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Andy forgot his personal embarrassment and began to perk up his ears. This was growing interesting.

“–And I have felt how lonely they must be, with their rude fare and few pleasures, and what a field there must be among them for a great and noble work; to uplift them and bring into their lonely lives a broader, deeper meaning; to help them to help themselves to be better, nobler men and women–“

“We don’t have any lady cowpunchers out here,” interposed Andy mildly.

The strange lady had merely gone astray a bit, being accustomed to addressing Mothers’ Meetings and the like. She recovered herself easily. “Nobler men, the bulwarks of our nation.” She stopped and eyed Andy archly. Andy, having observed that her neck was scrawny, with certain cords down the sides that moved unpleasantly when she talked, tried not to look.

“I wonder if you can guess what brings me out here, away from home and friends! Can you guess?”

Andy thought of several things, but he could not feel that it would be polite to mention them. Agent for complexion stuff, for instance, and next to that, wanting a husband. He shook his head again and looked at his potato.

“You can’t guess?” The tone was the one commonly employed for the encouragement, and consequent demoralization of, a primary class. Andy realized that he was being talked down to, and his combativeness awoke. “Well, away back in my home town, a woman’s club has been thinking of all you lonely fellows, and have felt their hearts swell with a desire to help you–so far from home and mother’s influence, with only the coarse pleasures of the West, and amid all the temptations that lie in wait–” She caught herself back from speech-making–“and they have sent me–away out here–to be your friend; to help you to help yourselves become better, truer men and–” She did not say women, though, poor soul, she came near it. “So, I am going to be your friend. I want to get in touch with you all, first; to win your confidence and teach you to look upon me in the light of a mother. Then, when I have won your confidence, I want to organize a Cowboys’ Mutual Improvement and Social Society, to help you in the way of self-improvement and to resist the snares laid for homeless boys like you. Don’t you think I’m very–brave?” She was smiling at him again, leaning back in her chair and regarding him playfully over her glasses.

“You sure are,” Andy assented, deliberately refraining from saying “yes, ma’am,” as had been his impulse.

“To come away out here–all alone–among all you wild cowboys with your guns buckled on and your wicked little mustangs–Are you sure you won’t shoot me?”

Andy eyed her pityingly. If she meant it, he thought, she certainly was wabbly in her mind. If she thought that was the only kind of talk he could savvy, then she was a blamed idiot; either way, he felt antagonistic. “The law shall be respected in your case,” he told her, very gravely.

She smiled almost as if she could see the joke; after which she became twitteringly, eagerly in earnest. “Since you live near here, you must know the Whitmores. Miss Whitmore came out here, two or three years ago, and married her brother’s coachman, I believe–though I’ve heard conflicting stories about it; some have said he was an artist, and others that he was a jockey, or horse-trainer. I heard too that he was a cowboy; but Miss Whitmore certainly wrote about this young man driving her brother’s carriage. However, she is married and I have a letter of introduction to her. The president of our club used to be a schoolmate of her mother. I shall stop with them–I have heard so much about the Western hospitality–and shall get into touch with my cowboys from the vantage point of proximity. Did you say you know them?”