"A wise and generous theory," I assented. "And Mrs. Kinney plays well. I am not learned in the science of music, but I should call her an uncommonly good performer. She has technic and more than ordinary power."
The moon was very bright, you will understand, and I saw upon Kinney''s face a sort of amused and pregnant expression, as though there were things behind it that might be expounded.
"You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork," he said promisingly. "As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted jacal to your left under a comma mott."
"I did," said I. "There was a drove of javalis rooting around it. I could see by the broken corrals that no one lived there."
"That''s where this music proposition started," said Kinney. "I don''t mind telling you about it while we smoke. That''s where old Cal Adams lived. He had about eight hundred graded merinos and a daughter that was solid silk and as handsome as a new stake-rope on a thirty-dollar pony. And I don''t mind telling you that I was guilty in the second degree of hanging around old Cal''s ranch all the time I could spare away from lambing and shearing. Miss Marilla was her name; and I had figured it out by the rule of two that she was destined to become the chatelaine and lady superior of Rancho Lomito, belonging to R. Kinney, Esq., where you are now a welcome and honoured guest.