"No, no," expostulated Bud. "Can't you understand? We've been such good friends and--and--I can't pull a gun on him--"

Polly was speechless with surprise.

"Here he comes now," shouted Bud. "I'll hide in the wagon here--"

"Don't hide!" counseled Polly. "Why?"

Bud gave her no answer, for he had already disappeared under the cover of the mess-wagon.

"I don't like that a little bit. Slim never acted locoed before. I'll have to be mighty careful, I s'pose, for I think a heap of both Slim and Bud."

Slim came up to the wagon with his face wreathed in smiles. "If it ain't Miss Polly--" he yelled.

Polly, having heard that crazy people had to be humored, ran to meet him, and threw her arms about his neck.

"You dear, sweet, old red-headed thing!" she cried; "when did you get back? Where have you been? Where's Jack? Have you seen Echo?" One question was piled upon the other by the enthusiastic girl--Slim had tried to stop her talking that he might answer her, but he might as well have tried to check a sand-storm. Out of breath and puffing, he finally gasped:

"Whoa! whoa! Yes'm. I've heard of them Kansas cyclones, but I ain't never got hit with one afore."

Polly started all over again. "And Jack, did you find him?--tell me all about it."

"See yeah," answered Slim, "I ain't goin' to say nuthin' to n.o.body till I see Mrs. Payson."

"Oh, pshaw!" pouted Polly; "not even me?"

"Not even--what I've got to say she must heah first. I'm kinder stiff--if you don't mind, I'll set down a spell."

Slim's face was drawn and worn. Although he had lost none of his weight, he showed the effects of the siege of hard riding and fighting through which he had pa.s.sed.

The mental strain under which he had labored had also worn him down.

Polly was more than solicitous for his comfort. Not only did she like the Sheriff, but she was now fencing with him to protect her sweetheart from his wrath. She had concluded that Bud's charge that the Sheriff was locoed and jealous was a cover to conceal some genuine apprehension.

"You look tuckered out," she said.

"Well, I 'low as maybe I am. Been in the saddle for two weeks. Kin I have a cup of coffee?"

Polly began to mother him. This appeal for bodily comforts aroused all her womanly instincts. She made him sit down and poured the coffee for him saying: "You sure can. With or without?"

"I'll play it straight," grinned Slim.

"I reckon you'll have to, anyway. Here you are."

Slim took the cup with a "thankee."

He drank long and deeply. Then he paused, made a wry face, and danced his feet up and down, as a child does in anger or excitement.

"What's the matter?" asked the girl, with a laugh.

"If this yeah's coffee give me tea, an' if it's tea give me coffee."

The Sheriff put down his cup with a shrug of the shoulders.

"It's the best we've got," replied Polly. "Sage-brush got it."

"Oh, that's it. I thought it tasted like sage-brush. How's Bud?" he suddenly demanded.

Polly glanced nervously at the speaker.

"All right, I s'pose." She tried to be noncommittal.

Her nervousness almost betrayed her.

"Ain't you seen him lately?" Slim insisted.

Polly peeped into the wagon before she answered the question. "Yes--I see him every once in a while."

In an effort to change the subject of conversation, and get him away from all thoughts of Bud, she asked: "Say, Slim, what's a boudoir?"

"A what whar?" stuttered Slim.

"A boudoir," Polly repeated.

Slim was puzzled, and looked it. Then a new thought lighted up his face.

"You don't mean a Budweiser, do you?"

Polly, deeply serious, replied: "No--that ain't it--boudoir."

Slim ransacked his memory for the word. "Boudoir," he continued reflectively. "One of them 'fo' de wah' things we ust to have down in Kentucky?"

An explanation was demanded of him, and he proceeded to invent one.

"Well, first you get a--get a--" Polly had fooled him so many times that he became suspicious in the midst of his creation, and asked:

"Look a here--you're sure you don't know what boudoir is?"

"Why, of course not," answered Polly simply.

Slim was relieved by her reply.

"All right," he resumed, crossing his legs, as if the position would help him better to think. "A boudoir is a see-gar."

"A see-gar?" echoed Polly, distinctly disappointed. Bud's offer to duplicate the boudoir was now reduced to the proportions of "two fer a nickel."

"Yep," a.s.sured the Sheriff. "They are named after a Roosian--one of them diplomat fellers."

"What's a diplomat?" Polly was finding Slim a mine of information, but all of the sort that needed plenty of expansion.

Slim chuckled, and with a twinkle in his eye drawled: "A diplomat is a man that steals your hat and coat, and then explains it so well that you give him your watch and chain. Sabe?"

Polly did not understand. She felt that Slim was laughing at her, but she could not see any fun in his remark. To end the discussion, however, she said: "I sabe."