orked out of it. Almost, not
altogether. His mother's blood kept its talons on him. He was Latin and
dangerous to look at, for all the big white Anglo-Saxon teeth, the slow,
slack, Western American carriage, the guarded and amused expression of
the golden eyes. Here was a bundle of racial contradictions, not yet
welded, not yet attuned. Perhaps the one consistent, the one solvent,
expression was that of alert restlessness. Cosme Hilliard was not happy,
was not content, but he was eternally entertained. He was not uplifted by
the hopeful illusions proper to his age, but he loved adventure. It was a
bitter face, bitter and impatient and unschooled. It seemed to laugh, to
expect the worst from life, and not to care greatly if the worst should
come. But for such minor matters of dust and thirst and weariness, he had
patience. Physically the young man was hard and well-schooled. He rode
like a cowboy and carried a cowboy's rope tied to his saddle. And the
rope looked as though it had been used.

Millings, that seemed so close below there through the clear, high
atmosphere, was far to reach. The sun had slipped down like a thin,
bright coin back of an iron rock before the traveler rode into the town.
His pony shied wearily at an automobile and tried to make up his mind to
buck, but a light pressure of the spur and a smiling word was enough to
change his mind.

"Don't be a fool, Dusty! You know it's not worth the trouble. Remember
that fifty miles you've come to-day!"

The occupants of the motor snapped a camera and hummed away. They had no
prevision of being stuck halfway up Crazy Woman's Hill with no water
within fifteen miles, or they wouldn't have exclaimed so gayly at the
beauty and picturesqueness of the tired cowboy.

"He looks like a movie hero, doesn't he?" said a girl.

"No, ma'am," protested the Western driver, who had been a chauffeur only
for a fortnight and knew considerably less about the insides of his Ford
than he did about the insides of Hilliard's cow-pony. "He ain't no show.
He's the real thing. Seems like you dudes got things kinder twisted.
Things ain't like shows. Shows is sometimes like things."

"The real thing" certainly behaved as the real thing would. He rode
straight to the nearest saloon and swung out of his saddle. He licked the
dust off his lips, looked wistfully at the swinging door, and turned back
to his pony.

"You first, Dusty--damn you!" and led the stumbling beast into the yard
of