In the town of Gunsight, Dave Green was polishing glasses behind his bar when a dusty, but smiling, stranger rode up to the door and called out. Grumbling, Dave waddled forth to answer the summons. "Which way to th’ SV?" asked the stranger. "I’m lookin’ for my friend Nelson." "What is it--a house-raisin’ or a christenin’?" asked Dave, grinning broadly. "Th’ SV’s gettin right pop’lar these days--as it ought to be." Dave cogitated a moment. This man said Nelson was a friend of his; but if not, there would be no harm done to anyone on the SV. Dave was quite certain of that, with Hopalong, Red, and the outfit at Johnny’s back. Still, his curiosity was aroused. "Yore name Jones, or Ewalt?" he asked. "Ewalt," replied Tex, grinning. Dave left the door and gravely held out his hand. "Heard tell about you, long ago," he said. "We’re good friends till you horn into a poker game that I’m settin’ in. Heard about you this mornin’, too. A tenderfoot, a cowpunch, an’ a reg’lar picture in skirts stopped an’ asked me what you did. Also wanted to know if I had seen Jones or Ewalt. You just foller that Juniper trail," and he gave a description tiresome, and needlessly detailed, to a man to whom compass points would have sufficed. "Jones comin’, too? Don’t know I ever heard of him." "Jones is dead," said Tex with touching sorrow. "Th’ pore ol’ soul, we’ll never see him more. He had buttons runnin’ up his back, an’ buttons down before." "Too bad," replied Dave, but he was suspicious of the other’s grief. He shook his head. "Life shore is uncertain. You tell Johnny if he’s havin’ a party that I ain’t too fat to ride that far, not if I’m invited. I ain’t much on dancin’, but I’ll do my best." Tex nodded, thanked him for his information and went on, gradually becoming lost in introspective musings. "Omar," he muttered, shaking his head sadly, "I ain’t got no right. I’m hard-boiled, an’ I’ve reached purty low levels th’ last twenty years. There ain’t no human meanness, no human weaknesses, hardly, that I ain’t seen. My view of life is so cynical that it near scares me, now. I lost my illusions years ago, an’ I’m allus lookin’ for th’ basest motives for a man’s actions. Besides, I’m forty-odd years old--an’ that’s _too_ old. "Now you take Tommy Watkins. He’s fresh, young, chock-a-block with illusions; trustin’, ambitious, steady. He’s clean, body an’ mind. When he grows up, ten years from now, he’ll be a purty fair sort of a young man. It shore does beat all, Omar." A little farther along he drew a deep breath and patted the roan. "Omar, I’ve made up my mind: Youth should be for youth; illusions, for illusions; freshness, for freshness; innocence, for innocence. Her purity deserves better than my mildewed soul--if a man’s got one." After a moment’s silence he patted the horse again. "Omar, yore name brings somethin’ back to me: