e you call
around--about one o'clock, say--and kick me good and hard."

"Let him keep his gun. He called me a young fellow. And I don't want
Breslin's, anyway. He's all right. Not to play any favorites, let
Anastacio keep his. There are times," said Pringle, "when I have great
hopes of Anastacio. I'm thinking some of taking him in hand to see if
I can't make a man of him."

"Ananias the Amateur," said Anastacio, "I thank you for those kind
words. And I'd like to see you Saturday about two--when you get
through with Nueces. I'm next on the waiting list. This will be a
lesson to me never to let my opinion of a man be changed by anything
he may do."

"If you fellows feel that way," said Foy, "how about me? How do you
suppose I feel? This man has risked his life fifty times for me--and
what did I think of him?"

"If you ask me, Christopher," said Anastacio, "I think you were quite
excusable. It was all very well to dissemble his love--but I should
feel doubtful of any man that handed me such a wallop as that until
the matter had been fully explained."

"What I want to know, Pringle, is, how the deuce you got up here so
slick?" said Nueces.

"Oh, that's easy! I can run a mile in nothing flat."

"Oh--that's it? You hid in the water pen?"

"Under the troughs. Bright idea of yours, them fires! I knew just
where not to go. After you left I hooked a horse. If you'd had sense
enough to go with the sheriff and eat your supper like a human being
I'd 'a' hooked two horses, and Chris and me would now be getting
farther and farther. I don't want you ever to do that again. Suppose
Chris had killed me when I tried to knock him out? Fine large name I
would 'a' left for myself, wouldn't I?"

"If you had fought it out with us," said Breslin musingly, "you would
have been killed--both of you; and you would have killed others. Mr.
Pringle, you have done a fine thing. I apologize to you."

"Why, that all goes without saying, my boy. As for my part--why, I
don't bother much about a blue tin heaven or a comic-supplement hell,
but I'm right smart interested in right here and now. It's a right
nice little old world, take it by and large, and I like to help out at
whatever comes my way, if it takes fourteen innings. But, so long as
you feel that way about it, maybe you'll believe me now, when I say
that Christopher Foy was with me all last night and he didn't shoot
Dick Marr."

"That's right," said Foy. "I don't know who killed Dick