tly, and looked at Pink.
"Did he call it off, then? Or did you have to wade in--"

"Naw; he was like this here Native Son--all front. He could look sudden
death, all right; he had black eyes like Mig-u-ell--but all a fellow had
to do was go after him, and he'd back up so blamed quick--"

Slim listened that far, saw that he had interrupted a tale evidently
more interesting than anything he could say, and went off, muttering to
himself.

CHAPTER II. "When Greek Meets Greek"

The next morning, which was Sunday, the machinations of Big Medicine
took Pink down to the creek behind the bunk-house. "What's hurtin' yuh?"
he asked curiously, when he came to where Big Medicine stood in the
fringe of willows, choking between his spasms of mirth.

"Haw-haw-haw!" roared Big Medicine; and, seizing Pink's arm in a
gorilla-like grip, he pointed down the bank.

Miguel, seated upon a convenient rock in a sunny spot, was painstakingly
combing out the tangled hair of his chaps, which he had washed quite as
carefully not long before, as the cake of soap beside him testified.

"Combing--combing--his chaps, by cripes!" Big Medicine gasped,
and waggled his finger at the spectacle. "Haw-haw-haw!
C-combin'--his--chaps!"

Miguel glanced up at them as impersonally as if they were two cackling
hens, rather than derisive humans, then bent his head over a stubborn
knot and whistled La Paloma softly while he coaxed out the tangle.

Pink's eyes widened as he looked, but he did not say anything. He backed
up the path and went thoughtfully to the corrals, leaving Big Medicine
to follow or not, as he chose.

"Combin'--his chaps, by cripes!" came rumbling behind him. Pink turned.

"Say! Don't make so much noise about it," he advised guardedly. "I've
got an idea."

"Yuh want to hog-tie it, then," Big Medicine retorted, resentful because
Pink seemed not to grasp the full humor of the thing. "Idees sure seems
to be skurce in this outfit--or that there lily-uh-the-valley couldn't
set and comb no chaps in broad daylight, by cripes; not and get off with
it."

"He's an ornament to the Flying U," Pink stated dreamily. "Us boneheads
don't appreciate him, is all that ails us. What we ought to do is--help
him be as pretty as he wants to be, and--"

"Looky here, Little One." Big Medicine hurried his steps until he was
close alongside. "I wouldn't give a punched nickel for a four-horse load
uh them idees, and that's the truth." He passed Pink and we