In the shack that night the boy, worn out by his exposure and the reaction, dropped into his bed the instant supper had been eaten and was fast asleep in ten seconds. The two men smoked in silence before the little fireplace in the corner. "Do you reckon we could make a stab at some sort of a Christmas tree an' kinda s'prise the kid in the morning?" Stanley glanced toward the figure asleep on the floor. "Jest what I was a studyin' over," was Bob's reply. "These here bascos make a heap of such holidays an' Dummy he'd be the tickledest kid ever, if he was to find something like Christmas time a settin' by his bed when he wakes up in the morning." Bob knocked the ashes from his pipe and put it away. "There's a bunch of piñons and cedars down along the wash," he said, "sposin' I take the axe an' git a little branch, or the tip of a piñon an' we set her up here by his bed? What kin we dig up to put onto it that's fittin' for such a thing?" "For a starter I got them nine silver cart wheels the store keeper give me in change," was Stanley's quick response. Bob was already going through his pockets. "Here's a handful of chicken feed, that'll help some," handing the change to Stanley, "yep, an' a paper dollar the postmaster gimme. Reckon the kid'll know what it is? I been skeert I'd use it fer a cigarette paper." Stanley started for the two kyacks lying in the corner. "You hustle out an' git the tree," said he, "an' I'll see what else I can scare up in the packs. I know there's a couple of apples an' a orange I throwed in with the grub when we was packin'." An hour later the two men stood by the boy's bed, their faces fairly shining with the true Christmas spirit over their efforts to make an acceptable Christmas tree out of such scanty material. On the floor at his head stood a small piñon tree top held erect by several stones. Both men had exhausted their ingenuity to find things with which to decorate it and on its branches hung the oddest lot of plunder that ever old "Santy" left on his rounds. "I'll never miss them spurs," said Bob pointing to an almost new pair he had recently bought, "an' Dummy, he's been just daffy about 'em." "Same with that new knife," said Stanley. "I jist bought it to be a doin' somethin' an' I know Dummy ain't got one that'll cut cold butter." In nine separate little packages wrapped in newspaper the silver dollars were swinging at the end of pieces of thread from a spool in Bob's "war bag," the loose silver had been placed in two empty tobacco sacks each hanging pendant from the tip of a limb, while three unbroken packages of chewing gum, two apples and one rather dilapidated orange swung from other branches. Stanley picked up the boy's slate. "Less' see," he asked, "what's Dummy's real name?" "Pedro," answered Bob, busy making down their bed on the floor. Painstaking and slowly, he wrote: TO PEDRO A MERRY CHRISTMAS. YOU ARE SURE SOME SHEEP MAN.