"Why, you old practical joke!" he gasped, "that gun's about as dangerous as a piece of bologna sausage." A twinkle stole into Welcome's faded eyes. "Don't ye know, son," said he, "it ain't the dangerousness of a thing that counts so much as the popperler impression about its _bein'_ dangerous? Lucretia Borgia ain't spoke a word fer ten year, an' she's all choked up with rust now, an' couldn't talk if she wanted to. But the sight o' her's enough--oh, yes, it's a-plenty. "I seen the hull o' this fracas, an' the ole sperrit that I'm tryin' to fight down an' conker stirred around inside o' me to that extent that I jest had to take holt or bust my b'iler. I heerd that young whipper-snapper say he'd tipped his hand to Matt at the gate an' had come here to show it. Waal, bumby I reckoned that I'd show _my_ hand--an' with somethin' in it. It's jest a bit of a sample o' what I useter be in the ferocious ole times. But come on; let's fergit about fights an' fightin', which is plumb unworthy of civilized folks, an' go up to the house." CHAPTER V. DACE PERRY'S CRAFTINESS. The captain of the cross-country team was a shining example of what wrong bringing-up can do for some boys. His doting mother had spoiled him, and his father, a wealthy Denver mining-man, had for years been too busy accumulating money to pay any attention to him. When his wife died, the elder Perry suddenly realized that he had an unmanageable son on his hands. While his mother lived, Perry had gone the pace. He was only sixteen when she died, but for more than a year he had been traveling in fast company, drinking and gambling, and doing his best to make, what he was pleased to call, a "thoroughbred" out of himself. His doting mother had been lenient and easily deceived. She had stood between Perry and his father, and when the latter occasionally refused to supply the boy with money she would give it to him out of her own allowance. With the passing of Mrs. Perry all this was changed. Mr. Perry, in order to get Dace away from dissipated Denver companions, shipped him off to Phoenix and left him there in charge of a friend who happened to be the principal of the Phoenix High School. This was a change for the better in some ways. Dace had naturally a splendid physique, and he had an overweening pride in becoming first in high-school athletics, no matter how he might stand in his studies. He cut out the "budge," as he would have called liquor, because it interfered with his physical development; also he cut out smoking for the same reason. But he continued to gamble, and the poor old professor was as easily hoodwinked as Mrs. Perry had been. Perry, Sr., kept his son rigidly to a small allowance. As a result Dace was always head over heels in debt, for, although an inveterate gambler, he was not much more than an amateur at the game, though learning the tricks of the trade fast enough.