eat as much worth as I do-an' my dinner is goin' to cost me five dollars." As he issued this ultimatum he turned in his saddle and grinned.

I groaned; for Billy was quite capable of trying to force upon me a choice between five dollars worth of canned crabs and a barrelful of prunes. It wasn't right of Billy to act this wayoff the range; besides, he ought to have known that it is a dangerous thing to take liberties with the menu of a confirmed dyspeptic.

It had been two years since Billy's last visit to the little hand-made oasis toward which we were heading, while I had been down regularly every three months; and I purposely took him into town on a street where the fewest improvements were in evidence. At the edge of the town we overtook the horsemen we had noticed. They proved to be two cow punchers from a neighboring range, and they greeted us noisily as we swept past. I called them by name, but Billy hardly nodded. I didn't think of it at the time, but afterwards I remembered having heard that strong ill feeling existed between him and these two, brothers they were-Seth and Sam Dailey.

We all rode into the same corral, where Billy and I separated, he to buy a new suit of clothes, I to call on the Bradley's, who lived on the main street of the town, and who always took me in and made much of me whenever I came to Phoenix. They had a plump and kind-hearted daughter, whom Billy much desired to meet; so I knew that if the worst came to the very worst I could bargain for any sort of dinner I wanted, trading an introduction to Belle for the privilege.

Billy and I having agreed to meet at one o'clock, I had an hour at my disposal, and in that hour I had a chance to walk about, and make arrangements for my friend's reception in the town of my adoption.

I had before suspected, and now I knew, that Phoenix was no longer a frontier town. For proof: I had seen a cafeteria in my wanderings. Gam

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bling had been prohibited by law; there were ominous signs over the entrance to several bar-rooms; and the Y. M. C. A. had started opposition to them all.

When I saw Billy coming I sauntered away from the neighborhood of the best grill in town, to meet him in the middle of the block.

"Where shall we eat?" demanded he.

"Well," I hesitated, "let's stroll down the street and take a look."

Billy saw everything and everybody, and everybody saw Billy. I was proud of Billy-Billy in his new suit and broad hat; Billy, with his rollicking smile and his eyes a-brim with mischief. But it was a duty I owed myself to get a different expression on his face; for this expression had ever boded ill for me.

"Here's a restaurant!" he called out hungrily, pausing in front of a window decorated with lettuce and raw meats. "C-a-f-e-t-e-r-i-a," spelled Billy. "Bet we can get a regular Spanish dinner in here. Come on!"

And without a qualm of conscience, I followed that hungry cowboy into a cafeteria. I let him lead me to a table in the center of the room, where we sat down. Somebody near us snickered. There were three giggling girls glancing at us from a neighboring table, and when Billy cocked his head at them flirtatiously, I rose.

"Back in a minute, old man," I gasped, and left him to his fate.

As I neared the door I glanced over my shoulder, to see one of the women servers approach my friend and speak to him. Up Billy got, as red as fire, and followed her to a table heaped with trays.

At the door I saw Seth and Sam Dailey sauntering by. Inarticulate with mirth, I drew them to the window, from where we had a magnificent view of Billy Barclay engaged in the menial task of waiting on himself. He was holding a tray tightly in both hands, his sombrero tucked firmly under one arm, and his ears flaming. He was still wearing his spurs and his

high-heeled boots, and he made about as awkward an imitation of a diningroom girl as one need wish to see. The boys swore a few delighted oaths, and went on, laughing, while I hastened back and got into line at the counter. I called for a plate of soup and nearly spilled it on the lady in front of me in my eagerness to miss none of Billy's selections.

He had acquired a thin slice of roast mutton, on which tears of tallow were already congealing; some glutinous glutinous looking gravy; cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, spinach and lettuce-all condemned on the range as cow feed; and, to crown the whole, the girl at the pie department fitted a soap dish containing two stewed prunes, into the top of his soup bowl.

Taking my own soup to a table, I waited for Billy. He had by this time reached the cash register and was trying to balance the tray on one hand while he wiped his brow with the other. He dropped his hat on the floor and stepped on it.

