It occurred to Cairness then that with no breath in your lungs and with twelve stone on your chest, speech is difficult. He slid off and knelt beside the rancher, still with the revolver levelled. "Now, why did you do it, eh?" He enforced the "eh" with a shake. "I dunno. I didn't." "Didn't you, then? You did, though, and you can go back with me till we find out why. Give me your firearms. Lively!" Lawton produced a brace of revolvers. "And your knife." He handed it over also. "Now you get up and walk in front of me, and don't you try to bolt. I can run faster than you can, and, anyway, I'll shoot you if you try it." Lawton moved ahead a few steps; then he began to cry, loudly, blubbering, his nerves gone all to shreds. He implored and pleaded and wailed. He hadn't known what he was doing. He had been drunk. They had treated him badly about the beef contract. Stone had gone back on him. The oaths that he sobbed forth were not new to Cairness, but they were very ugly. "Cheese that cussing, do you hear?" he ordered. Lawton stopped. To forbid him swearing was to forbid him speech. He shuffled ahead in silence. When Cairness got him to the post and turned him over to the officer-of-the-day, the fire had burned itself out and quiet was settling down again. Big warm drops were beginning to splash from the clouds. The officer-of-the-day put Lawton into the care of the guard and asked Cairness in to have a drink, calling him "my good man." Cairness was properly aware of the condescension involved in being asked into an officer's dining room, but he objected to being condescended to by a man who doubled his negatives, and he refused. "Is there anything, then, that I can do for you? the officer asked. His intentions were good; Cairness was bound to realize that, too. "Yes, sir," he answered; "you can see that I get a mounted man and a horse at reveille to-morrow. I want to hunt for my pony. I lost it when I caught that man." The officer-of-the-day agreed. And Cairness, not having a hat to raise, forgot himself and saluted. Then he went back to the sutler's through the already pelting rain. He was glad he had caught Lawton, mainly because of what he hoped to get out of him yet, about the Kirby affair. But he was sorry for the big clumsy fool, too. He had been an easy-going, well-intentioned boss in the days when Cairness had been his hand. And, too, he was sorry, very sorry, about the pony. If it were to fall into the hands of Mexicans or even of some of the Mescalero Indians, his chances of seeing it again would be slight. And he was fond of it, mainly because it had helped him to save Mrs. Landor's life. XVIII Cairness had made a tune for himself and was putting to it the words of the ill-fated poet of his own Land of the Dawning. "Oh! wind that whistles, o'er thorns and thistles Of the fruitful earth, like a goblin elf, Why should he labor to help his neighbor, Who feels too reckless to help himself?"