"Well, the blank-blanked fool!" exclaimed Crittenden, slapping his leg viciously with his quirt at this sudden wrecking of his hopes. "Well, _dam'_ 'im, for a proper eejit!" He ground his teeth in vexation. "W'y, the crazy dum-head!" he groaned, as the cloud of dust receded. "Boone Morgan is shore to come back to the Crossing to-night and catch 'im in the store! Him and that booze-fightin' Angy—I got to git rid of him—but what in the world am _I_ goin' to do?" From his station on the edge of the mesa he could see the dust to the east where his cowboys were bringing the day's beef-cut down to the river and then, far up toward the northern pass, a couple of horsemen jogging down the Tonto trail. Boone Morgan rode a bay horse, and one of these was solid color, but the other rode an animal that showed a patch of white—looked kind of familiar, too. He watched them until they showed up clear against a clay-bank and then, making sure that the man on the bay was Morgan, he spurred across the flat to the store. Whatever happened, he must be sure to get Pecos out of town, for Upton had been talking Wine-glass to Morgan, and they might summon him for a witness. There was a sound of clanking glasses inside the door as Crittenden rode up, and the voice of Angevine Thorne, flamboyantly proclaiming a toast. "Then here's to the revolution," he ended up, "and a pleasant journey to you, Cumrad, wherever you go!" They drank, and Crit, sitting outside on his horse, slapped his thigh and laughed silently. "A pleasant journey," eh? Well, let it go at that and he would put up the whiskey. "You'll be sure and write me often," continued Angy, caressingly, "and I'll send your _Voice of Reason_ to you, so you can keep up with the times." "All right, Pardner," answered Pecos, "but say, give Marcelina my best and tell her I'll be back in the spring. Tell 'er something real nice for me, Angy, will you? Aw, to hell with the cows; it'll be her I come back for! Gittin' a little too warm for me right now, but I'll be here when she comes home in the spring. Well, let's take another drink to the sweetest little girl that ever lived and then I'll be on my way!" The glasses clicked again and as Angy began another peroration Old Crit pulled his horse around with an oath and started up the road. So that was why he had been turned down by Marcelina—Pecos was making love to her while he was gone! And he'd be back in the springtime, eh? Well, not if there was room in the county jail and Boone Morgan would take him down! Hot with his new-made scheme for revenge he spurred his horse to a gallop and was just swinging around the first turn in the trail when he fetched up face to face with Morgan and John Upton!