“It seems to me that you have a pretty steady correspondent there,” said Stephen, while he straightened up his desk preparatory to the evening’s work. “I have handed you a letter like that every night this week.” McKay colored even more, then stretched out his hand. “Shake, Steve! I am going to get spliced. I have been meaning to tell you before this.”
Loring jumped up and pounded him on the back.
“You gay winner of hearts, who is she?”
“Do you remember Jane Stevens, back at Quentin? Well, it’s her.”
Loring’s eyes twinkled. “How did you ever get the nerve?” he asked.
At the thought of his audacity, the perspiration broke out on McKay’s forehead.
“Well she had me plumb locoed. I remember once a horse had me buffaloed the same way,” he explained. “I was scared, scared blue, Steve; but finally I got up my nerve and thought I’d go and break my affections to her gentle and polite like. So one day I rode over to their place,—you know where it is was, just south of the Dominion trail,—and I thought I’d go to see her brother Charlie and fix it up with him. When I reached their shack she came to the door looking as neat as a partridge and with a sort of smile hidden somewhere in her face, and—and I’ll be damned if I didn’t kiss her right then without any formalities.”
“That was the simplest solution of the problem, wasn’t it?” laughed Stephen. “When are you going to be married?”
“Oh, soon, I guess; but I wish it could be managed as simply as these Mexicans do. And how about you, Steve?” continued McKay. “You ain’t been took this way yourself, have you? Not that woman you was telling me about in Mexico.”