tarp with him many's the time when we were
followin' Chiricahua 'Paches. He's the biggest dare-devil that ever
forked a horse."

"Describe him."

"Micky's face is a map of Ireland. He's got only one eye; a buck punched
the other out when he was a kid. His hair is red an' he wears it long."

"Any beard?"

"A bristly little red mustache."

"That's Micky to a T." Webb made up his mind swiftly. "The boy's all
right, Yankie. He'll do to take along."

"It's your outfit. Suits me if he does you." The foreman turned
insolently to the newcomer. "What'd you say your name was, sissie?"

The eyes of the boy, behind narrowed lids, grew hard as steel.

"Call me Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em," he drawled in a soft voice, every syllable
distinct.

There was a moment of chill silence. A swift surprise had flared into the
eyes of the foreman. The last thing in the world he had expected was to
have his bad temper resented so promptly by this smooth-faced little
chap. Since Yankie was the camp bully he bristled up to protect his
reputation.

"Better not get on the prod with me, young fellow me lad. I'm liable to
muss up your hair. Me, I'm from the Strip, where folks grow man-size."

The youngster smiled, but there was no mirth in that thin-lipped smile.
He knew, as all men did, that the Cherokee Strip was the home of
desperadoes and man-killers. The refuse of the country, driven out by the
law of more settled communities, found here a refuge from punishment. But
if the announcement of the foreman impressed him, he gave no sign of it.

"Why didn't you stay there?" he asked with bland innocence.

Yankie grew apoplectic. He did not care to discuss the reasons why he
had first gone to the Strip or the reasons why he had come away. This
girl-faced boy was the only person who had asked for a bill of
particulars. Moreover, the foreman did not know whether the question had
been put in child-like ignorance of any possible offense or with an
impudent purpose to enrage him.

"Don't run on the rope when I'm holdin' it, kid," he advised roughly.
"You're liable to get thrown hard."

"And then again I'm liable not to," lisped the youth from Arizona gently.

The bully looked the slim newcomer over again, and as he looked there
rang inside him some tocsin of warning. Thursday sat crouched in the
saddle, wary as a rattlesnake ready to strike. A sawed-off shotgun lay
under his leg within reach of his hand, the butt of a six-gun was even
closer to th