wheeling his horse
short around, that he might ride alongside the other. "I started out to
hunt you up, you old devil. How are you, anyway?"

"It is well with me, and well with my soul--what little I've got--but it
ain't so well with my winter grub-stake. I'm just as tickled to see you
as you ever dare be to meet up with me, and that's no lie. I heard
you've got a stand-in with the Double Cross, and seeing they ain't on to
my little peculiarities, I thought I'd ride out and see if I couldn't
work you for a soft snap. Got any ducks out there you want led to
water?"

"Maybe--I dunno. I just canned two men this morning, before I left."
Ford was debating with himself how best to approach the subject to him
most important.

"Good ee-nough! I can take the place of those two men; eat their share
of grub, do their share of snoring, and shirk their share of work, and
drink their share of booze--oh, lovely! But, in the words of the dead,
immortal Shakespeare, 'What's eating you?' You look to me as if you
hadn't enjoyed the delights of a good, stiff jag since--" He waved a
hand vaguely. "Ain't a scar on you, so help me!" He regarded Ford with
frank curiosity.

"Oh, yes there is. I've got the hide peeled off two knuckles, and one of
my thumbs is just getting so it will move without being greased," Ford
assured him, and then went straight at what was on his mind.

"Say, Rock, I was told that you had a hand in my getting married, back
in Sunset that night."

Rock made his horse back until it nearly fell over a rock; his face
showed exaggerated symptoms of terror.

"I couldn't help it," he wailed. "Spare muh--for muh poor mother's sake,
oh spare muh life!" Whereat Ford laughed, just as Rock meant that he
should do. "You licked Bill twice for that, they tell me," Rock went on,
quitting his foolery and coming up close again. "And you licked the
preacher that night, and--so the tale runneth--like to have put the
whole town on the jinks. Is there anything in particular you'd like to
do to me?"

"I just want you to tell me who I married--if you can." Ford reddened as
the other stared, but he did not stop. "I was so darned full that night
I let the whole business ooze out of my memory, and I haven't been able
to--"

Rock was leaning over the saddle horn, howling and watery-eyed. Ford
looked at him with a dawning suspicion.

"It did strike me, once or twice," he said grimly, "that the whole thing
was a put-up job. If you fello