They plodded along in silence for a while, and then David said, “Well, if worst comes to worst, we’ll have to gentle old Uncle Bill down, and get him used to it as best we can, and bring him over to live with us.” “Of course!” Goliath assented. “That goes without any gab. Poor old feller!” They were still distressed and perturbed when they bade each other good night and crawled into their bunks. And for the next three or four days they could think of or discuss nothing save their perplexity. Distraction came unexpectedly, with the arrival of a visitor who was brought to their cabin one afternoon in a hired conveyance, and who shouted a boisterous greeting. They did not recognize him at first, and then David exclaimed, “By the great horn spoon! It’s Heald. Heald that we got out of Mexico with.” “What? That feller we grabbed out of ---- It is! Sure enough!” Goliath exclaimed as they rushed forward to shake hands with a man whose life they had saved at the imminent risk of their own necks. “What on earth brings you here, Heald? Thought you was in Colorado?” “Was, the last time I wrote you,” said their visitor with a quiet grin. “Told you men that if ever I came within a thousand miles of you, I’d look you up. I certainly owe you that much, don’t I? And so I’m here. Can you put me up for a week or so? I want to fish a little and maybe shoot at something and--talk over old times. I want to rest.” Beyond that strange adventure in which they had saved his life, they knew little of him, save that he was a strangely reticent man, evidently capable, courageous, and sometimes a wanderer. They had accepted him as being somewhat like themselves, an adventurer into strange places, accustomed to vicissitude, and well-enduring. That he had remembered them through the years with occasional letters, and once or twice a Christmas gift of a box of cigars or something similar, was merely surprising. The fact that they had imperiled their own lives in his behalf had not impressed them as being any reason for the remembrance; but they were eager to welcome him as an old friend. They were prepared to act as hosts without apologies for the roughness of their hospitality, and he, in return, accepted it as if it were that to which he was entirely habituated. It was in the dusk of the evening, when they had settled lazily into the crude, homemade and comfortable chairs outside the cabin, and when they had exhausted their reminiscences, that David mentioned the subject uppermost in his mind, and explained how he and his partner had been sympathetically perturbed by the misfortunes of Old Harmless. “Maybe,” said Heald, “I can help you out on that, some way. I’m--I’m a pretty good lawyer myself, and I’ve had some experience in land titles.”