“And what are yez doing down in greaser land? Thought you was rustling cows for a living somewheres in sunburnt Arizona,” he grinned amiably. “Me? Oh, I came down on business. We’ll talk about that presently. How’s your one-hawss revolution getting along, Reddy? I hope it’s right peart and healthy.” O’Halloran’s eyes flashed a warning, with the slightest nod in the world toward the boy. “Don’t worry about him. He’s straight as a string and knows how to keep his mouth shut. You can tell him anything you would me.” He turned to the boy sitting quietly in an inconspicuous corner. “Mum’s the word, Frank. You understand that, of course?” The boy nodded. “I’ll go into the next room, if you like.” “It isn’t necessary. Fire ahead, Mike.” The latter got up, tiptoed to each door in turn, flung it suddenly open to see that nobody was spying behind it, and then turned the lock. “I have use for me head for another year or two, and it’s just as well to see that nobody is spying. You understand, Bucky, that I’m risking me life in telling you what I’m going to. If you have any doubts about this lad—” He stopped, keen eyes fixed on Frank. “He’s as safe as I am, Mike. Is it likely I would take any risks about a thing of that sort with my old bunkie’s tough neck inviting the hangman?” asked O’Connor quietly. “Good enough. The kid looks stanch, and, anyhow, if you guarantee him that’s enough for me.” He accepted another of the ranger’s cigars, puffed it to a red glow, and leaned back to smile at his friend. “Glory, but it’s good to see ye, Bucky, me bye. You’ll never know how a man’s eyes ache to see a straight-up white man in this land of greasers. It’s the God’s truth I’m telling ye when I say that I haven’t had a scrimmage with me hands since I came here. The only idea this forsaken country has of exchanging compliments is with a knife in the dark.” He shook his flaming head regretfully at the deplorably lost condition of a country where the shillalah was unknown as a social institution. “If I wasn’t tied up with this Valdez bunch I’d get out to-morrow, and sometimes I have half a mind to pull out anyhow. If you’ve never been associated, me lad, with half a dozen most divilishly polite señors, each one of them watching the others out of the corner of his slant eyes for fear they are going to betray him or assassinate him first, you’ll never know the joys of life in this peaceful and contented land of indolence. Life’s loaded to the guards with uncertainties, so eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you hang, or your friend will carve ye in the back with a knife, me old priest used to say, or something like it. ’Tis certain he must have had in mind the Spanish-American, my son.” “Which is why you’re here, you old fraud,” smiled Bucky. “You’ve got to grumble, of course, but you couldn’t be dragged away while there’s a chance of a row. Don’t I know you of old, Reddy?”