ith it."

"I'm laughin' at you, Dug. We all are. Wish you could see yoreself as we
see you. A little water takes a lot o' tuck outa some men who are feelin'
real biggity."

Byington, at this moment, sauntered into the assembly. He looked around
in simulated surprise. "Must be bath night over at you-all's camp, Dug.
You look kinda drookid yore own self, as you might say."

Doble swore savagely. He pointed with a shaking finger at Sanders, who
was standing silently in the background. "Tha's the man who's responsible
for this. Think I don't know? That jail bird! That convict! That killer!"
His voice trembled with fury. "You'd never a-thought of it in a thousand
years, Hart. Nor you, Buck, you old fathead. Wait. Tha's what I say.
Wait. It'll be me or him one day. Soon, too."

The paroled man said nothing, but no words could have been more effective
than the silence of this lean, powerful man with the close-clamped jaw
whose hard eyes watched his enemy so steadily. He gave out an impression
of great vitality and reserve force. Even these hired thugs, dull and
unimaginative though they were, understood that he was dangerous beyond
most fighting men. A laugh snapped the tension. The Jackpot engineer
pointed to a figure emerging from the arroyo. The man who came dejectedly
into view was large and fat and dripping. He was weeping curses and
trying to pick cactus burrs from his anatomy. Dismal groans punctuated
his profanity.

"It stranded me right on top of a big prickly pear," he complained. "I
like never to 'a' got off, and a million spines are stickin' into me."

Bob whooped. "Look who's among us. If it ain't our old friend Ad Miller,
the human pincushion. Seein' as he drapped in, we'll collect him right
now and find out if the sheriff ain't lookin' for him to take a trip on
the choo-choo cars."

The fat convict looked to Doble in vain for help. His friend was staring
at the ground sourly in a huge disgust at life and all that it contained.
Miller limped painfully to the Jackpot in front of Hart. Two days later
he took the train back to the penitentiary. Emerson Crawford made it a
point to see to that.

CHAPTER XX

THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND

If some one had made Emerson Crawford a present of a carload of Herefords
he could not have been more pleased than he was at the result of the
Jackpot crew's night adventure with the Steelman forces. The news came
to him at an opportune moment, for he had just b