The keen, but apparently careless, observer silently and fairly reviewed the years that had passed since he had been at Tommy’s age; the lack of illusions, the cold, cynical practicality of his thoughts and actions; the laws, both civil and moral, which he contemptuously had shattered. He could not remember the time when he had had Tommy’s faith in men, nor his enthusiasm. Tommy was looking forward to a life of clean, hard work, and actually with a fierce eagerness. Never had such a thing been an impelling motive in the life of Tex Ewalt. Instead he had planned shrewdly and consistently how to avoid working for a living, and when it was solved, then how to live higher and higher with the least additional effort. And he now admitted that if he had the chance to live that period over again, under the same circumstances, he would repeat his course in the major things. He felt neither regret nor remorse at the contrast--he had lived as it pleased him, and the Tex Ewalt of today had no censure for the Tex Ewalt of yesterday. But he was fair, at all events; and to draw true deductions from accepted facts was an art not to be perverted because expediency might beckon. After all, he did not try to fool himself; and he was no hypocritical whiner. Being fair, he calmly realized that he was the unfitting unit of this triangle, that he did not belong there. But there would be time enough for such cogitation later on. "Shore," Tommy was dogmatically asserting. "Th’ rattler gets all cramped up an’ tired, an’ there is an instant when he can’t turn fast enough to keep his nasty little eyes on th’ other, that’s racin’ around him like a flash. That’s th’ end of th’ rattler. Th’ kingsnake darts in, grabs th’ rattler behind th’ head, an’ after a great thrashin’ around, kills him dead. _Ain’t_ that so, Mr. Jones?" Tex lazily turned his head and looked at the doubting auditor and then at the anxious Tommy. He gravely nodded. "Yes that’s th’ end. That’s the enemy within the snake’s own species which I mentioned back on the trail, Miss Saunders." The look of doubt faded from her face and a nebulous smile transformed it. She was certain of it now. Tex flamed at what that change told him, tingling to his finger tips with a surging elation. He felt that he had but to speak three words to put her vague feelings into a coherent wonder of wonders; but to crystallize them into an everlasting passion by the alchemy of his avowal, or the touch of his lips. The lulled storm within him broke out anew and blazed fiercely. He arose, kicked an inoffensive tin can over the bed of the creek and spun it in mid-air by a vicious, eye-baffling shot from his Colt. Realizing how he had forgotten himself, and his resolutions, he, the cool, imperturbable Tex Ewalt, he recovered his poise and bowed, smilingly, to the surprised pair. "That’s shootin’, Tex!" cried Tommy.