ve his self-respect. I had heard Brunner tell of "back
downs" that would have shamed a young village constable, and it had
never occurred to me to question his courage.

It was only in the last mile of their ride that the chatter of young
Thomas really became audible to Brunner.

"I woke up," he said, "and actually listened to him. I don't remember
exactly what he was saying, but this was the idea: 'All of you fellows
that chase outlaws make too much fuss about it.' Well, some of us do,
though the newspapers and the wind-bags that follow us around make ten
times the fuss we do. He went on to say that the only way to nab a
horse-thief or an express robber was to go right up to him, don't you
know, like the little boy went up to the sign-post that he thought was a
ghost.

"It's a good theory and generally works. I told him so, and then
apologized for doing any other way. The way I thought about this
business of a deputy marshal's was the way an old soldier thinks about
war. I was hired to get the criminals, and not to be caught by the
criminals, to shoot the bad man, if I had to, but not to be shot by the
bad man if there was any way to help it. One way to help it is to run
and hide. It's a good way, too, for I've tried it."

The young man roused Brunner's curiosity. It was possible that he might
be of the exceptional breed that puts a fine theory to the test of
action.

"I decided to watch him," the ranchman told me, "and see if he would
play up to his big talk. When we left our ponies, half a mile from the
camp, I pretended to argue with 'Cap' White, told him he ought to leave
young Thomas with the horses and not get such a boy as that all shot
up. 'Cap' caught my point and begged him to stay, but, of course, he
wouldn't hear of it. 'I'll stick to Brunner,' says he.

"'All right,' says I, 'come on.'

"When we started afoot, we trailed out single file, and I noticed that
old man Thomas waited for the boy and me to pass him, dropping in right
behind his son. 'Cap' was in front, then Bruce, then Paden Tolbert, then
Ryder and Kelso, and then I and the Thomases. The old man was at the
tail of the procession.

"Old man Thomas was the kind that you never think about one way or the
other. You said to yourself that he would do his share, whatever it
amounted to, and you wouldn't have to bother about him. That's your
notion of him, ain't it?"

It _was_ my notion of the older Thomas. I don't think a more commonplace
lo