"If I had folks like you have, the salt of the earth, and they were worrying their hearts out about me, seems to me I'd quit helling around and go back to them," Curly concluded. "The old man sent you to tell me that, did he?" Hard and bitter came the voice of the young man out of the growing darkness. "No, he didn't. He doesn't know I'm here. But he and your sister have done more for me than I ever can pay. That's why I'm telling you this." Sam answered gruffly, as a man does when he is moved, "Much obliged, Curly, but I reckon I can look out for myself." "Just what I thought, and in September I have to go to the penitentiary. Now I have mortgaged it away, my liberty seems awful good to me." "You'll get off likely." "Not a chance. They've got me cinched. But with you it's different. You haven't fooled away your chance yet. There's nothing to this sort of life. The bunch up here is no good. Soapy don't mean right by you, or by any young fellow he trails with." "I'll not listen to anything against Soapy. He took me in when my own father turned against me." "To get back at your father for sending him up the road." "That's all right. He has been a good friend to me. I'm not going to throw him down." "Would it be throwing him down to go back to your people?" "Yes, it would. We've got plans. Soapy is relying on me. No matter what they are, but I'm not going to lie down on him. And I'm not going back to the old man. He told me he was through with me. Once is a-plenty. I'm not begging him to take me back, not on your life." [Illustration: HE WAS THE MADDEST MAN IN ARIZONA.] Curly dropped the matter. To urge him further would only make the boy more set in his decision. But as the days passed he kept one thing in his mind, not to miss any chance to win his friendship. They rode together a good deal, and Flandrau found that Sam liked to hear him talk about the Circle C and its affairs. But often he was discouraged, for he made no progress in weaning him from his loyalty to Stone. The latter was a hero to him, and gradually he was filling him with wrong ideas, encouraging him the while to drink a great deal. That the man had some definite purpose Curly was sure. What it was he meant to find out. Meanwhile he played his part of a wild young cowpuncher ready for any mischief, but beneath his obtuse good humor Flandrau covered a vigilant wariness. Soapy held all the good cards now, but if he stayed in the game some of them would come to him. Then he would show Mr. Stone whether he would have everything his own way. CHAPTER VIII A REHEARSED QUARREL Because he could not persuade him to join in their drinking bouts, Stone nicknamed Curly the good bad man. "He's the prize tough in Arizona, only he's promised his ma not to look on the wine when it is red," Blackwell sneered. Flandrau smiled amiably, and retorted as best he could. It was his cue not to take offence unless it were necessary.