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“Got anything yuh want to bet on that?” Weary reached challengingly toward an inner pocket of his vest.

“Nit. I don’t give a darn, anyway yuh look at it. I’m going to bed.” Pink unrolled his “sooguns” in their accustomed corner next to Weary’s bed and went straightway to sleep.

Weary thumped his own battered pillow into some semblance of plumpness and gazed with suspicion at the thick fringe of curled lashes lying softly upon Pink’s cheeks.

“If I was a girl,” he said pensively to the others, “I’d sure be in love with Cadwolloper myself. He don’t amount to nothing, but his face ‘d cause me to lose my appetite and pine away like a wilted vi’let. It’s straight, about that girl being stuck on his picture; I’d gamble she’s counting the hours on her fingers, right now, till he’ll stand before her. Schoolma’am says it’ll be a plumb sin if he don’t act pretty about it and let her love him.” He eyed Pink sharply from the tail of his eye, but not a lash quivered; the breath came evenly and softly between Pink’s half-closed lips–and if he heard there was nothing to betray the fact.

Weary sighed and tried again. “And that ain’t the worst of it, either. Mame Beckman has got an attack; she told Schoolma’am she could die for Pink and never bat an eye. She said she never knowed what true love was till she seen him. She says he looks just like the cherubs–all but the wings–that she’s been working in red thread on some pillow shams. She was making ’em for her sister a present, but she can’t give ’em up, now; she calls all the cherubs ‘Pink,’ and kisses ’em night and morning, regular.” He paused and watched anxiously Pink’s untroubled face. “I tell yuh, boys, it’s awful to have the fatal gift uh beauty, like Cadwolloper’s got. He means all right, but he sure trifles a lot with girls’ affections–which ain’t right. Mamma! don’t he look sweet, laying there so innocent? I’m sure sorry for Mame, though.” He eyed him sidelong. But Pink slept peacefully on, except that, after a half minute, he stirred slightly and muttered something about “drive that darned cow back.” Then Weary gave up in despair and went to sleep. When the tent became silent, save for the heavy breathing of tired men. Pink’s long lashes lifted a bit, and he grinned maliciously up at the cloth roof.

For obvious reasons he was the only one of the lot who heard with no misgivings the vicious swoop of the storm; so long as the tent-pegs held he didn’t care how hard it rained. But the others who woke to the roar of wind and the crash of thunder and to the swish and beat of much falling water, turned uneasily in their beds and hoped that it would not last long. To be late in starting for that particular scene of merry-making which had held their desires for so long would be a calamity they could not reflect upon calmly.

At three o’clock Pink, from long habit, opened his eyes to the dull gray of early morning. The air in the tent was clammy and chill and filled with the audible breathing of a dozen sleeping men; overhead the canvas was dull yellow and sodden with the steady drip, drip, drop of rain. There would be no starting out at sunrise–and perhaps there would be no starting at all, he thought with lazy disappointment, and turned on his side for another nap. His glance fell upon Weary’s up-turned, slumber-blank face, and his memory reverted revengefully to the baiting of the night before. He would fix Weary for that, he told himself spitefully; mentally measured a perpendicular line from Weary’s face to the roof, reached up and drew his finger firmly down along the canvas for a good ten inches–and if you don’t know why, try it yourself some time in a tent with the rain pouring down upon the land. As if that were not enough he repeated the operation again and again, each time in a fresh place, until the rain came through beautifully all over the bed of Weary. Then he lay down, cuddled the blankets up to his ears, closed his eyes and composed himself to sleep, at peace with his conscience and the world–and it did not disturb his self-satisfaction when Weary presently awoke, moved sleepily away from one drip and directly under another, shifted again, swore a little in an undertone and at last was forced to take refuge under his tarpaulin. After that Pink went blissfully off to dreamland.