him out of the window. That may jar him
some."

A second later Murillo, kicking and gasping, clawing at the air, had
been lifted like an infant by Badger, who seemed on the point of hurling
him headlong through the open window.

"Santa Maria! Mercee!" begged the frightened wretch. "Spare me, senyor!
Spare me, good senyor! Eef you throw me through the window, eet will keel
me!"

"And that wouldn't be any great loss to the world, I judge," said the
man from Kansas.

But now Juanita interfered.

"Oh, please do not throw heem from the train, senyor!" she implored.
"Even eef I do despise heem, I should not weesh to see heem keeled."

Badger chuckled.

"Well, on condition that the gent will promise a whole lot that he'll
quit bothering you, I'll let him off and won't throw him out of the
window. Speak up, you whining, chattering gopher! Make the promise
instanter, or out you go!"

"Oh, I promeese, senyor--I swear!" came from the frightened Mexican.

"Swear by all your saints," commanded Badger.

"By all the saints, I swear!" gasped Murillo.

"If I let you go now, you'll keep away from the senyorita in future?
You'll never trouble her again?"

Murillo choked, but his fear caused him to take the oath.

Badger dropped the wretch in an upright position, turned him down the
aisle, gave him a start, and said:

"Don't look back! Keep on going just as far as you can go on this train!
Get into the rear car, and if you show your cowardly mug around here
again, I'll kick you clean up through the top of your hat! You hear my
promise, I opine."

Murillo heard it, and he kept on going until he had vanished from the
car.

Barney Mulloy fairly quivered with laughter.

"Be heavins, Badger," he chuckled, "ye know how to handle a shnake! It's
a relation to St. Pathrick ye are, and he drove all the shnakes out av
Oireland. Hereafther you're St. Buck, begobs!"

"St. Buck is a heap good," laughed the Westerner, as he shook hands with
his old friends, removed his broad-brimmed Stetson, and made a sweeping
bow to the girls. "Mrs. Badger has a right jolly way of calling me angel
sometimes, but, on my word, I can't discover even a pimple of a wing
anywhere about me. But, say, people, however is it I find you all here
together? Wherever are you bound for?"

"Bloomfield," answered Barney and Ephraim, in chorus.

"We're taking Carker along with us," explained Gallup. "We're all going
to see old Frank at Bloomfield, by jinks!"