n, shot, bled, and battled through to present power; and the boy
winked up at him again now.

"I don't propose to vanish, myself," said he.

"Ah-ha! you was no longer mad mit der old Max! Of coorse I care what
happens to you. I was alone in the world myself in those lofely wicked
days."

Reserve again made flinty the boy's face.

"Neider did I talk about my feelings," continued Max Vogel, "but I nefer
show them too quick. If I was injured I wait, and I strike to kill. We
all paddles our own dugout, eh? We ask no favors from nobody; we must
win our spurs! Not so? Now I talk business with you where you interroopt
me. If cow-boys was not so offle scarce in the country, I would long ago
haf bounce the lot of those drunken fellows. But they cannot be spared;
we must get along so. I cannot send Brock, he is needed at Harper's. The
dumb fellow at Alvord Lake is too dumb; he is not quickly courageous.
They would play high jinks mit him. Therefore I send you. Brock he say
to me you haf joodgement. I watch, and I say to myself also, this boy
haf goot joodgement. And when you look at your pistol so quick, I tell
you quick I don't send you to kill men when they are so scarce already!
My boy, it is ever the moral, the say-noding strength what gets
there--mit always the liddle pistol behind, in case--joost in case. Haf
you understand? I ask you to shoot. I see you know how, as Brock told
me. I recommend you to let them see that aggomplishment in a friendly
way. Maybe a shooting-match mit prizes--I pay for them--pretty soon
after you come. Und joodgement--und joodgement. Here comes that train.
Haf you well understand?"

Upon this the two shook hands, looking square friendship in each other's
eyes. The east-bound, long quiet and dark beneath its flowing clots of
smoke, slowed to a halt. A few valises and legs descended, ascended,
herding and hurrying; a few trunks were thrown resoundingly in and out
of the train; a woolly, crooked old man came with a box and a bandanna
bundle from the second-class car; the travellers of a thousand miles
looked torpidly at him through the dim, dusty windows of their Pullman,
and settled again for a thousand miles more. Then the east-bound,
shooting heavier clots of smoke laboriously into the air, drew its slow
length out of Nampa, and away.

"Where's that stage?" shrilled the woolly old man. "That's what I'm
after."

"Why, hello!" shouted Vogel. "Hello, Uncle Pasco! I heard you was dead."

Unc