all back on for a grub
stake, but from what I hear we can dry wash enough to buy corn and
flour, and the hills are full of burro meat. We'll browse around until
we either strike it rich, or get fed up with trying. Anyway,
_Companero_, we will be in a quiet, peaceful pastoral land, close to
nature, and out of reach of Teuton guile and monkey wrenches. _Buenas
noches_, senor. I'm asleep!"

Pike closed the door, and went from the semi-dark of the adobe out
into the brilliant sunshine where Billie, with a basket, was waiting
under the _ramada_ with Merced, and Merced looked gloomy lest Pedro
should be blamed by Senor Singleton for practically turning his family
out of the adobe that it might be given over to the loco Americano.

"Tomorrow, can he go?" she asked hopefully. "Me, I have a fear. Not
before is the adobe here watched by hidden men at night, and that is
very bad! Because that he is friend to you I say to everybody that I
think the Americano is dying in our house, but today he talks, also he
is laughing. No more sick?"

"No more sick, sure not, but it will be one more day. A man does not
bleed like a gored bull and ride the next day under a sky hot enough
to fry eggs. The tea of Dona Luz drove off the fever, and he only
sleeps and talks, and sleeps again, but sick? Not a bit!"

"Nor--nor sorry, I reckon?" ventured Billie.

"Why, no child, not that I could notice. That scalawag doesn't seem to
have much conscience concerning his behavior."

"Or his language!" she added.

"Sure, that was some invocation he offered up! But just between pals,
Billie, you ought to have been in hearing."

"I--I don't suppose he even remembers that I was," she remarked, and
then after a silence, "or--or even mentioned--us?"

"Why, no, Billie. You made the right guess when you sized him up and
thought he couldn't hold the job. He certainly doesn't belong, Billie,
for this ranch is the homing nest of the peace doves, and he's just an
ungainly young game rooster starting out with a dare against the
world, and only himself for a backer. Honest,--if that misguided youth
had been landed in jail, I don't reckon there's anyone in Arizona with
little enough sense to bail him out."

"Likely not," said Billie. "Well, there's the basket from Tia Luz, and
I might as well go home."

CHAPTER V

AN "ADIOS"--AND AFTER

Two days later in the blue clear air of the Arizona morning a sage hen
slipped with her young through the coarse