happy. "Pardon me. You said Mr. Jack
Summers, I believe? Do you happen to know a Mr. Winthrop, Billy
Winthrop?"

"Me? What, Billy? Billy Winthrop? Say, is this me? I inhaled a whole lot
of gasoline comin' up that grade, but I ain't feelin' dizzy. Billy
Winthrop? Why--" And his exclamation subsided as he asked cautiously,
"Did you know him?"

"I am his sister," said Anne Marshall.

Overland was dumbfounded. "His sister," he muttered. "The one he writ to
in New York. Huh! Yes, me and Billy's pardners."

"Is he--is he better?" asked Anne hesitatingly.

"Better! Say, lady, excuse me if I tell you he's gettin' so blame frisky
that he's got me scared. Why, I left him settin' on a rock eatin' a
sardine san'wich with one hand and shootin' holes in all the tin cans in
sight with the other. 'So long, Red!' he hollers as I lit out with the
burro to cross the range. 'So long, and don't let your feet slip.' And
_Pom!_ goes the .45 that he was jugglin' and another tin can passed
over. He takes a bite from the san'wich and then, _Pom!_ goes the gun
again and another tin can bites the dust, jest as free and easy as if he
wasn't keepin' guard over thirty or forty thousand dollars' worth of
gold-dust and trouble, and jest as if he ain't got no lungs at all."

"Billy must have changed a little," ventured Dr. Marshall, smiling.

"Changed? Excuse me, ladies. But when I first turned my lamps on him in
Los, I says to myself if there wasn't a fella with one foot in the grave
and the other on a banana-peel, I was mistook. And listen! He come out
to the Mojave with me. He jest almost cried to come. I was scared it was
vi'lets and 'Gather at the River,' without the melodeum, for him. But
you never see a fella get such a chest! Search me if I knows where he
got it from, for he wasn't much bigger around in the works than a
mosquito when I took him up there. And eat! My Gosh, he can eat! And a
complexion like a Yaqui. And he can sleep longer and harder and louder
than a corral of gradin' mules on Saturday night! 'Course he's slim
yet, but it's the kind of slim like rawhide that you could hobble a
elephant with. And, say, he's a pardner on your life! Believe me, and
I'm listenin' to myself, too."

"His lungs are better, then?"

"Lungs? He ain't got none. They're belluses--prime California skirtin'
leather off the back. Lady, that kid is a wonder."

"I'm awfully glad Billy is better. He _must_ be, judging from what you
tell me."

"I wish