e revolvers.

"I'll keep this one," said Slim, picking out an unusually large ear.
"It's a .44. I'll get one of the Greasers to shell some for the bride."

The bride was arrayed in her wedding-gown. Mrs. Allen was ready for a
fresh burst of weeping. The girls had assembled in the large room in
which the ceremony was to be performed. Polly acted as her herald for
the cowboys. Appearing in the doorway, she commanded: "Say, you folks
come on and get seated."

Slim stood beside Polly as the boys marched past him. His general
admonition was: "The first one you shorthorns that makes a break, I'm
goin' to bend a gun over your head."

The guests grinned cheerfully as they marched past the couple.

"There's a heap of wickedness in that bunch," remarked Slim piously to
the girl. Tossing a flower to him as she darted away, she cried: "You
ain't none too good yourself, Slim."

"Ain't she a likely filly," mused the love-sick Sheriff. "If there's
anybody that could make me good, it's her. I'm all in. If ever I get
the nerve all at once--darn me if I don't ask her right out."

But Slim's courage oozed as quickly as it had arisen, and with a sigh
he followed his companions to the wedding.

CHAPTER IX

What God Hath Joined Together

Dick Lane, on leaving the hospital at Chihuahua, went straight to the
fortified ledge where he had made his heroic defense. As he
conjectured, the renegade, McKee, had got there first, and found and
made off with the buried treasure. So Dick manfully set to work to
replace his lost fortune. It seemed too slow work to go to his mine
and dig the gold he immediately required out of the ground, so he
struck out for civilization to sell some of his smaller claims. In the
course of a month, at the end of which his wanderings brought him to
Tucson, he had sold enough of his holdings to give him three thousand
dollars in ready cash. As he was near the Sweetwater, he resolved not
to express the money to Payson, but to take it himself.

He entered the courtyard of Allen Hacienda while the wedding was taking
place within. None of his friends would have recognized him. His
frame was emaciated from sickness; his head was drawn back by the
torture which he had suffered; he limped upon feet that had been
distorted by the firebrands in McKee's hands; and his face was
overgrown by an unkempt beard.

Sounds of laughter fell upon his ears as he mounted the steps. He heard
Fresno shout to Sli