During all this time that we have been going on with the preceding chapter, Luella has been standing in the door looking away to the eastward, a soiled gingham apron thrown over her head, and a dreamy, far-away look in her mournful sorrel eyes. Suddenly there breaks on her finely moulded and flexible ear the sound of a horse's hoof.

"Aha!" she murmurs. "Hist! it is him. Blast his picture! Why didn't he have some style about him, and get here on time?" And she impatiently mashes a huge mosquito that is fastened on her swarthy arm.

Any one could see, as she stood there, that she was mad. She didn't really have any cause for it, but she was an only child, and accustomed to being petted and humored, and lying in bed till half past ten. This had made her high spirited, and she occasionally turned loose with the first thing that came to hand.

"You're a fine-haired snoozer from Bitter Creek; ain't ye?" said the pale flower of Skimmilk Ranche, as the solitary horseman alighted from his panting steed, and threw his arms about her with great sang froid.

"In what respect?" said Pigeon-toed Pete, as he held her from him, and looked lovingly down into her deep, sorrel eyes...

"O fairest of thy sect," he continued, as he took out his quid of tobacco, preparatory to planting a long, wide, passionate kiss on her burning cheek, "you wot not what you feign would say. The way was long, my ambling steed has a ringbone on the off leg, and thou chidest me, thy erring swain, without a cause." He knew that she would pitch into him, so he had this little impromptu speech all committed to memory.

She pillowed her sunny head on his panting breast for an hour or so, and shed eleven or eight happy tears.

"O lode star of my existence, and soother of my every sorrow," said he, with charming naivete, "wilt thou fly with me to-night to some adjacent justice of the peace, and be my skipful gazelle, my little ne plus ultra, my own magnum bomum and multum in parvo, so to speak? Leave your Presbyterian parents to run the ranche, and fly with me. You shall never want for anything. You shall never put your dimpled hands in dish-water, or wring out your own clothes. I will get you a new rosewood washing machine, and when your slightest look indicates that you want forty or fifty dollars for pin money, I will make out a check for that amount."

He had just finished his little harangue, whatever that is, and was putting in a few choice gestures, when the old man came around from behind the rain-water barrel with a shotgun, and told the impassioned swain that he had better skip. He told the ardent admirer of Luella that he had better not linger to any great extent, and as he said it in his quiet but firm way, at the same time fondling the lock on his shotgun, the lover lingered not, but hied him away to his neighing steed, and, lightly springing into the saddle, was soon lost to the sight. We will leave him on the road for a short time.