demanded again, very fierce.

"For heaven's sake," I yelled at him, "what's the matter with you and
your old clothes? There ain't enough of them to dust a fiddle with
anyway. What do you think I'd want with them? They're safe enough."'

"Let me have them," he begged.

"Now, look here," said I, "you can't get up to-day. You ain't fit."

"I know," he pleaded, "but let me see them."

Just to satisfy him I passed over his old duds.

"I've been robbed," he cried.

"Well," said I, "what did you expect would happen to you lying around
Yuma after midnight with a hole in your head?"

"Where's my coat?" he asked.

"You had no coat when I picked you up," I replied.

He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more--he
wouldn't even answer when I spoke to him. After he'd eaten a fair meal
he fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk was empty and
he was gone.

I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him quite
a ways off. He nodded at me very sour, and dodged around the corner of
the store.

"Guess he suspicions I stole that old coat of his," thinks I; and
afterwards I found that my surmise had been correct.

However, he didn't stay long in that frame of mind. It was along
towards evening, and I was walking on the banks looking down over the
muddy old Colorado, as I always liked to do. The sun had just set, and
the mountains had turned hard and stiff, as they do after the glow, and
the sky above them was a thousand million miles deep of pale green-gold
light. A pair of Greasers were ahead of me, but I could see only their
outlines, and they didn't seem to interfere any with the scenery.
Suddenly a black figure seemed to rise up out of the ground; the
Mexican man went down as though he'd been jerked with a string, and the
woman screeched.

I ran up, pulling my gun. The Mex was flat on his face, his arms
stretched out. On the middle of his back knelt my one-armed friend.
And that sharp hook was caught neatly under the point of the Mexican's
jaw. You bet he lay still.

I really think I was just in time to save the man's life. According to
my belief another minute would have buried the hook in the Mexican's
neck. Anyway, I thrust the muzzle of my Colt's into the sailor's face.

"What's this?" I asked.

The sailor looked up at me without changing his position. He was not
the least bit afraid.

"This man has my coat," he explained.

"Where'd you get th