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know what you would have done under the circumstances, but I know you'd have been either a fool or a prophet if you hadn't let fly for all you were worth!"

The boy looked up at the friendly, humorous face, and pleasant relentings stole upon him.

"Well, then," he said, with a sudden, flashing smile, which illuminated his harsh countenance, very much as the gold of the aspens lit up the wall of frowning rock over there. "That's all right, and I'm glad I did it."

"All right!" cried Dayton, with a sudden rising emotion in his voice,—"I should think it was all right! It isn't every day that a man and his wife get their lives saved in that offhand way! Why! I'm all balled up every time I think of it!"

"Oh, well; I don't know!" said Waldo, relapsing into embarrassment again; "I guess it was the horses I thought of as much as anything!"

Dayton was still too sincerely moved to laugh outright at this unexpected turn, as he would have done in spite of himself under ordinary circumstances, but he found it a relief to slip back into his tone of easy banter.

"If that's the case," he said; "would you mind coming back and being introduced to the