"Anything to drink?" asked cheerful voice.

a

"Sure-what can I get?" demanded Billy eagerly.

"Tea and coffee-and others are waiting."

At this humiliating intimation that he should move on, Billy hastily took a cupful of tea, which his soul loathes, paid his check and brought his tray to the table where I sat innocently sipping soup from a tea spoon.

I was proud of Billy. He ate that mutton, tallow tears and all, without a whimper. The cauliflower and the carrots he pretended not to see, but when it came to the two stewed prunes he offered them to me with a grin; and as we left the place he said: "The drinks are on me, old man."

We went to the nearest bar-room, where he ordered whiskey, straight. But the bar-tender, whose decent white apron served to accentuate his fatness, looked up, shaking his head. as he asked:

"Say, kid, ain't you a minor ?"
"No, I'm not a miner!" roared Billy.

"My business is punchin' cattle," and, suiting the action to the word, he punched the bar-keeper in the apron, and stalked out. I followed-at a respectful distance.

Of course, Billy struck the next barroom; but here, when he ordered drinks, the man behind the counter picked up a little pamphlet, glancing suspiciously from it to Billy's clean young face.

"Sorry, Mr. Lumpstead, but you know the laws are very strict nowadays. We're likely to get our license revoked if we sell liquor to confirmed drunk-"

I pulled Billy off the counter and into the street, but the atmosphere in his immediate vicinity was so thick that an officer stepped up to admonish: "No swearing allowed on the streets, stranger.

By five o'clock, with the assistance of two moving picture shows, I had re-established Billy's mental poise, and at that hour I conducted him to the best hotel in town, where each of us ordered a dinner to suit himself. It was so early that we had the dining room to ourselves, and Billy lolled at ease. It has long been known that a good dinner will do much toward restoring a man's lost temper; so, as we sat sipping champagne and smoking, I was not surprised to see a humorous twinkle in Billy's eyes.

"Say, pardner," he drawled between puffs, "if I wanted to make one of my country cousins feel like a nickel's worth of dawg-meat-a nickel's worth of raw dawg-meat-what do you think I'd do? I'd run him into a town that's a near-prohibition burg; I'd post him in one saloon as a minor, in another as a drunken old bum; and I'd take him into a caf-ee-te-ree-a-a vege-teeree-an cafee-te-ree-a, if I could find one (Billy had acquired a surprising amount of information during the afternoon), and I'd watch him play hash-slinger to his-self while I sipped soup from a tea-spoon."

Making answer, I chuckled: "And if I had a city cousin that I wanted to make feel like a penny's worth of pea

nuts a penny's worth of raw peanuts -I'd have him hold a bag some night for snipe; I'd have him thumb a cow pony for a crowd of yelling fools. I'd make him howl like a suffering dog, and go out on all fours and bring in a dying duck in his mouth. I'd-" "There, there, pard, I'm willin' to call it quits," laughed Billy. "I'll never do it again."

"All right, and I'll never do it do it again," I promised, taking his extended hand.

"But that ain't enough. If you go back and tell-❞

"Oh, I'll not tell," said I readily enough.

To a cowboy, especially a young one, ridicule is more to be dreaded than bullets. And Billy was young. He hated to be laughed at worse than anyone else I've ever known. So we sealed the bargain and made it binding with a friendly bumper. He was to make me do no more stunts on the range, I was to tie my tongue in a double bow knot and keep silent about the bar-rooms and the cafeteria.

"But of course I can't promise for the other boys," I added virtuously, struck by an afterthought.

"What other boys?" demanded Billy.

"Why, Seth and Sam," I chortled. "I had them take a look at you through the window when you were prancing around with that waiter."

"You did that? You-did-that?" At his tone I began to see the enormity of the thing I had done. I remembered all that I had heard about those fellows. They would go home and make the boy ridiculous. Not only that, they would do it in such a way that Billy would have to fight them or lose his prestige along the border.

