Do your duty. I'm not asking
any favours. But, I spoke of my friend. I did want you to hear me
tell you about Bob."

Nettlewick settled himself in his chair. There would be no leaving
San Rosario for him that day. He would have to telegraph to the
Comptroller of the Currency; he would have to swear out a warrant
before the United States Commissioner for the arrest of Major
Kingman; perhaps he would be ordered to close the bank on account of
the loss of the securities. It was not the first crime the examiner
had unearthed. Once or twice the terrible upheaval of human emotions
that his investigations had loosed had almost caused a ripple in his
official calm. He had seen bank men kneel and plead and cry like
women for a chance--an hour's time--the overlooking of a single
error. One cashier had shot himself at his desk before him. None of
them had taken it with the dignity and coolness of this stern old
Westerner. Nettlewick felt that he owed it to him at least to listen
if he wished to talk. With his elbow on the arm of his chair, and
his square chin resting upon the fingers of his right hand, the bank
examiner waited to hear the confession of the president of the First
National Bank of San Rosario.

"When a man's your friend," began Major Tom, somewhat didactically,
"for forty years, and tried by water, fire, earth, and cyclones,
when you can do him a little favour you feel like doing it."

("Embezzle for him $70,000 worth of securities," thought the
examiner.)

"We were cowboys together, Bob and I," continued the major, speaking
slowly, and deliberately, and musingly, as if his thoughts were
rather with the past than the critical present, "and we prospected
together for gold and silver over Arizona, New Mexico, and a good
part of California. We were both in the war of 'sixty-one, but in
different commands. We've fought Indians and horse thieves side by
side; we've starved for weeks in a cabin in the Arizona mountains,
buried twenty feet deep in snow; we've ridden herd together when the
wind blew so hard the lightning couldn't strike--well, Bob and I
have been through some rough spells since the first time we met in
the branding camp of the old Anchor-Bar ranch. And during that time
we've found it necessary more than once to help each other out of
tight places. In those days it was expected of a man to stick to his
friend, and he didn't ask any credit for it. Probably next day you'd
need him to get at your back an