The Major’s complacent smile changed to a slight frown as a man in a black tall crowned hat stopped to rest his back against the post of the Laundry sign.

It had reached the Major’s ears that Mormon Joe had said that Prouty had no more future than a prairie dog town. He had been in his cups at the time but that did not palliate the offense.

Now, there—there was the kind of a man that helped a town! The Major’s brow cleared as Jasper Toomey swung round the corner by the Prouty House and clattered down the main street sitting high-headed and arrogant in a Brewster cart. Spent money like a prince—he did. A few more people like the Toomeys and the future of the country was assured.

In the meantime Toomey had brought the velvet-mouthed horse to its haunches in front of the laundry where he tossed a bundle into the sheepman’s arms, saying casually;

“Take that inside, my man.”

Without a change of expression, Mormon Joe caught it, rolled it compactly and kicked it over the horse’s back into the street.

“There’s no brass buttons sewed on my coat—take it yourself!” Mormon Joe shrugged a shoulder as he walked off.

Walter Scales of the Emporium dashed into the street and recovered the laundry with an apologetic air as though he were somehow responsible for the act.

“You have to make allowances for the rough characters that swarm into a new country,” he said, as he delivered the bundle himself.

“I’ll break that pauper sheepherder before I quit!” A vein under Toomey’s right eye and another on his temple stood out swollen and purple.