"I reckon the old man is goin' to take a look at the post-office to see how he likes the place," said Curly, reflectively, as he gazed after the gentleman whom he had frankly elected as his father-in-law. "He'll get it, all right. Never saw a man from Leavenworth who wasn't a good shot at a postoffice. But say, about that Littlest Girl--well, I wonder!"
Curly was very restless until dinner-time, which, for one reason or another, was postponed until about four of the afternoon. We met at Dan Anderson's law office, which was also his residence, a room about a dozen feet by twenty in size. The bunks were cleaned up, the blankets put out of the way, and the centre of the room given over to a table, small and home-made, but very full of good cheer for that time and place. At the fireplace, McKinney, flushed and red, was broiling some really good loin steaks. McKinney also allowed his imagination to soar to the height of biscuits. Coffee was there assuredly, as one might tell by the welcome odor now ascending. Upon the table there was something masked under an ancient copy of a newspaper. Outside the door of the adobe, in the deepest shade obtainable, sat two soap boxes full of snow, or at least partly full, for Tom Osby had done his best. In one of these boxes appeared the proof of Curly's truthfulness--three cans of oysters, delicacies hitherto unheard of in that land! In the other box was an object almost as unfamiliar as an oyster can,--an oblong, smooth, and now partially frost-covered object with tinfoil about its upper end. A certain tense excitement obtained.
"I wonder if she'll get _frappe_ enough," said Dan Anderson. He was a Princeton man once upon a time.
"It don't make no difference about the frappy part," said Curly, "just so she gets _cold_ enough. I reckon I savvy wine some. I never was up the trail, not none! No, I reckon not! Huh?"
We agreed on Curly's worldliness cheerfully; indeed, agreed cheerfully that all the world was a good place and all its inhabitants were everything that could be asked. Life was young and fresh and strong. The spell of Heart's Desire was upon us all that Christmas Day.
"Now," said Curly, dropping easily into the somewhat vague position of host, when McKinney had finally placed his platter of screeching hot steaks upon the table. "Now, then, grub pi-i-i-i-le!" He sang the summons loud and clear, as it has sounded on many a frosty morning or sultry noon in many a corner of the range. "Set up, fellers," said Curly. "It's bridles off now, and cinches down, and the trusties next to the mirror." (By this speech Curly probably meant that the time was one of ease and safety, wherein one might place his six-shooter back of the bar, in sign that he was in search of no man, and that none was in search of him. It was not good form to eat in a private family in Heart's Desire with one's gun at one's belt.)