ANOTHER WEDDING AT THE FORKS.
Limber Tim no longer wrestled with saplings or picket-fences, or even his limber legs. He had other and graver matters on hand. The birds were building their nests all about him, and he too wanted to gather moss.
At last the boy-man was happy. At least, he came one night very late to "Sandy's," as the Widow's home was now called, and standing outside of the house and backing up against the fence, and sticking his hands in behind him, and twisting his left leg around the right, he called out to Sandy in a voice that was wild and uncertain as a wind that is lost in the trees.
Sandy laid it down tenderly, covered it up, and watching it a minute and making sure that it was sound asleep and well, went out. Limber Tim was writhing and twisting more than ever before. Sandy was glad, for he now knew that he was perfectly well, and that he had got the great matter settled, and that in a way perfectly satisfactory to himself.
And yet the two men were terribly embarrassed. What made the embarrassment very much the worse was the fact that they were at least half-a-mile from the nearest saloon. Fortunately it was very dark for a Californian night, and the men could look each other in the face without seeing each other.
There was a long and painful silence. Limber Tim wrestled with his right leg with all his might, and would have thrown it time and again, but from the fact that his two arms were thrust in behind and wound through the palings, so that it was impossible for him to fall.
His mouth was open and his tongue was out, but he could not talk. At last Sandy broke the prolonged and profound silence.
"Win her, Limber?"
"Won her, Sandy."
"Bully for Limber Tim!"