Yet a lot of these folks would say he's nothin' but a cow-puncher.

As for that, Jim Reid ain't much more than a cow-puncher himself.

I tell you, I've seen cow-punchers that was mighty good men, an' I've seen graduates from them there universities that was plumb good for nothin'-- with no more real man about 'em than there is about one of these here wax dummies that they hang clothes on in the store windows.

What any self-respectin' woman can see in one of them that would make her want to marry him is more than I've ever been able to figger out." If the Dean had not been so engrossed in his own thoughts, he would have wondered at the strange effect of his words upon his companion.

The young man's face flushed scarlet, then paled as though with sudden illness, and he looked sidewise at the older man with an expression of shame and humiliation, while his eyes, wistful and pleading, were filled with pain.