he desert to pass
on and to vanish in the hazy distance; men who spoke but few words and
watched the right hands of the two riders as they talked. But none
attacked them or made a show toward hostility. Now and again the pair
stopped at a ranch-house or a mine where Breckenbridge added to the
county's money in his saddle-bags.

And as the days wore on, each with its own share of mutual hardship to
bring these two to closer companionship, they began, as men will under
such circumstances, to unfold their separate natures. Under the long
trail's stern necessity they bared to each other those traits which
would have remained hidden during years of acquaintance among a city's
tight-walled streets.

A carelessly spoken word dropped at hot noontide when the water in the
canteens had given out; a sincere oath, uttered by the fire at
supper-time; a long, drowsy conversation as they lay in their blankets
with the tang of the night breeze in their nostrils, gazing up at the
splendor of the flaming stars; until they knew each other man to
man--and Curly Bill began to feel something like devotion to his
purposeful young companion. Thenceforth he talked freely of his deeds
and misdeeds.

"Only one man that ever got the drop on me," the outlaw said one
evening when they were lying on their blankets, enjoying the long
inhalations from their after-supper cigarettes, "and that was ol' Jim
Burnett over in Charleston, two years ago."

He paused a moment to roll another smoke. A coyote clamored shrilly
beyond the next rise; a horse blew luxuriously feeding in the
bunch-grass. Curly Bill launched into his tale.

"He was justice of the peace and used to hold co't in those days
whenever he'd run on to a man he wanted. Always packed a double-barrel
shotgun and he'd usually managed to throw it down on a fellow while he
tried the case and named the fine.

"Well, me and some of the boys was in town this time and things was
slack. Come a Sunday evenin' and I heard how some married folks had
started up a church. I hadn't been inside of one since I could
remember and we all made up our minds to go and see what it was like.

"Things had opened up when we come into the door and we took our
seats as quiet as we could. But the jingle of our spurs made some
people in the congregation--the' wasn't more'n a dozen of 'em--look
around. And of co'se they knew us right away. So, pretty quick one or
two gets up and leaves, and soon afterward some more,