‘It’s about time you were sitting a real horse, Kid. Give me your shoe--’ And Elbert was lifted up on old Chester, who had his ‘stuff’ down so fine, you wouldn’t believe he knew anything. Chester was the morning-star of Cal’s string, and right then Elbert began to know the difference between an outlaw and a real man-horse. That one brief word ‘Kid,’ still sounded in his ears. It seemed to have let him into a new world, the world of Cal Monroid and Slim Gannon, the latter said to have taken the Tucson Bronk Cup two years straight; both men being held as cool and fast in a pinch. This episode held the faintest possible answer to what he had come West for, but Elbert had already decided to depart, his plan being to go on to the coast, before starting back East. III THE LEATHER-STORE HIS first night in Los Angeles was like summer, though it was February. In the core of the old town he found the Plaza, and strolled through the Mexican crowd. His heart started a queer beat as the band struck up ‘La Paloma,’ his lips forming the words of the first line or two: ‘Cuando sali de la Habana, Valgame Dios--’ A wonder took him as to what Los Angeles used to be like when there were empty hills all around and how ‘La Paloma’ would have sounded in those days. ‘Carved out of starlight,’ he whispered. The next day in the window of an old leather-store near the Plaza, he saw a cardboard sign reading: ‘Young man wanted.’ Elbert didn’t suppose they would take on one without experience, but the impulse grew upon him to try his luck. The thought of going East so soon hadn’t become any easier, nor did he consider with relish the idea of asking his father for money to stay away with. To his surprise he was given a trial in the leather-shop, and gradually he became pleased with the arrangement, for the store proved to have quality and background. Real cattlemen used to swear by it, he found out, and occasionally, even now, an old-timer would come in and talk with the proprietor. They would chat of the days when cantinas still welcomed the passer-by around the corner on North Main Street, little games going on upstairs. In those days the Mexicans hanging around the Plaza still had bits of color in their sashes and sombreros. There was a gray wooden horse in the leather-store, fragile but full height, on which Elbert was accustomed to show bridles, saddles, blankets, and pack-gear, talking to customers a lot wiser than he felt, for he still resented life’s conspiracy which had kept him from sitting a live horse where he belonged.