Welcome Perkins, otherwise Peg-leg Perkins, otherwise the "reformed road-agent," always reminded Matt of a picture out of a comic supplement. He was little, and wizened, and old--just how old no one knew, but it was popularly supposed that he was somewhere around seventy. He had a pair of the mildest washed-out blue eyes ever set in a man's head, notwithstanding the fact that he was constantly asserting that he had passed his early life as a "pirate of the plains"; and displayed with pride an old, played-out six-shooter whose hand-grip was covered with notches--notches that made Welcome sigh and grow pensive every time he looked at them. Welcome averred that he was trying to live down his lawless past, but that his roaring, rampant, untamed disposition made the effort a struggle and a burden. The old man wore a long and particularly vicious-looking mustache, which he was constantly training upward at the ends in order to make it even more desperate in appearance. His scanty gray locks were allowed to grow long, and they were surmounted with an old sombrero, always carefully whacked into the regulation Denver "poke." His ragged blue shirt was drawn in at the waist with a U. S. Army belt, from which depended a holster containing the notched and useless weapon already mentioned. _Chaparrejos_, or "chaps," which, like their owner, had seen better days--or worse and more lawless ones if Welcome's word was to be taken--covered his left lower extremity and all that was left of his right. The right leg of the chaps was cut away at the knee in order to give freer play to the wooden pin. Silas McReady, the father and sole remaining parent of Susie and Mark, was a prospector, and constantly in the hills. Welcome was an old-time friend of Silas, and for years had been fastened upon the McReady household like a barnacle. "Howdy, pard!" roared Welcome as he drew near the gate and reached out his hand. "It's plumb good for a ole outlaw like me to grip a honest pa'm. It helps to make me fergit what I was and to brace up an' be what I ort. I'm a horrible example o' what happens to a man when he cuts loose in his youth an' bloom an' terrorizes all outdoors--but I can't begin to tell ye how pacifyin' to my reckless natur' is the grip of a honest hand." "Then give it a good grip, Welcome," grinned Matt. "I'd hate to have you get turbulent and go on the war-path. If a man of your age----" Welcome, still holding Matt's hand, allowed his eyes to wander along the road to the northwest. Suddenly the weather-beaten, leathery face grew stern and the faded eyes snapped. "Scud for the house, you two!" yelled Welcome; "scud! Trouble's a-tearin' down on us out o' the hills, an' here's whar Eagle-eye Perkins, Pirate o' the Plains, gets busy!"