years."

Browning chuckled at the story, and when Sedgwick ceased he said:

"Isn't it jolly queer that we have been thrown together? My home was in
Devonshire, England. My step-father was a merchant who finally became a
half banker and half broker. When I was a little kid my mother died, and
my father after a while married a widow who had a little daughter five
years younger than myself. My father died, and my stepmother married a
man named Hamlin.

"When I became twenty-two years old, my step-father wanted me to marry
this little girl. I declined, first, because she seemed to me a sister,
and second, I was head and ears in love with the step-daughter of the
village barrister. The girl was my sister's running mate, so to speak,
and though I had never said one word of love to her, my heart was on the
lowest level in the dust at her feet. It was, by Jove!

"In those days I was a bit wild, I guess. I did not get out of school
with much honor. I used to ride steeple-chase and hurdle races and dance
all night. Sometimes, too, I had a scrap, and was careless about the
money I spent. The old barrister--his name was Jenvie--believed I was