Admiration beamed from every wind wrinkle about the Arizonan’s eyes. “Sho! You did that? Now I call that steppin’ some for a man with a bullet through him. I thought from the gen’ral slant to Señor Urgo’s manner when he met up with us some one’d been working on his frame somewhere. He just sweat T.N.T. But why did you crawl him?” “He insulted Señorita O’Donoju,” was Grant’s answer. Bim lowered the lid of one eye owlishly and his gaunt face was pulled down to a comic aspect of concern. “Uh-huh; now I begin to get the drift. Old Doc Stooder was right when he says there’s the shoo-shoo of a skirt somewheres in your big disappearing act. Boy--boy! I had you figgered for the orig’nal old hermit coyote who travels the meat trail alone. No wonder li’l Urgo’s all coiled up for the strike, you aimin’ to run him out on his girl.” Before Grant could head off his friend on a topic that brought sudden embarrassment to him ’Cepcion and a second servant entered with a spread table. Bim tucked pillows under his friend’s shoulders with clumsy tenderness, then in mellow candlelight they ate and talked. Both were bursting with questions to be asked, but Bim claimed the right of priority by virtue of his ten days’ blind search through the country south of the Line. At his demand Grant gave him the whole story of his feud with Colonel Urgo, from the meeting at El Paso down to the afternoon’s events in the patio. Lively play of sympathies about the Arizonan’s features followed the narrative of the dreadful march in the chain gang and Grant’s burst for freedom under the rifles of the rurales. The little his friend left unsaid Bim was shrewd enough to supply; he guessed the story of Grant’s thraldom under the witchery of the desert girl and found it good. When the man on the pillows began recital of what had occurred just a few hours before--Urgo’s savage assault on a girl’s pride through the story of El Rojo’s impiety--the big man by the bed stiffened in intensified interest. He heard Grant through with scarce concealed impatience. “But, man, that was the Mission of the Four Evangelists Urgo was telling of!” explosively from Bim. Grant nodded confirmation. “Why, that’s the Doc’s big proposition--our proposition!” Grant looked his puzzlement. The other’s excitement swirled him on: “That proves what the Doc’s Papago told him. Pearls buried there. An’ gold--lots of gold, the Papago says. I had a sneaking hunch all the time it might be one of Stooder’s wild dreams, but this story proves we’re on the right track.” “Do you mean--?” “Sure! That’s what I brought you out from the East for--to help us uncover this Lost Mission, as folks in Arizona call it. Doc Stooder’s such a cagey old monkey he wouldn’t let me put on paper just what I wanted you to whack in on. Now you got it all--the pure quill. Isn’t it a whale of a proposition!”