ochise. It did not brighten his outlook
upon life. Cochise was in no state to travel, that was evident. He was
tired and stiff and his back showed signs of soreness. Rest was
undoubtedly what his case demanded.

"If you was a society dame, your doctor would send you to Miami for a
month and say cut out all mental strain," soliloquized the engineer,
bathing the back gently. "Being as you're a horse, the best we can do is
to turn you out to pasture for a while. Well, I'm no fancy rider, God
knows, but nobody can say I ever give a horse a sore back. That blanket
was pretty nigh off your tail when he brought you in. Any white man would
have stopped and fixed it."

He sauntered back to his cabin and sat down to think. Tom was tall, over
six feet, and very thin. His skin was brown and his straight black hair
which he wore rather long, not because he liked it, but because he
disliked the Conejo barber, gave him rather an Indian look. His clothes
hung loosely on him, lending very little to his personal charm, and when
he sat he usually sat on his spine, a practice deplored by beauty doctors.
When O'Grady came along a few minutes later, he was deep in thought.

"Say, what do you think of this here business over at Casa Grande?"
demanded the latter persistently. "Think the Doc's lyin'?"

"Why should he? Besides, he was scared. He most put old Cochise out of
commission. He saw something all right."

"Think it was Pachuca?"

"No. Why should Pachuca come back after he'd cleaned 'em out once?"

"Yaquis?"

"Might be. And ag'in it might be the rebels."

"Who is the rebels now? Johnny's bunch?" asked O'Grady.

"Search me. I suppose this here state of Sonora is fighting the rest, but
I don't see that they've got any call to burn an Englishman's property.
This here Mrs. Conrad's English, too, ain't she?"

"No, she ain't English, she's good plain American, Came from Boston, same
as Hard," said O'Grady.

"Well, don't an American woman lose her nationality when she marries a
foreigner?" demanded Tom, wisely.

"She'd ought to if she marries an Englishman," replied O'Grady,
belligerently. "But don't she get it back if he dies?"

"Hanged if I know! Woman's suffrage has come up since I left home,"
replied Johnson, placidly. "Anyhow, I'm going to walk to Conejo and see if
I can't find out something about Casa Grande."

"Walk? Holy Moses! I'll go with you."

"No, you won't. Somebody's got to stay here and look after Mrs. Van and