To Golden they immediately went, and, after a meal there, wandered in the open country until the cartridges were gone, the sun was low, and Billy was walked off his young heels—a truth he learned complete in one horrid moment and battled to conceal. “Lame!” he echoed, angrily. “I ain’t.” “Shucks!” said Lin, after the next ten steps. “You are, and both feet.” “Tell you, there’s stones here, an’ I’m just a-skipping them.” [Illustration: Border] Lin, briefly, took the boy in his arms and carried him to Golden. “I’m played out myself,” he said, sitting in the hotel and looking lugubriously at Billy on a bed. “And I ain’t fit to have charge of a hog.” He came and put his hand on the boy’s head. “I’m not sick,” said the cripple. “I tell you I’m bully. You wait an’ see me eat dinner.” But Lin had hot water and cold water and salt, and was an hour upon his knees bathing the hot feet. And then Billy could not eat dinner. There was a doctor in Golden; but in spite of his light prescription and most reasonable observations, Mr. McLean passed a foolish night of vigil, while Billy slept, quite well at first, and, as the hours passed, better and better. In the morning he was entirely brisk, though stiff. [Illustration: Border] “I couldn’t work quick to-day,” he said. “But I guess one day won’t lose me my trade.” “How d’ yu’ mean?” asked Lin. “Why, I’ve got regulars, you know. Sidney Ellis an’ Pete Goode has theirs, an’ we don’t cut each other. I’ve got Mr. Daniels an’ Mr. Fisher an’ lots, an’ if you lived in Denver I’d shine your boots every day for nothing. I wished you lived in Denver.” “Shine my boots? Yu’ll never! And yu’ don’t black Daniels or Fisher, or any of the outfit.” “Why, I’m doing first-rate,” said Billy, surprised at the swearing into which Mr. McLean now burst. “An’ I ain’t big enough to get to make money at any other job. [Illustration: Border] “I want to see that engine-man,” muttered Lin. “I don’t like your smokin’ friend.” “Pete Goode? Why, he’s awful smart. Don’t you think he’s smart?” “Smart’s nothin’,” observed Mr. McLean. “Pete has learned me and Sidney a lot,” pursued Billy, engagingly. “I’ll bet he has!” growled the cow-puncher; and again Billy was taken aback at his language. [Illustration: “‘This is Mister Billy Lusk’”] [Illustration: Border] It was not so simple, this case. To the perturbed mind of Mr. McLean it grew less simple during that day at Golden, while Billy recovered, and talked, and ate his innocent meals. The cow-puncher was far too wise to think for a single moment of restoring the runaway to his debauched and shiftless parents. Possessed of some imagination, he went through a scene in which he appeared at the Lusk threshold with Billy and forgiveness, and intruded upon a conjugal assault and battery. “Shucks!” said he. “The kid would be off again inside a week. And I don’t want him there, anyway.”