aused to slap Ronicky Doone on the
back.

"It's fate, Ronicky," he said, over and over again. "Thinking of waking
up and finding the girl that you've loved and lost standing waiting for
you! It's the dead come to life. I'm the happiest man in the world.
Ronicky, old boy, one of these days I'll be able--" He paused, stopped
by the solemnity of Doone's face. "What's wrong, Ronicky?"

"I don't know," said the other gloomily. He rubbed his arms slowly, as
if to bring back the circulation to numbed limbs.

"You act like you're sick, Ronicky."

"I'm getting bad-luck signs, Bill. That's the short of it."

"How come?"

"The old scars are prickling."

"Scars? What scars?"

"Ain't you noticed 'em."

It was bedtime, so Ronicky Doone took off his coat and shirt. The
rounded body, alive with playing muscles, was striped, here and there,
with white streaks--scars left by healed wounds.

"At your age? A kid like you with scars?" Bill Gregg had been asking,
and then he saw the exposed scars and gasped. "How come, Ronicky," he
asked huskily in his astonishment, "that you got all those and ain't
dead yet?"

"I dunno," said the other. "I wonder a pile about that, myself. Fact is
I'm a lucky gent, Bill Gregg."

"They say back yonder in your country that you ain't never been beaten,
Ronicky."

"They sure say a lot of foolish things, just to hear themselves talk,
partner. A gent gets pretty good with a gun, then they say he's the best
that ever breathed--that he's never been beat. But they forget things
that happened just a year back. No, sir; I sure took my lickings when I
started."

"But, dog-gone it, Ronicky, you ain't twenty-four now!"

"Between sixteen and twenty-two I spent a pile of time in bed, Bill, and
you can lay to that!"

"And you kept practicing?"

"Sure, when I found out that I had to. I never liked shooting much.
Hated to think of having a gent's life right inside the crook of my
trigger finger. But, when I seen that I had to get good, why I just let
go all holds and practiced day and night. And I still got to practice."

"I seen that," said Bill Gregg. "Every day, for an hour or two, you work
with your guns."

"It's like being a musician," said Ronicky without enthusiasm. "I heard
about it once. Suppose a gent works up to be a fine musician, maybe at
the piano. You'd think, when he got to the top and knew everything, he
could lay off and take things easy the rest of his life. But not him!
Nope, he'