It was while he was in this vacillating mood and feeling mighty lonely and lost to the world that he heard late one night a familiar whoop from the jag-cell, followed by a fiery oration in the vernacular. It was Angy, down for his periodical drunk, and Pecos could hardly wait to clasp him by the hand. It was a peculiar thing about Angevine Thorne—the drunker he got the more his language improved, until in the ecstasy of his intoxication, he often quoted Greek and Latin, or words deemed by local wiseacres to be derived from those sources. Drink also seemed to clarify his vision and give him an exalted sense of truth, justice, and man's inhumanity to man. It had been his custom in the past at this climacteric stage of inebriation to mount upon some billiard table or other frangible piece of saloon furniture and deliver temperance lectures until removed by the police. But times had changed with Geronimo's champion booze-fighter and in his later prepossessions he grappled with the mighty problem of wealth and its relation to the common man. There are some hard sayings in the _Voice of Reason_ against the privileged classes, but they are all nicely considered in relation to the libel law, whereas Angy had no such compunctions. Having spent all his money for drink and received a jail sentence for life, the law had no further terrors for him and he turned his eloquence loose. It was a wild rave when Pecos heard it, and grew progressively more incoherent; but as he lay in his bunk and listened to the familiar appeals a thought came to Pecos like an inspiration from the gods—why not turn that stream of eloquence into profitable channels and make Angy his advocate? There was not a voter in Geronimo who did not know Babe Thorne and love him for his foolishness—the life sentence which he suffered for conspicuous drunkenness was but a token of their regard, placing him above the level of common ordinary drunks even as his eloquence placed him above the maudlin orators with whom the saloons were crowded. He was a character, a standing jest—and Arizona loves a joke better than life itself. Above all, Angy was a good fellow—he could jolly the district attorney and make him laugh! They would win their case and then he would be free—free! Pecos could not sleep from thinking of it and he begged Bill Todhunter, as a special favor, to bring Babe in from the jag-cell at once. "What's the matter?" inquired Bill casually, "are you gettin' interested in yore girl? I hear Old Crit has cut you out." "Crit be damned!" cried Pecos. "Have I ever asked you for anything before? Well then, throw him in here, can't you?" The deputy did as he was bid and went away—he was not of a prying disposition and Pecos had saved him a lot of trouble. There had never been an alcalde like Pecos Dalhart. No, indeed—it would rustle them to get one half as good when he went his way to Yuma.