"Do you wish to dispose of some of these, too?" the teller asked. "No, thanks," said Apache Kid. "They go to an eastern market." "An eastern market!" Did that mean that Apache Kid was going east? Was I to have his company home? Home I myself was going. But he—as I looked at his brown face, the alert eyes puckered at the side with long life in the sunshine, the lips close with much daring (and I think just a little hard), the jaws firm with much endurance, and that self-possessed bearing that one never sees in the civilised East, I knew he was not going back East. The tiny gold ear-rings might be removed, but the stamp of the man could not; and men of that stamp are not seen in cities. *CHAPTER XXVIII* _*Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way House to Kettle*_ You hear people talk of the _Autumn feeling in the air_. Well, the Autumn feeling was in the air as we drove down through the rolling foothills to the Half-Way House. My farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin had touched me deeply. It was only a word or two and a handshake, for when it comes to parting in the West, there is never any effusion—partings there are so frequent that people spare themselves the pain of them and make them brief. But nevertheless, they sting. There was sunlight, to be sure, all the way; but that Autumn feeling was there. The sound of the wheels fell dead on the air, and we were all moody and quiet. I got it into my head that I was soon to say farewell to Apache Kid, and that forever. He was exceedingly thoughtful and silent, and I wondered if he was meditating on the suggestion of Mrs. Laughlin regarding the advisability of his settling down, asking Miss Pinkerton for her hand, and becoming a respectable person. Before we came in sight of the Half-Way House we heard the dull rasp of a saw, and then, topping the second last roll of the sandy hills and swinging round the base of the last one, we went rocketing up to the hotel. A man at the wood trestle, which stood at the gable-end, straightened himself and looked up at our approach, and I saw that he was the red-headed man who had "held up" Apache Kid at the Rest House on our last journey. Apache Kid’s face went a trifle more thoughtful at sight of him, but just then Miss Pinkerton appeared at the door to welcome us. But when we alighted I detected something new in her manner toward us. What it was I cannot exactly tell. Certainly she was just as demure, as open-eyed, as natural as before. But she did not seem to require our presence now for all that she welcomed us in a friendly way. There was that in her manner that made me think she would bid us farewell just as innocently and pleasantly, and straightway forget about us. Her welcome seemed a duty.