I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is.
And insulted, slapped, kicked--driven out of Pine!"

Her passionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came
footsteps on the porch. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and
open it just as a tap sounded on the door-post. Roy's face stood white
out of the darkness. His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen's
fearful query needless.

"How are you-all this evenin'?" he drawled, as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table. By their
light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big
arm-chair.

"What 'd he do?" she asked, with all her amazing force.

"Wal, now, ain't you goin' to tell me how you are?"

"Roy, I'm all bunged up. I ought to be in bed, but I just couldn't sleep
till I hear what Las Vegas did. I'd forgive anything except him getting
drunk."

"Wal, I shore can ease your mind on thet," replied Roy. "He never drank
a drop."

Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have
guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard, intent quietness, the
soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by
pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his
boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no
spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after whatever had happened down
in Pine.

"Where IS he?" asked Bo.

"Who? Riggs? Wal, I don't know. But I reckon he's somewhere out in the
woods nursin' himself."

"Not Riggs. First tell me where HE is."

"Shore, then, you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the
cabin. He was gettin' ready for bed, early as it is. All tired out he
was an' thet white you wouldn't have knowed him. But he looked happy at
thet, an' the last words he said, more to himself than to me, I reckon,
was, 'I'm some locoed gent, but if she doesn't call me Tom now she's no
good!'"

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was
bandaged.

"Call him Tom? I should smile I will," she declared, in delight. "Hurry
now--what 'd--"

"It's shore powerful strange how he hates thet handle Las Vegas," went
on Roy, imperturbably.

"Roy, tell me what he did--what TOM did--or I'll scream," cried Bo.

"Miss Helen, did you ever see the likes of thet girl?" asked Roy,
appealing to Helen.

"No, Roy, I never did," agreed Helen. "But please--please tell us what
has