THE Rose of Texas sat in the open door of her cabin. The Rose might have been beautiful once—it is proper to give any woman past middle age the benefit of this possibility—and there may have been a time when the Rose had deserved her name and been fully equal in value to the Colt .44, three ponies, and five hundred dollars in gold which Sam had stacked up against her, and so, with the aid of three other knaves, attached her to his household. On a stone a few feet distant sat Peanut, in deep reverie. The Rose was first to break the silence.

“I reckon it’s the best thing for you, Peanut,” she said, and there was a sort of resolute hopelessness in her voice. “It’ll be mighty lonesome, of course, without you, but when you get so you can write you can send me a letter now and then. I guess I can read ’em. I ain’t tried any for a good while, but if you make ’em plain, mebbe I can spell ’em out. It’s a good chance, Peanut, an’ I don’t s’pose you’d ever get another. Then you’ll learn figgerin’, too.”

“What’s that, Rose? What’s figgerin’?”

“Why, it’s like writin’, only it’s countin’, on paper. It’s to keep folks from cheatin’ you, in a trade.”

Peanut recalled his experience with the boy at the mines. The boy probably knew about figgerin’.

“How long does it take to learn figgerin’, Rose?”

“Oh, I dun’no’. Mebbe a year.”

“Then can I come back to you—an’ the bears, an’ Sam’s grave?”

“You won’t want to. You’ll be learnin’ other things an’ seein’ new places an’ fine folks. You won’t want to come back to the hills, even if you could. But you can write, an’ you’ll have a picter of Sam’s grave, like the kind she showed us to-day. She seems like she’d be mighty good to you, an’ I reckon you’ll have to go, Peanut.”

“But I’m comin’ back, Rose, when I’ve learnt figgerin’ an’ seen all the places. I’m comin’ back to locate a mine an’ make money for us. You can’t stay here always alone. An’ our bears would forgit me if I was gone too long. You’ll feed ’em jest the same, won’t you, Rose, when I ain’t here?”

The woman’s voice broke a little as she assured him that the big brown bears that lumbered down the mountain every day for refuse should still be cared for in his absence.

“She’s comin’ in the mornin’,” the Rose continued, “an’ if yer goin’, you want to be ready. Put on yer winter shoes an’ yer hat an’ yer other shirt. ’Tain’t much of a outfit, but it’s more’n you come with, an’ she’s goin’ to pervide fur you. I’ve got a little scrap o’ money, though, Peanut, an’ I want you to take it along. You ain’t to spend it unless somethin’ happens an’ she ain’t there. She’ll pervide when she is. Jest keep it so you know where it is. If you ever get lost, er need anything when she ain’t at home, then use it, but keep it as long as you can.”

The woman’s hand had gone down to the hem of her skirt and under her knee. It came up holding a small roll of currency.

“There’s ten dollars here, Peanut; it won’t buy much, but it would go a long ways if you was lost and hungry. Keep it in the little sack, with Sam’s ambertype an’ the last whistle he made you, an’ don’t let the sack out o’ yer hands.”

The boy took the money curiously. He had never possessed any before. He opened the bills and looked first at one, then at the other. He went into the cabin presently and deposited them in a small buckskin bag which Sam had given him for his treasures. When Miss Schofield appeared next morning he was sitting stiffly in his winter shoes and hat, his wet, faded hair plastered close, the little bag concealed about his neck. He was quite ready.

The Rose was wiping her eyes as she saw them pass down the mountain in the direction of Sam’s grave. She was wondering what she was going to do without Peanut. She did not realize that perhaps Cynthia Schofield was wondering equally what she was going to do with him—what was to be the outcome of the philanthropic impulse and heart hunger that had led her into taking the pathetic little creature by her side, away from his beloved hills, to begin a new development in a strange atmosphere and amid alien surroundings.

But if Miss Schofield had any misgivings as to the wisdom of her undertaking, she was upheld by the thought that her purpose was altogether righteous, and would be justified by results. The fact that as they passed Sam’s grave Peanut flung himself upon it and wept, and refused to be comforted, only strengthened her belief that he would one day glorify her for having removed him from the influence of former companionships.