"I-I—what are you going to do?" I stammered, as he rose and began to examine his gun.

"Oh, nothin'-nothin' at all," said he in a deadly tone.

I was thoroughly frightened at the horrid possibilities, and I don't know

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what I said or did during the next fifteen minutes; but when I came to I was hanging on Billy's arm, begging him not to do anything rash, and assuring him that Belle would make it all right.

"She's the smartest girl," I heard myself telling him, "and nice and good-natured-fat, you know; all fat girls are good-natured. She-she's real fat," I gibbered.

Something I said must have made an impression on Billy, for finally he let me persuade him up to the Bradley's and into the room that was always mine when I chose to occupy it. While he was getting himself into a proper frame of mind to meet ladies, I sought Belle-Belle with her blue eyes and her comfortable laugh-and told her the story of Seth and Sam.

"Bring them both up here," she said promptly.

"Here, where Billy is?" I gasped. "Yes, here-and shoot them yourself. It will save your friend the

trouble."

She had to explain a little before I fully understood, but as soon as I had gathered her meaning, I swung off down town to hunt up the Dailey brothers. I found the boys, and, for a wonder, found them sober. I was very friendly, indeed, and, though they ought to have suspected something, evidently did not. I asked them where they intended to stay, found that they had not yet selected a hotel, and told them that if they wanted good things to eat and the chance to meet the jolliest girl in town, they'd better come up to my boarding house and spend their week's vacation.

They came, and Billy was very polite to them both, the credit for this, of course, being due to Belle Bradley. In the evening she played and sang for us, and before we knew what we were doing, the four of us were standing around that old piano of hers, singing "Annie Laurie," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." And when Belle begged Billy to sing her some cowboy songs, he stood up there and

sang, with extemporaneous expurgations, and alterations made on the spur of the moment, half a dozen typical songs of the range. I held my breath till it was over, but he didn't make a slip, and the other boys applauded wildly. To this day, Belle believes that "Rye Whiskey" is a classic.

The next afternoon and evening we had the same sort of entertainment, with the addition of charades, in which we all took part. By the third night Belle was doing anything she chose with Seth and Sam, while Billy was almost tied to her apron string. On the fourth afternoon she announced that she had found a little play in a magazine, which we would. learn, and that after we had rehearsed it, we would have the family in for audience. Now this was the limit, for cowboys. But Seth and Sam rose to the bait, quite eagerly in fact when they learned that Belle was to be the heroine and that they would have a chance to kiss her hand in the play.

She at once assigned me the part of property man, and told Billy that as he was to impersonate the avenging father, he need not make his appearance until the end of the last scene. Seth and Sam were to have the best parts, for Sam was to be a villain escaping from justice, and Seth a detective, whose part was to shadow the villain. It was a wildish plot, and personally, I did not see why these two star performers should have been. disguised as women. But so the play ran-or Belle said it did, which was the same thing.

We had the first rehearsal that afternoon, and dress rehearsal the next. Belle had furnished Seth a short skirt, a bodice cut low in the neck, and a pair of stays that had belonged to some fat old grandmother of the House of Bradley. Carpet slippers and golf hose completed his costume, and when he dressed it took Billy and Sam and me to cinch him up, for we were helpless with laughter half the time; and we took the mirror out of the room for fear if he saw himself

in those stays, he'd go back on us entirely.

Sam's costume was simpler, consisting of a loose one-piece dress thrown over a few of his masculine garments; but on the afternoon that we were to give our matinee for the family he looked sufficiently ridiculous; for Belle insisted on powdering his nose, curling his hair, and tying a pink straw bonnet on his head.

Promptly at three o'clock the chief actors were before the footlightsthat is to say, the windows of the front parlor (which opened off the hall). As for Seth and Sam, they were entirely unconscious of the presence of a few neighbors whom Belle had secretly invited to sit in the back parlor, where, by means of carefully adjusted screens, they might watch the play, themselves unseen.

