"No use arguing. He goes for his gun. I didn't want to kill a man who'd saved my life. I tried to stop him with bullets. I shot him through the right arm and made him drop his gun. Then he charged me barehanded!" There was a gasp from Manners. "Barehanded," repeated Pete. "That's the stuff that's in him! I shot him through the left leg. He pitched onto his face, and then hanged if he didn't get up on one arm and one leg and throw himself at me. He got that big arm of his around me. I couldn't do a thing. My gun was squeezed between him and me. He started fumbling. Pretty soon he found my throat with them big gorilla fingers of his. I thought my last minute had come. One squeeze would have smashed my windpipe--and good-bye, Pete Reeve! "But he wouldn't kill me. After I'd filled him full of lead, he let me go. After he had the advantage he wouldn't take it." Pete choked. He concluded briefly, "He mighty near bled to death before I could get the wounds bandaged, and then I stayed on here and nursed him. Matter of fact, Manners, he saved my life twice and that's why I'm tied to him for life. Besides, between you and me, he means more to me than the rest of the world put together." "Listen," said Manners, after a pause. "I see what you mean and I'll tell you what you got to do. That big boy will do anything you tell him. He follers you with his eyes. Well, we'll find a hoss that will carry him. I guarantee that. Then you put your game up to him, best foot forward, and he'll come with us." "Not in a thousand years," said Pete with emotion. "That boy will never go crooked if I can keep him straight. Do you know what he's done? Because his uncle and cousins tried to get me, he's sworn never to see one of 'em again. He's given them up--his own flesh and blood--to follow me, and I'm going to stick to him. That's complete and final." "No, Pete, of all the fools--" Bull waited to hear no more. He stole back to the table on the far side of the room sick at heart and sat down to think or try to think. The truth came to him slowly. Pete Reeve, whom he had taken as his ideal, was, as a matter of fact--he dared not think what! The blow shook him to the center. But he had been living on the charity of Reeve. He had been draining the resources of the generous fellow. And how would he ever be able to pay him back? One thing was definite. He must put an end to any increase of the obligations. He must leave. The moment the thought came to him he tore a flyleaf out of the book and wrote in his big, sprawling hand: _Dear Pete:_