“Don’t I?” replied Tom, who now walked up and presented himself before the wolfer. “Well, you can see that it is I, can’t you? Come on. I’ve a story to tell and a letter to read to you; and if you don’t get mad and vow vengeance against the one who wrote it, you are not the man I take you for. Lish, you had an awful row with some fellow last summer, and injured him seriously, and if you don’t dig out of here in a little less than no time you’ll be arrested.” “’Taint no sich thing!” exclaimed Lish, stopping suddenly, and facing his companion. Tom saw at once that he had made a mistake. If he had been a little better acquainted with his partner he never would have accused him of being in a fight with anybody, for he lacked the courage to carry him through such an ordeal. “Well, you are suspected of it, anyway,” said Tom; “and if you stay here and allow yourself to be taken into custody our trip to the hills is up stump. But you did steal something,” he added, closely watching his companion’s face, on which a change at once became visible, “and I know it.” That he had hit the nail on the head this time was evident. Lish turned all sorts of colors, and looked up and down the ravine, and before and behind him, as if he were trying to make up his mind which way he would run, in case circumstances rendered it necessary for him to seek safety in flight. Finally he backed into the bushes, and said, almost in a whisper: “Who told ye that story, pard?” “I will begin at the beginning and tell you all about it,” was Tom’s reply. “You met a boy on horseback up there in the sage-brush, didn’t you? Well, that fellow was my brother, whom I supposed to be a long way from——Don’t interrupt me now,” he exclaimed, when he saw his companion’s eyes growing larger and his mouth open as if he were about to speak. “Let me tell my story in my own way, and then I will answer all the questions you can ask. That was my brother, as I told you, and he is——” Here Tom went on to tell, in language the wolfer could easily comprehend, all about the unexpected meeting between himself and Oscar, and to repeat, as nearly as he could, the conversation that passed between them. He described how his brother happened to be there, told what he intended to do, how much money he had, and wound up with the remark that he was soon to start for the hills, with Big Thompson for a companion. Then he exhibited the new clothes and blankets that Oscar had purchased for him, and finally he came to the note, which he read to suit himself, not forgetting to put in something about the theft Lish had committed, and going into the particulars of that terrible fight he was suspected of being engaged in during the previous summer.