The Greeley tribune., 1905-11-02

diary, as those untamed. manly faces
were We'll worth looking at Reckless
they were in many instances and some
times the lines of hardship wera crue.-
ly writ across young faces that had
not vet lost the down of adolescence
but there were humor and endurance
and the courage that knows how to
make crony of death and gel right
good sport from the comrale>uip.
Their faults We're the faults OF lusty,
red blooded youth. and their virtues
the open handed generosity. the ready
sympathy of those uncertain filters at
life who ride or fall in the tourney OF
Il new country.
At present ''the yearling," drinking
her e1ecrable coffee in an agony OF
embarrassment, weighed heavily on
their minds. They would have liked
to rise as Il man and ask IL there was
anything they could do for her. But
as glance toward the end of the
table seemed TO increase her discom-
future tenfold, they did the kindeSt and
for them the most difficult thing and
looked in every direction but Miss Car
michaels. With delicacy of percep-
ton that the casual observer might not
have given them credit for they had
refrained from taking seats directly
opposite her or those Immediately on
her right. which, as she occupied the
last seat at the table, gave her al least
a small degree of seclusion.
AS one after another Of them came
filing in. bronzed, rugged, radiating Il
beauty of youth and health that no
sketchy eNigence of apparel could OBJ
scure. some one already seated ut the
table would put foot on a chair op-
posite him and send it spinning out in
to the middle of the floor as hint TO
the newcomer that that was his re-
served seat, and the COW puncher,
sheep herder, prospector or man about
town, as the case might be. would
take the hint and the chair, leaving
the petticoat separated from the SOM
breros by tableland Of oilcloth and a
range Of four chairs.
But now entered man who failed
to take the hint Of the spinning chair.
In fact. he entered the eating house
with the air Of one who has dropped
in casually to look for friend and in
cidentally to eat his breakfast He
stopped in the doorway, scanned the
table with deliberation and started to
make his way toward Mary Carmi-
chael with something of a swagger.
at the head Of the table. Some one
else nearly upset him with one before
he reached the middle.
But the man made his way to the
end of the table and drew out the chair
opposite Miss Carmichael with a de-
gree of assurance that precipitated the
rest Of the table into q pretty pOther.
Suppose she should countenance his
audacity? The fair have been known
to succumb to the headlong force of a
charge when the persistence Of long
siege has failed signally. What figures
| they would cut IL she did! And Simp-
son, Of all men! A growing tension
had crept into the atmosphere Of the
eating house. Knives and forks played
but intermittently, and Mary, sitting at
the end of the oilcloth covered table,
felt intuitively that she was the center
of the brewing storm.
From the look of the yearlings chin
I think he'll get all that's coming to
him." whispered the man who had
nearly upset him with the second chair.
The man Simpson was not pleasant
| vis-a-vis. He wore the same pictur-
esque ruffianliness Of apparel as his
fellows, but the resemblance stopped
| there. He lacked their dusky bloom,
their clearness Of eye, the suppleness
and easy flow Of muscle that is the
hall mark of these frontiersmen. He
/ was fat and squat and had not the rich
bronzing OF wind, sun and rain. His
small black eyes twinkled from his
puffy white face like raisins in a dough
pudding.
He was ogling Mary amiabfy when
the woman who kept the eating house