"Git off'n there, you low-down, lazy hound!" he yelled, dragging him roughly to the floor. "You _will_ start a revolution and try to kill your boss, will you? _You're fired!_" he shouted when, after a liberal drenching, he had brought Babe back to the world. "Well, gimme my pay, then," returned Angy, holding out his hand and blinking. "You don't git no pay!" declared Crit, with decision. "Who's goin' to pay for all that liquor that was drunk last night? Look at them empty bottles, will you? You go and bring in all your friends and open up the town and the next mornin' I look in the till and they ain't a dam' cent!" "Well, I want my pay," reiterated Babe, drunkenly. "I been workin' a long time, now—I'm goin' to draw my money an' go home! '_My mother's heart is breakin', breakin' f'r me, an' that's all_—'" he crooned, and, rocking to and fro on the floor, he sang himself back to sleep. Old Crit watched him a moment, sneering; then with vindictive exultation he turned his attention to Pecos. "Git up," he snarled, kicking the upturned soles of his feet, "this ain't no bunk-house! Git out'r here, now; you been pesterin' around these parts too long!" He seized the prostrate cowboy by his broad shoulders and snaked him summarily out the door, where he lay sprawling in the dirt, like a turtle on its back, a mock of his strong, young manhood. To the case-hardened Babe the venom of Old Crit's whiskey was no worse than a death-potion of morphine to an opium fiend, but Pecos was completely paralyzed by the poison. He responded neither to kicks and man-handling nor to frequent dashes of water and at last Crittenden dragged him out behind the corral and left him there, a sight for gods and men. The Garcia dogs crept up furtively and sniffed at him and the Señora pointed him out to her children as an awful example of _Texano_ depravity, and also as the bad man who had corrupted their _papa_. Even Marcelina wavered in her secret devotion, but after he had finally clambered up on his horse and ridden blindly off toward Lost Dog Cañon the thought of those blue silk handkerchiefs, branded M, rose up in her mind and comforted her. CHAPTER VIII THE DAY AFTER