“Oh, yes you will!” said Jones confidently. “You’ve only accused Beck of cheating, but you’ve proved it on yourself. The boys won’t like it. It is best to leave me thus, dear--best for you and best for me.” His eyes wandered to the window and rested calculatingly on the Fowler cottonwood across the street. It was a historic tree; Joel Fowler had been hanged thereon by disapproving friends. The Kid caught the glance and the unspoken allusion; sweat beaded his forehead. “Aw, lemme wait for the passenger!” he protested. “I gotta go up to the Windsor to pay what I owe and get my suit case.” Neighbor rose. “There, there! Don’t you fret,” he said, patting the other man’s shoulder kindly. “Give me the money. I’ll pay your bill and keep the suit case. You just run along.” “Good lord, man! Those clothes cost me----” “Now, now! Never mind--that’s all right--everything’s all right!” said Neighbor soothingly. “We’re just about of a size.” He nudged the Kid’s ribs with a confidential elbow. “Sly old dog! You had some of my money too, didn’t you? Yes; and I’ll keep that cunning little gun of yours as a souvenir.” The last remark came after--not before--Neighbor’s acquisition of the cunning little gun. “Come on, my boy, we’ll mosey along over to the station. Here’s our hats, on the bed.” He linked his arm with the victim’s: he sang with a joyous and martial note: “_Hark! From the tombs a doleful sound; Maryland, my Maryland! My love lies buried underground; Maryland, my Maryland!_” Chapter II It was nearing two P. M. when Mr. Jones, after speeding the parting Kid, made his way uptown. Upstairs was the word in his thought. Saragossa is built that way. Let Saragossa Mountain, close and great and golden, stand for the house; the town will then be the front steps. The first step is Venice, in the lush green of the valley--railroad buildings, coal chute, ferryman, warehouses, two nth-class hotels, and a few farmhouses, all on stilts, being a few feet above the Rio Grande at low water and a few feet under it at high water. Whence the name, Venice. On the first rising ground to the westward is the business quarter, as close to the railroad as safety permits. A step up comes to a sheltered, sunny terrace and to the Old Town--the Mexican village dating back to before the great uprising of 1680. Another, a steep and high step, rose to the residence section, on a strip of yellow mesa; for Saragossa has water piped from the high hills, so please you, and is not confined to the lowlands, like most of her New Mexican sisters. Still above, on the fifth and last step, smelter and mining town clung to a yellow-brown slope reached by a spur of railroad looping in a long bow-knot from the valley below.