"I _will_ kill you!" said Jeff. "Here, wait till I saddle my nag and say good-by." * * * * * Beyond San Elizario, as they climbed the Pass of All the Winds, the two friends halted to breathe their horses. "Jeff," said Johnny, rather soberly, "you can kick me after I say my little piece--I'll think poorly of you if you don't--but ain't you making maybe a mistake? That girl, now--nice girl, and all that--but that girl's got money, Jeff." "I hate a fool worse than a knave, any day in the week," said Jeff: "and the man that would let money keep him from the only girl--why, Johnny, he's so much more of a fool than the other fellow is a scoundrel----" "I get you!" said Johnny. "You mean that a submarine boat is better built for roping steers than a mogul engine is skilful at painting steeples, and you wonder if you can't get a fresh horse somewhere and go on through to Arcadia to-night?" "Something like that," admitted Jeff. "Besides," he added lightly, "while I'd like that girl just as well if I didn't have a cent--why, as it happens, I'm pretty well fixed, myself. I've got money to throw at the little dicky-birds--all kinds of money. Got a fifty-one-per-cent interest in a copper mine over in Harqua Hala that's been payin' me all the way from ten to five thousand clear per each and every year for the last seven years, besides what I pay a lad for lookout to keep anybody but himself from stealing any of it. He's been buyin' real estate for me in Los Angeles lately." Johnny's jaw dropped in unaffected amazement. "All this while? Before you and Leo hit Rainbow?" "Sure!" said Jeff. "And you workin' for forty a month and stealin' your own beef?--then saving up and buying your little old brand along with Beebe and Leo and old Wes', joggin' along, workin' like a yaller dog with fleas?" "Why not? Wasn't I having a heap of fun? Where can I see any better time than I had here, or find better friends? Money's no good by itself. I haven't drawn a dollar from Arizona since I left. It was fun to make the mine go round at first; but when it got so it'd work I looked for something else more amusing." "I should think you'd want to travel, anyhow." "Travel?" echoed Jeff. "Travel? Why, you damn fool, I'm here now!" "Will you stay here, if you marry her, Jeff?" "So you've no objection to make, if I've got a few dollars? That squares everything all right, does it? Not a yeep of protest from you now? See here, you everlasting fool! I'm just the same man I was fifteen minutes ago when you thought I didn't have any money. If I'm fit for her now, I was then. If I wasn't good enough then, I'm not good enough now." "But I wasn't thinking of her--I was thinking of--how it would look." "Look? Who cares how it looks? Just a silly prejudice! 'They say--what say they--let them say!' Johnny, maybe I was just stringin' you. If I was lying about the money--how about it then? Changed your mind again?" "You wasn't lyin', was you?"