"Well, old chum, sit up and take notice of these things, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble. I've been thinking over that wireless proposition of yours, and I've got a hunch that your ground-wire isn't anchored right. There's an old wire meat-broiler out back of your wood-shed--I saw it there the other day when you were poking around looking for scrap-iron. Hitch your ground-wire to the handle and bury the broiler about six feet down; then, if everything is in shape at the Bluebell, I'll bet something handsome you get all kinds of sparks." Chub stared at his chum in open-mouthed admiration. "You're the wise boy!" he chirped; "if I had your head along with my knack of corralling stuff and getting it together I'd have Edison, Marconi and all that bunch lashed to the mast. King & McReady, Inventions to Order and While You Wait. Oh, gee!" Carried away by his fancies, Chub lay back on the ground and stared upward into the cottonwood branches above him, dreaming things Munchausen would never have dared to mention. "Come back," said Matt dryly, "come back to earth, Chub. This is a practical old world, and I'm right up against it. That's why I'm thinking of Denver." Chub sat up in a hurry at that. "Now what are you trying to string me about Denver for?" he demanded. "What's the matter with Phoenix as a place to stay? It ain't so wild and woolly as a whole lot of other places in the West and Southwest; but since you arrived here you've been mighty spry about catching on." "Phoenix is all right," said Matt. "Wherever I hang up my hat"--and just a shade of wistfulness drifted into his voice as he said it--"is home for me; but the fact of the matter is, Chub, I've got to knock off schooling and get to work--and I've got to do it _now_." "You're crazy!" gasped Chub. "Why, you'll graduate in June, and you can't think of leaving school before that." "I've got to," returned Matt firmly. "I've been rubbing the lamp too long for my own good." "What do you mean by 'rubbing the lamp'?" "I've got to bat that up to you, Chub, and when I'm done you'll be the first person I ever told about it. In the first place, I'm a stray--what they call a 'maverick' out here on the cattle-ranges. Everybody calls me King, and I came by the name fairly enough, but for all I know Brown, Jones or Robinson would hit me just as close." "You're King, all right," declared Chub, with a touch of admiration and feeling, "king of the diamond, the gridiron, the cinder path, the wheel and"--Chub paused "the king of good fellows, with more friends in a minute than I've got in a year." "And more enemies," added Matt, gripping hard the eager hand Chub reached out to him. "A chap that don't make enemies is a dub," said Chub. "We've got to be hated a little by somebody in order to keep us gingered up. But go on, Matt. I'll turn down the lights and pull out the tremolo-stop while you tell me the history of your past life."