him rather a thrilling figure. They watched him and waylaid him.
"Let's see the new hat, Tom. Where'd you get it?"
"Sent to Texas for it. It's sure a good hat."
"Sit down, can't you? You're always going somewhere."
"I'm a busy man," he would say. "This show would be nowhere, if I didn't run around and tell 'em how to do things."
Perhaps he would sit down, and for a half hour or so there would be dalliances of a half-jocular type.
"Let's see that ring. Who gave you that?"
"I bought it. What d'you think? Some fellow gave it to me?"
He would hold her hand, under pretext of examining the ring.
"Nice little hand. Doesn't seem right it should be doing work, somehow. You ought to get a husband and let him work for you."
"If you get a husband in this business you've gotta work too. They aren't carrying any dead wood."
But before long he would tire of her and move on, his hunger for feminine society temporarily appeased. He was no saint; he let women alone because they no longer interested him, but he still swore and sometimes swaggered, and he was still a fighting wildcat on occasion.
Once, indeed, he lost a portion of a front tooth in an encounter. He spent a hundred dollars to have it filled out with gold, and was excessively proud of it.
"If I die and don't leave any money," he told the little Cossack, "you pull this—see?—and bury me with it."
"Very nice," said the Cossack, not understanding. Tom threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"You're a cold-blooded little devil, aren't you? For all your circus lady!"
Again, coming on Little Dog one day just afterwards, he stopped the Indian.
"You try any tricks on me now, and see what happens!"
"What happen?" said Little Dog, glowering.
"I'll bite you with this." Tom told him, grinning cheer-
