nd hog the conversation, and trottin' to keep up with him.
Glad to be seen on the street with him. Gives one a standing, you know.
But, I say, old chappie, why didn't you come last night? Deuced anxious,
we were! Thought you missed the way, or slid down your rope and got
nabbed again, maybe. No end of a funk I was in, not being used to
lawbreakin', except by advice of counsel. And we felt a certain delicacy
about inquiring about you this morning, you know--until we heard about
the big ructions at the jail. Come over to McClintock's rooms--can't
you?--where we'll be all together, and tell us about it--so you won't
have to tell it but the one time."

"No, sir," said Pete decidedly. "I get my breakfast first, and a large
shave. Got to do credit to Stan. Then I'll go with you. Big mistake,
though. Story like this gets better after bein' told a few times. I could
make quite a tale of this, with a little practice."

CHAPTER XV

"You've got Stan sized up all wrong, Mr. McClintock," said Pete. "That
boy didn't want your money. He never so much as mentioned your name to
me. If he had, I would have known why Old Man Trouble was haunting him so
persistent. And he don't want anybody's money. He's got a-plenty of his
own--in prospect. And he's got what's better than money: he has learned
to do without what he hasn't got."

"You say he has proved himself a good man of his hands?" demanded
McClintock sharply.

"Yessir--Stanley is sure one double-fisted citizen," said Pete. "Here is
what I heard spoken of him by highest authority the day before I left:
'He'll make a hand!' That was the word said of Stan to me. We don't get
any higher than that in Arizona. When you say of a man, 'He'll do to take
along,' you've said it all. And Stanley Mitchell will do to take along.
I'm thinkin', sir, that you did him no such an ill turn when your quarrel
sent him out there. He was maybe the least bit inclined to be
butter-flighty when he first landed."

It was a queer gathering. McClintock sat in his great wheeled chair,
leaning against the cushions; he held a silken skull-cap in his hand,
revealing a shining poll with a few silvered locks at side and back; his
little red ferret eyes, fiery still, for all the burden of his years,
looked piercingly out under shaggy brows. His attendant, withered and
brown and gaunt, stood silent behind him. Mary Selden, quiet and pale,
was at the old man's left hand. Pete Johnson, with one puffed and
dis