Numerous inquiries brought from the boy enough of the story to give the members of the search party a fair idea of what had happened. He was too tired to talk, however, and contented himself with an appeal that Jack should be well looked after, and thereafter satisfied himself with sticking to the saddle of the mule which had been brought down for him to ride. When they reached the hotel the frontiersman walked into the rotunda with the boy, and as they stood before the desk, he turned to the crowd assembled and said: "Ladies and gents, I'm no speechmaker, but I reckon we hadn't ought to let this young feller hit the bunk before we tell him what we think of a chap who is plucky enough to blaze a new trail across the Grand Canyon, and the first time in its history to cross it alone with one burro. This is Roger Doughty, ladies and gents, the first white man to cross the Grand Canyon alone." Immediately all the curiosity-hunters that hang about those sight-seeing hotels crowded around the boy, but he would have nothing to say, and was far too wearied to undertake to tell his story. Bidding the clerk have all the supplies ordered for him early in the morning he turned to go, when his new friend, the frontiersman, said: "Did you reckon to go back yourself with the grub?" "Sure. To-morrow," said the boy. "That is, if I can get a little sleep to-night," he added pettishly. "Then I'll go with you, boy. You've done a thing that will be talked about in Arizona, I guess, as long as the Colorado River flows. It isn't right for you to tackle the trip back alone, and anyway, I know the trail better than you do. An' what's more, you sleep till I call you myself to-morrow, and I'll see that all the supplies are ready and packed for the start. I'm an old hand at the game, bub, and you can leave it all to me." Roger thanked him and once more turned to go to bed when he was intercepted by another group. The frontiersman stepped forward. "The kid's going to hit the pillow," he announced, "an' I reckon that he's earned it. Any one that tries to stop him can talk a while to me. Go on up, bub," which Roger, portentously yawning, proceeded to do. So, laughing at the mixture of friendliness and bravado exhibited by the boy's lanky champion, the people stood aside while Roger stumbled upstairs and fell on a bed asleep. A few minutes later the big frontiersman followed him, and seeing him dead to the world with all his clothes on, even his hat being still crushed over his eyebrows; picked him up on his knee, took off his clothes and tucked him in as tenderly as his mother might have done, the boy never even growing restless in his sleep the while. That done, the burly Westerner, whose touch had been throughout as light as that of a woman, looked down on the sleeping boy. "If that's the kind the government breeds," he said, "no wonder we can whip the earth!" and he went down to arrange about the next day's trip.