ey's house or Fenderson's. So I
mistrusted, natural enough, that 'twas Miss Edith he was waitin' on.
But I was mistook. Just in time to save his life from my bloody and
brutal designs he began tolling Miss Lyn to one side to look at
sunsets and books and such, givin' me a chance to buzz Miss Edith
alone. Good thing for him. That's why I'm lettin' you tag along
to-night--you can entertain Pete Harkey and Ma Fenderson and the old
man, so's they won't pester me and Hobby."

"Like fun I will! If you fellows had any decent feeling at all you'd
both of you clear out and give me a chance."

"Now, deary, you hadn't ought to talk like that--indeed you hadn't!"
protested Adam. "You plumb distress me. You ought to declare yourself,
feller. I'd always hate it if I was to slay you, and then find out I'd
been meddlin' with Hobby Lull's private affairs. I'd hate that--I sure
would!"

"Well now, there's no use of your askin' me for advice." Charlie's
eyebrows shrugged, and so did his shoulders. "You'll have to decide
these things for yourself. Say, you mangy, moth-eaten, slab-sided,
long, lousy, lop-eared parallelopipedon, are you goin' to be all
night dollin' up? Let's ride!"

"Don't blame you for bein' impatient. Hob, he's there now." Face and
voice expressed fine tolerance; Adam looked into a scrap of broken
mirror for careful knotting of a gay necktie.

"I won't be sorry to see Hob once more, at that," observed Charlie.
"Always liked Lull. Took to him first time I ever saw him. That was
seven years ago, when I was only a kid."

"Only a kid! Only--Great Caesar's ghost, what are you now?"

"I'm twenty-five years old in my stocking feet. And here's how I met
up with Lull. El Paso had a big ball game on with Silver City, and
Hob, he wanted to be umpire. Nobody on either team would hear of it,
and not one of the fifteen hundred rip-roarin', howlin' fans. It was
sure a mean mess while it lasted. You see, there was a lot of money up
on the game."

"And who umpired?"

"Hob."

IV

"Money was so scarce in that country that the babies had to cut their
teeth on certified checks."
--_Bluebeard for Happiness._

"The cauldrified and chittering truth."
--THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

"As I was a-tellin' you, when I got switched off," said Adam, in the
starlit road, "I found gold dust in 'Pache Canyon nigh onto a year ago.
Not much--just a color--b