in seein' me do you for your pile that they'll forget to
remember who I am, like I would be in me natural jeans. They'll size me
for a phoney promoter excavatin' your pocketbook. It's a chance--but we
got to take it."

"That's all very weird and wonderful," said Winthrop, "and not so very
flattering to me, but I am game. I'll furnish the expense money."

After the evening meal they drew nearer the fire and smoked in the chill
silence. The flames threw strange dancing shadows on the opposite cliff.

Winthrop, mindful of Overland's advice, slipped on his coat as the night
deepened. "About your adopting a disguise," he began; "I should think
you would look well enough clean-shaven and dressed in some stylish,
rough tweed. You have fine shoulders and--"

"Hold on, Billy! I'm a livin' statoo, I know. But listen! I got to go
the limit to look the part. You can't iron the hoof-marks of hell and
Texas out of my mug in a hundred years. The old desert and the border
towns and the bottle burned 'em in to stay. Them kind of looks don't go
with business clothes. I got to look fly--jest like I didn't know no
better."

"Perhaps you are right. You seem to make a go of everything you tackle."

"Yep! Some things I made go so fast I ain't caught up with 'em yet. You
know I used to wonder if a fella's face would ever come smooth again in
heaven. That was a spell ago. I ain't been worryin' about it none
lately."

"How old are you?"

"Me? I'm huggin' thirty-five clost. But not so clost I can't hear
thirty-six lopin' up right smart."

"Only thirty-five!" exclaimed Winthrop. Then quickly, "Oh, I beg your
pardon."

"That's nothin'", said Overland genially. "It ain't the 'thirty-five'
that makes me feel sore--it's the 'only.' You said it all then. But
believe me, pardner, the thirty-five have been all red chips."

"Well, you have _lived_," sighed Winthrop.

"And come clost to forgettin' to, once or twice. Anyhow,--speakin' of
heaven,--I'd jest as soon take my chances with this here mug of mine,
what shows I earned all I got, as with one of them there dead-fish faces
I seen on some guys that never done nothin' better or worse than get up
for breakfast."

Winthrop smiled. "Yes. And you believe in a heaven, then?"

"From mornin' till night. And then more than ever. Not your kind of a
heaven, or mebby any other guy's. But as sure as you're goin' to crease
them new boots by settin' too clost to the fire, there's somethin' up
there