t to pay a visit to the Simpson cabin that day to display
her latest accomplishment by asking in real, understandable English, how
the pup was getting along; and to show the pretty senora the proper way
to pat tortillas out thin and smooth, as Margarita had been bribed to
teach Teresita herself to do.

"Sure, I'll go," he responded, before the hesitation had become
pronounced, and managed to inject a good deal of his old heartiness into
the words.

"I'm going to have the cattle pushed down this way," Dade explained, "so
you can keep an eye on them from here and we won't have to keep up that
camp. Since they made Bill Wilson captain of the Vigilantes, there isn't
quite so much wholesale stealing as there was, anyway, and enough
vaqueros went with Manuel so I'll need every one that's left. I'll leave
you Pedro, because he can't do any hard riding, after that fall he got
the other day. The two of you can keep the cattle pretty well down this
way."

"All right. Say, what was it made you act so glum since we came down
here?" Jack, as occasionally happens with a friend, was not content to
forget a grievance while the cause of it remained clouded with mystery.

"Are you sore over that trouble I had in town? I know how you feel
about--well, about killings; but, Dade, I had to. I hate it myself. You
needn't think I like the idea, just because I haven't talked about it. A
fellow feels different," he added slowly, "when it's white men. When we
fought Injuns, I don't believe it worried either one of us to think we'd
killed some. We were generally glad of it. But these others--they were
mean enough and ornery enough; but they were humans. I was glad at the
time, but that wore off. And I've caught you looking at me kinda queer,
lately, as if you hated me, almost. You ought to know--"

"I know you're always going off half-cocked," chuckled Dade, quite
himself again. "No, now you mention it, I don't like the idea of
shooting first and finding out afterwards what it was all about, the way
so many fellows have got in the habit of doing. Guns are all right in
their place. And when you get away out where the law doesn't reach, and
you have to look out for yourself, they come in mighty handy. But like
every other kind of power, most men don't know when and how to use the
gun argument; and they make more trouble than they settle, half the
time. You had a right to shoot, that day, and shoot to kill. Why, didn't
the Committee investigate