the
whole outfit." Jones looked at the place where his middle finger used to
be, before a certain evening in Tombstone. "But I never--" He glanced
towards the ditch, perplexed. "What's that mean? Why in the world does
he git to cryin' for _now_, do you suppose?" Jones took to singing
without knowing it. "'Ye shepherds, tell me, ha-ve you seen my Flora
pass this way?'" he murmured. Then a thought struck him. "Hello, kid!"
he called out. There was no answer. "Of course," said Jones. "Now he's
ashamed to hev me see him come out of there." He walked with elaborate
slowness round the corral and behind a shed. "Hello, you kid!" he called
again.

"I was thinking of going to sleep," said the boy, appearing quite
suddenly. "I--I'm not used to riding all day. I'll get used to it, you
know," he hastened to add.

"'Ha-ve you seen my Flo'--Say, kid, where y'u bound, anyway?"

"San Carlos."

"San Carlos? Oh. Ah. 'Flora pass this way?'"

"Is it far, sir?"

"Awful far, sometimes. It's always liable to be far through the Arivaypa
Canon."

"I didn't expect to make it between meals," remarked Cumnor.

"No. Sure. What made you come this route?"

"A man told me."

"A man? Oh. Well, it _is_ kind o' difficult, I admit, for an Arizonan
not to lie to a stranger. But I think I'd have told you to go by Tres
Alamos and Point of Mountain. It's the road the man that told you would
choose himself every time. Do you like Injuns, kid?"

Cumnor snapped eagerly.

"Of course y'u do. And you've never saw one in the whole
minute-and-a-half you've been alive. I know all about it."

"I'm not afraid," said the boy.

"Not afraid? Of course y'u ain't. What's your idea in going to Carlos?
Got town lots there?"

"No," said the literal youth, to the huge internal diversion of Jones.
"There's a man there I used to know back home. He's in the cavalry.
What sort of a town is it for sport?" asked Cumnor, in a gay Lothario
tone.

"_Town_?" Specimen Jones caught hold of the top rail of the corral.
"_Sport?_ Now I'll tell y'u what sort of a town it is. There ain't no
streets. There ain't no houses. There ain't any land and water in the
usual meaning of them words. There's Mount Turnbull. It's pretty near a
usual mountain, but y'u don't want to go there. The Creator didn't make
San Carlos. It's a heap older than Him. When He got around to it after
slickin' up Paradise and them fruit-trees, He just left it to be as He
found it, as a sample of the way