“I’d hate to waste a funeral on _him_,” he said, as he sauntered back to the boy at the table. The lad was beginning to recover, though his breath still came with a catch. His rag of a handkerchief was dabbing tears out of his eyes. O’Connor noticed how soft his hands and how delicate his features. “This kid ain’t got any more business than a rabbit going around in the show line with that big scoundrel. He’s one of these gentle, rock-me-to-sleep-mother kids that ought to stay in the home nest and not go buttin’ into this hard world. I’ll bet a doughnut he’s an orphan, though.” Bucky had been brought up in the school of experience, where every student keeps his own head or goes to the wall. All his short life he had played a lone hand, as he would have phrased it. He had campaigned in Cuba as a mere boy. He had ridden the range and held his own on the hurricane deck of a bucking broncho. From cowpunching he had graduated into the tough little body of territorial rangers at the head of which was “Hurry Up” Millikan. This had brought him a large and turbulent experience in the knack of taking care of himself under all circumstances. Naturally, a man of this type, born and bred to the code of the outdoors West, could not fail of a certain contempt for a boy that broke down and cried when the game was going against him. But Bucky’s contempt was tolerant, after all. He could not deny his sympathy to a youngster in trouble. Again he touched gently the lad’s crisp curls of burnished gold. “Brace up, bub. The worst is yet to come,” he laughed awkwardly. “I reckon there’s no use spillin’ any more emotion over it. He ain’t your dad, is he?” The lad’s big brown eyes looked up into the serene blue ones and found comfort in their strength. “No, he’s my uncle—and my master.” “This is a free country, son. We don’t have masters if we’re good Americans, though we all have to take orders from our superior officers. You don’t need to serve this fellow unless you want to. That’s a cinch.” The boy’s troubled eyes were filmed with reminiscent terror. “You don’t know him. He is terrible when he is angry,” he murmured. “I don’t think it,” returned Bucky contemptuously. “He’s the worst blowhard ever. Say the word and I’ll run the piker out of town for you.” The boy whipped up the sleeve of the fancy Mexican jacket he wore and showed a long scar on his arm. “He did that one day when he was angry at me. He pretended to others that it was an accident, but I knew better. This morning I begged him to let me leave him. He beat me, but he was still mad; and when he took to drinking I was afraid he would work himself up to stick me again with one of his knives.” Bucky looked at the scar in the soft, rounded arm and swept the boy with a sudden puzzled glance that was not suspicion but wonder. “How long have you been with him, kid?”