As property man, I was skulking behind the portieres in the hall, my kodak on a little center table. Billy was near at hand, but also out of view. And the play went smoothly up to a certain point. The villain was slipping his arm around the heroine, when the detective, who had been in hiding, crept out, ready to spring upon his brother actor. The cue for his spring was to be Belle's words: "May heaven preserve me in my lour of need!" Before the words, Belle stepped to a window, adjusting the curtain so as to throw a perfect light on our enemies. Billy held aside the portieres for me; Belle gave us ten seconds, then turned about, and with uplifted hands, spoke the tragic line.

They

Click! and I had the picture. But the boys had heard. turned. I passed the kodak to Billy and he shot out of the street door. I slammed it after him, thereby cutting off their view of my ally, who merely ran around the house and upstairs by the back way.

Talk about lightning changes! Sam tore off his dress and dashed into the street in his trousers and linen mesh, that silly pink bonnet still tied firmly under his chin. Seth tried to follow his brother's example, but merely suc

ceeded in tearing his bodice and displaying those stays, and a little more of his manly breast than was quite modest. Gathering his skirt as high as he could, he made for the gate. His slippers came off as he ran; and I heard Billy upstairs at the window nearly splitting himself with laughter.

At this minute, as luck would have it, a man went dashing madly past the house after a car half a block away; and the man had a kodak slung over his shoulders. With shouts and threats did Sam and Seth pursue him. Men and women stopped on the sidewalk to gape. Windows went up and heads were poked out.

"I bet on the car!" yelled one. "I bet on the lady with boots!" howled another.

"Go it, old scout!" shrieked a third as Seth passed, a yard ahead of his brother.

The man with the kodak was the only person who paid no attention. He caught his car on the fly as it slowed for the crossing, and he sat down breathless. At the same moment the power went off. A dozen leaps and his pursuers were on the running board. They tore that kodak from its owner without a word or a glance for anything else.

The outraged passenger called on the conductor for protection, but the conductor felt it no part of his duty to interfere. The boys dropped into the street, and now the passengers were treated to the sight of two persons-sex uncertain, but apparently escaped lunatics-engaged in tearing out the inner mechanism of a kodak and trampling it into the dust of the public road.

When the film was destroyed, and not until then, did the brothers discover that they had got the wrong kodak. And there they stood, Sam glaring from under that little pink bonnet, Seth, in his stocking feet and his stays, glancing wildly from the wreck in the road to the face of a total stranger, who seemed decidedly irritated over the destruction of his property.

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While Seth and Sam were paying for that kodak in gold coin, the power came on. The motorman began to ring his bell, the passengers crowded on board; and, as the car went lurching down the street, the conductor waved his hands from the rear platform, and called out: "Corsets!"

Now the two actors raced each other back to the house, each trying to hide in front of the other. I had witnessed the whole thing from the doorstep, but as the two approached I ran upstairs to Billy.

"Get 'em again, oh, get 'em again," screeched he, handing me the kodak.

Downstairs I ran and into the parlor, Billy close behind me, ready to rescue the kodak. The audience, who had crowded to the windows, now scurried into the back parlor, and I snapped the boys again, just as they came raging into the hall. Billy grabbed the kodak. Seth made a dash for him; but there was a full length mirror in front of him, and as he caught sight of his own reflection, he turned and leaped upstairs.

Sam paused long enough to make one lunge at Billy, but Billy dodged, while the family and the assembled neighbors shrieked and screamed. Sam gave one wild look around, saw Belle helpless with laughter; saw himself in the mirror, underclothes, pink bonnet, and all-and he, too, was gone.

"I don't care what they tell on me now," declared Billy in rapture when he and I were alone again with my trusty kodak. "Nothin'-nothin' they can tell will come up to those pictures -and photographs don't lie!"

Seth and Sam left without saying adieu, and Billy and I paid the Bradley's, and paid them cheerfully, for the enemies' bed and board. We ourselves waited only long enough to get a dozen of those pictures printed, when we also started for the range. It was nearly sundown when we took our departure. Billy kissed Belle good-bye before us all, without rebuke; and I would have done the same, only I was a married man. Be