ger man
than he is."

"Me?" And Collie flushed, misunderstanding the other's drift. "I guess
you're kiddin'."

"No, I mean it. Mr. Tenlow still seemed pretty hot about your share in
this--er--enterprise. You seem to have no hard feelings against him."

"Huh! He shouldn't to be sore at _me_. I didn't spur no horse onto him
and ride him down like a dog. I guess Red would 'a' killed him if he'd
seen it. Say, nobody got Red, did they?"

"I haven't heard of it. How did this man Red come to pick you up? You're
pretty young to be tramping."

"Cross your heart you ain't tryin' to queer Red? You ain't tryin' to put
the Injun sign on us, are you?"

"No. I have heard all about the Mojave affair--the prospector that died
on the track--and the arrest of Overland Red at Barstow. You told my
niece that this Overland Red was 'square.' How did you come to be mixed
up in it?"

"I guess I'll have to tell you the whole thing, straight. Red always
said that to tell the truth was just as good as lyin', because nobody
would believe us, anyway. And if a fella gets caught tellin' the truth,
why, he's that much to the good."

"Well, I shall try and believe you this time," said Stone. "Miss
Lacharme thinks you're honest."

"A guy couldn't lie to her!" said the boy.

"Then just consider me her representative," said Stone, smiling.

Collie squatted in the meager shade of the "coop."

Walter Stone, dropping the pony's reins, came and sat beside the lad.
There was something in the older man's presence, an unspoken assurance
of comradeship and sincerity that annulled the boy's tendency to
reticence about himself. He began hesitatingly, "My dad was a drinkin'
man. Ma died, and he got worse at it. I was a kid and didn't care, for
he never done nothin' to me. We lived back East, over a pawnbroker's on
Main Street. One day pa come home with a timetable. He sat up 'most all
night readin' it. Every time I woke up, he was readin' it and talkin' to
himself. That was after ma died.

"In the mornin', when I was gettin' dressed, he come over and says to
take the needle he had and stick it through the timetable anywhere. I
was scared he was goin' to have the jimmies. But I took the needle--it
had black thread in it--and stuck it through the timetable. He opened
the page and laughed awful loud and queer. Albuquerque was where the
needle went in. He couldn't say the name right, but he kept lookin' at
it.

"Then he went out and was gone all day an