eeming to take him out of the doldrums. "I could never
live out of this climate. Why, even now I have a cough, kuh-er!"

Firio had turned a stove cook. He accepted the humiliation in a spirit of
loyalty. But often he would go out among the sagebrush and return with a
feathery tribute, which he would broil on a spit in a fire made in the
yard. Always when Jack rode out to meet Mary at the foot of the range,
Firio would follow; and always he had his rifle. For it was part of
Jack's seeming inconsistency, emphasizing his inscrutability, that he
would never wear his revolver. It hung beside Pete's on the wall of the
living-room as a second relic. Far from being a quarrel-maker, he was
peaceful to the point of Quakerish predilection.

"Nobody ever hears anything of Leddy," said Jim; "but he will never
forget or forgive, and one day he will show up unexpectedly."

"Not armed!" said Jack.

"Do you think he will keep his word?"

"I know he will. I asked him and he said he would."

"You're very simple, Jack. But mind, he can keep his word and still use
a gun outside the town!"

"So he might!" admitted Jack, laughing in a way that indicated that the
subject was distasteful to him; for he would never talk of the duel.

Now we come to that little affair of Pedro Nogales. Pedro was a
half-breed, whose God among men was Pete Leddy no less than Jack was
Firio's and the Doge was Ignacio's. In his shanty back of Bill Lang's the
Mexicans and Indians lost their remaining wages in gambling after he had
filled them with _mescal_. It happened that Gonzalez, head man of the
laborers under Bob Worther, who had saved quite a sum, came away
penniless after taking but one drink. Every ounce of Bob's avoirdupois
was in a rage.

"It's time we cleaned out Pedro's place, seh!" he told Jack; "and you and
Jim Galway have got to help me do it!"

"I don't like to get into a row," said Jack very soberly.

"Then I'll undertake the job alone," Bob retorted. "That will be a good
deal worse, for when I get going I lose my temper and I tell you, seh,
I've got a lot to lose! And, Jack, are you going to stand by and see
robbery done by the meanest, most worthless greaser in the valley--and a
good Indian the victim?"

"Yes, Jack," said Jim, "you've got such a formidable reputation since
your set-to with Leddy that the Indians think you are a regular master of
magic. You're just the one to make Pedro come to terms."

"A formidable reputation without