Johnny sniffled and wished the posse had taken him. This was a side he had never thought of. His wife! Greener’s wife! Then he was too late, and to go on would be a greater evil than the one he wished to eliminate. When she turned on him like a tigress and tore him to pieces word by word, tears rolling down her pallid cheeks and untold misery in her eyes, he shook his head and held up his hand. "Greener, you win; I can’t stop what’s happened," he said, slowly. "But I ’ll tell you this, an’ I mean every word: If you don’t treat her like she deserves, I ’ll come back some of these days and kill you _shore_. Nolan got his because he talked ill of her; an’ you ’ll get yours if I die the next minute, if you ain’t square with her." "I don’t need no instructions on how to treat my wife," retorted the other. "An’ I ’m beginnin’ to see th’ cause of yore insanity, and it pardons you as nothing else will. Put up yore gun an’ get back to th’ ranch, where you belong—an’ _keep away from me_. Savvy?" "Not much danger of me gettin’ in yore way," growled Johnny, "when I ’m hunted like a dog for doing what any man would ’a’ done. When th’ sheriff gets well, if he ever does, mebby I ’ll come back an’ take my medicine. How was he, anyhow, when you left?" "Dead tired, an’ some under th’ influence of liquor," replied Greener, a smile breaking over his frown. He knew the whole story well, as did the whole range, and he had laughed over it with the Bar-20 outfit. "What’s that? Ain’t he near dead?" cried Johnny, amazed. "Well, purty nigh dead of fatigue dancin’ at our weddin’ last night; but I reckon he ’ll be driftin’ home purty soon, an’ all recovered." Greener suddenly gave way and roared with laughter. There was a large amount of humor in his make-up and it took possession of him, shaking him from head to foot. He had always liked Johnny, not because he ever wanted to but because no one could know the Bar-20 protégé and keep from it. This climax was too much for him, and his wife, gradually recovering herself, caught the infection and joined in. Johnny’s eyes were staring and his mouth wide open, but Greener’s next words closed the eyes to a squint and snapped shut the open mouth. "That there paralysis of th’ cure-a-friend nerve did n’t last; an’ when I heard why you licked him I said a few words that made him a wiser man. He didn’t hunt you after th’ first day. Now you go up an’ shake han’s with him. He knows he got what was coming to him and so does everybody else know it. Go home an’ quit playin’ th’ fool for th’ whole blamed range to laugh at."