in turn, flung it suddenly open
to see that nobody was spying behind it, and then turned the lock. "I
have use for me head for another year or two, and it's just as well to
see that nobody is spying. You understand, Bucky, that I'm risking me
life in telling you what I'm going to. If you have any doubts about this
lad--" He stopped, keen eyes fixed on Frank.

"He's as safe as I am, Mike. Is it likely I would take any risks about
a thing of that sort with my old bunkie's tough neck inviting the
hangman?" asked O'Connor quietly.

"Good enough. The kid looks stanch, and, anyhow, if you guarantee him
that's enough for me." He accepted another of the ranger's cigars,
puffed it to a red glow, and leaned back to smile at his friend. "Glory,
but it's good to see ye, Bucky, me bye. You'll never know how a man's
eyes ache to see a straight-up white man in this land of greasers. It's
the God's truth I'm telling ye when I say that I haven't had a scrimmage
with me hands since I came here. The only idea this forsaken country
has of exchanging compliments is with a knife in the dark." He shook his
flaming head regretfully at the deplorably lost condition of a country
where the shillalah was unknown as a social institution.

"If I wasn't tied up with this Valdez bunch I'd get out to-morrow, and
sometimes I have half a mind to pull out anyhow. If you've never been
associated, me lad, with half a dozen most divilishly polite senors,
each one of them watching the others out of the corner of his slant eyes
for fear they are going to betray him or assassinate him first, you'll
never know the joys of life in this peaceful and contented land of
indolence. Life's loaded to the guards with uncertainties, so eat,
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you hang, or your friend will carve
ye in the back with a knife, me old priest used to say, or something
like it. 'Tis certain he must have had in mind the Spanish-American, my
son."

"Which is why you're here, you old fraud," smiled Bucky. "You've got
to grumble, of course, but you couldn't be dragged away while there's a
chance of a row. Don't I know you of old, Reddy?"

"Anyway, here I am, with me neck so near to the rope it fairly aches
sometimes. If you have any inclinations toward suicide, I'll be glad to
introduce ye to me revolutionary friends."

"Thank you, no. The fact is that we have a little private war of our
own on hand, Mike. I was thinking maybe you'd like to enlist, old
filibus