As they was going away from the deepo, Hill said, he heard Santa Fé telling the old gent he was sorry it was getting so dark--as he'd like to take him round so he could see the parsonage, and the new church they'd just finished building and was going to put an organ in as soon as they'd raised more funds; but it wasn't worth while going out of their way, he said, because they wouldn't show to no sort of advantage with the light so bad. As the only church in Palomitas was the Mexican mud one about two hundred years old, and as the nearest thing to a parsonage was the Padre's house that Denver Jones had rented and had his faro-bank in, Hill said he guessed Charley acted sensible in not trying to show the old gent around that part of the town. * * * * * Hill said after he'd got his supper he thought he'd come down to the deepo and sort of wait around there; on the chance he'd ketch on--when the old gent come over to the train--to what Santa Fé and the Hen'd been putting up on him. Sure enough, he did. Along about ten o'clock a starting-order come down--the track-gang by that time having the wash-out so near fixed it would be fit by the time the train got there to go across; and Wood--he was the agent, Wood was--sent word over to the Forest Queen to the old gent, who was the only Pullman passenger, he'd better be coming along. In five minutes or so he showed up. He wasn't in the best shape, Hill said, and Santa Fé and the Hen each of 'em was giving him an arm; though what he seemed to need more'n arms, Hill said, was legs--the ones he had, judging from the way he couldn't manage 'em, not being in first-class order and working bad. But he didn't make no exhibition of himself, and talked right enough--only he spoke sort of short and scrappy--and the three of 'em was as friendly together as friendly could be. Hill said he didn't think it was any hurt to listen, things being the way they was, and he edged up close to 'em--while they stood waiting for the porter to light up the Pullman--and though he couldn't quite make sense of all they was saying he did get on to enough of it to size up pretty close how they'd put the old gent through. "Although it is for my struggling church, a weak blade of grass in the desert," Santa Fé was saying when Hill got the range of 'em, "I cannot but regret having taken from you your splendid contribution to our parish fund in so unusual, I might almost say in so unseemly, a way. That I have returned to you a sufficient sum to enable you to prosecute your journey to its conclusion places you under no obligation to me. Indeed, I could not have done less--considering the very liberal loan that you have made to my poor niece to enable her to return quickly to her helpless babe. As I hardly need tell you, that loan will be returned promptly--as soon as Mrs. Captain Chiswick gets East and is able to disentangle her affairs."