"Why, if you ain't busy next Saturday I'd like to have you call around--about one o'clock, say--and kick me good and hard." "Let him keep his gun. He called me a young fellow. And I don't want Breslin's, anyway. He's all right. Not to play any favorites, let Anastacio keep his. There are times," said Pringle, "when I have great hopes of Anastacio. I'm thinking some of taking him in hand to see if I can't make a man of him." "Ananias the Amateur," said Anastacio, "I thank you for those kind words. And I'd like to see you Saturday about two--when you get through with Nueces. I'm next on the waiting list. This will be a lesson to me never to let my opinion of a man be changed by anything he may do." "If you fellows feel that way," said Foy, "how about me? How do you suppose I feel? This man has risked his life fifty times for me--and what did I think of him?" "If you ask me, Christopher," said Anastacio, "I think you were quite excusable. It was all very well to dissemble his love--but I should feel doubtful of any man that handed me such a wallop as that until the matter had been fully explained." "What I want to know, Pringle, is, how the deuce you got up here so slick?" said Nueces. "Oh, that's easy! I can run a mile in nothing flat." "Oh--that's it? You hid in the water pen?" "Under the troughs. Bright idea of yours, them fires! I knew just where not to go. After you left I hooked a horse. If you'd had sense enough to go with the sheriff and eat your supper like a human being I'd 'a' hooked two horses, and Chris and me would now be getting farther and farther. I don't want you ever to do that again. Suppose Chris had killed me when I tried to knock him out? Fine large name I would 'a' left for myself, wouldn't I?" "If you had fought it out with us," said Breslin musingly, "you would have been killed--both of you; and you would have killed others. Mr. Pringle, you have done a fine thing. I apologize to you." "Why, that all goes without saying, my boy. As for my part--why, I don't bother much about a blue tin heaven or a comic-supplement hell, but I'm right smart interested in right here and now. It's a right nice little old world, take it by and large, and I like to help out at whatever comes my way, if it takes fourteen innings. But, so long as you feel that way about it, maybe you'll believe me now, when I say that Christopher Foy was with me all last night and he didn't shoot Dick Marr." "That's right," said Foy. "I don't know who killed Dick Marr; but I do know that Creagan, Joe Espalin, and Applegate intended to kill me last night. They gave me back my sixshooter, that Ben Creagan had borrowed--and it was loaded with blanks. Then they pitched onto me, and if it hadn't been for Pringle they'd have got me sure! We left town at eleven o'clock and rode straight to the Vorhis Ranch." "I believe you," said Anastacio. "You skip along now, Chris. You're fit to ride." "Why shouldn't I stay and see it out?"