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Andy, having nothing in mind that he dared say to a lady, helped her into the wagon.

At sundown or thereabouts–for the days were short and he had a load of various things besides care–Andy let himself wearily into the bunk-house where was assembled the Happy Family. He merely grunted when they spoke to him, and threw himself heavily down upon his bunk.

“For Heaven’s sake, somebody roll me a cigarette! I’m too wore out to do a thing, and I haven’t had a smoke since dinner,” he groaned, after a minute.

“Sick?” asked Pink solicitously.

“Sick as a dog! water, water!” moaned Andy. All at once he rolled over upon his face and shook with laughter more than a little hysterical, and to the questioning of the Happy Family gave no answer but howls. The Happy Family began to look at one another uneasily.

“Aw, let up!” Happy Jack bellowed. “You give a man the creeps just to listen at yuh.”

“I’m going to empty the water-bucket over yuh in a minute,” Pink threatened, “Go get it, Cal; it’s half full.”

Andy knew well the metal of which the Happy Family was made, and the night was cool for a ducking. He rolled back so that they could see his face, and struggled for calm. In a minute he sat up and merely gurgled.

“Well, say, I had to do something or die,” he explained, gasping. “I’ve gone through a heap, the last few hours, and I was right where I couldn’t do a thing. By gracious, I struck the ranch about as near bug-house as a man can get and recover. Where’s a cigarette?”

“What you’ve gone through–and I don’t give a cuss what it is–ain’t a marker for what’s going to happen if yuh don’t loosen up on the history,” said Jack Bates firmly.

Andy smoked hungrily while he surveyed the lot. “How calm and innocent yuh all look,” he observed musingly, “with your hats on and saying words that’s rude, and smoking the vile weed regardless, never dreaming what’s going to drop, pretty soon quick. Yuh make me think of a hymn-song my step-mother used to sing a lot, about ‘They dreamed not of danger, those sinners of old, whom–“

“Hand me the water bucket,” directed Pink musically.

“Oh, well–take it from the shoulder, then; I was only trying to lead up to it gradual, but yuh will have it raw. You poor, dear cowboys, that live your lonely lives watching over your cattle with your faithful dogs and the stars for company, you’re going to be improved. (You’ll sure stand a lot of it, too!) A woman’s relief club back East has felt the burden of your no-accountness and general orneriness, and has sent one of its leading members out here to reform yuh. You’re going to be hazed into a Cowboys’ Mutual Improvement and Social Society, and quit smoking cigarettes and cussing your hosses and laying over Rusty’s bar when yuh ride into town; and for pleasure and recreation you’re going to read Tennyson’s poems, and when yuh get caught out in a blizzard yuh’ll be heeled with Whittier’s Snowbound, pocket edition. Emerson and Browning and Shakespeare and Gatty” (Andy misquoted; he meant Goethe) “and all them stiffs is going to be set before yuh regular and in your mind constant, purging it of unclean thoughts, and grammar is going to be learnt yuh as a side-line. Yuh–“

“Mama mine,” broke in Weary. “I have thought sometimes, when Andy broke loose with that imagination uh his, that he’d gone the limit; but next time he always raises the limit out uh sight. He’s like the Good Book says: he’s prone to lie as the sparks fly-upward.”

Andy gazed belligerently at the skeptical group. “I brought her out from town,” he said doggedly, “and whilst I own up to having an imagination, she’s stranger than fiction. She’d make the fellow that wrote “She” lay down with a headache. She’s come out here to help us cowboys live nobler, better lives. She’s going to learn yuh Browning, darn yuh! and Emerson and Gatty. She said so. She’s going to fill your hearts with love for dumb creatures, so when yuh get set afoot out on the range, or anything like that, yuh won’t put in your time cussing the miles between you and camp; you’ll have a pocket edition of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ to read, or the speech Mark Anthony made when he was running for office. Or supposing yuh left ’em all in camp, yuh’ll study nature. There’s sermons in stones, she says. She’s going to send for a pocket library that can easy be took on roundup–“