“It wouldn't matter so much if he wasn't all front,” Pink complained. “You'll notice that's always the way, though. The fellow all fussed up with silver and braided leather can't get out and do anything. I remember up on Milk river--” Pink trailed off into absorbing reminiscence, which, however, is too lengthy to repeat here. “Say, Mig-u-ell's down at the stable, sweatin from every pore trying to get his saddle clean, by golly!” Slim reported cheerfully, just as Pink was relighting the cigarette which had gone out during the big scene of his story. “He was cussin' in Spanish, when I walked up to him--but he shut up when he seen me and got that peaceful look uh hisn on his face. I wonder, by golly--” “Oh, shut up and go awn,” Irish commanded bluntly, and looked at Pink. “Did he call it off, then? Or did you have to wade in--” “Naw; he was like this here Native Son--all front. He could look sudden death, all right; he had black eyes like Mig-u-ell--but all a fellow had to do was go after him, and he'd back up so blamed quick--” Slim listened that far, saw that he had interrupted a tale evidently more interesting than anything he could say, and went off, muttering to himself. CHAPTER II. “When Greek Meets Greek” The next morning, which was Sunday, the machinations of Big Medicine took Pink down to the creek behind the bunk-house. “What's hurtin' yuh?” he asked curiously, when he came to where Big Medicine stood in the fringe of willows, choking between his spasms of mirth. “Haw-haw-haw!” roared Big Medicine; and, seizing Pink's arm in a gorilla-like grip, he pointed down the bank. Miguel, seated upon a convenient rock in a sunny spot, was painstakingly combing out the tangled hair of his chaps, which he had washed quite as carefully not long before, as the cake of soap beside him testified. “Combing--combing--his chaps, by cripes!” Big Medicine gasped, and waggled his finger at the spectacle. “Haw-haw-haw! C-combin'--his--chaps!” Miguel glanced up at them as impersonally as if they were two cackling hens, rather than derisive humans, then bent his head over a stubborn knot and whistled La Paloma softly while he coaxed out the tangle. Pink's eyes widened as he looked, but he did not say anything. He backed up the path and went thoughtfully to the corrals, leaving Big Medicine to follow or not, as he chose. “Combin'--his chaps, by cripes!” came rumbling behind him. Pink turned. “Say! Don't make so much noise about it,” he advised guardedly. “I've got an idea.” “Yuh want to hog-tie it, then,” Big Medicine retorted, resentful because Pink seemed not to grasp the full humor of the thing. “Idees sure seems to be skurce in this outfit--or that there lily-uh-the-valley couldn't set and comb no chaps in broad daylight, by cripes; not and get off with it.”