"Nor I!" said Wallie.

"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."

"How kin we go to court?"

"'Tain't fur."

"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.

The constable retorted callously: "Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dance in Main Street."

"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.

"Sure--right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and a lot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."

Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! He doubted if she would ever speak to him.

"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap a soogan around you and step lively."

There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so the shame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rear of which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.

"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And half an hour to get out of town."

Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.

"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be so kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we shall feel greatly indebted to you."

The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat: "Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out--and if you show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."

He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his scratching.

"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts, "I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like 'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm busted."

"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.

"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a feller wrote up: "A Texas boy in a Northern clime, With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime. The southeast side of his overalls out-- Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death!"

"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could think of the rest of it."

"Don't overtax your brain--I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in sudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed in Canby's roadster.




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