wagon ready, and the cow-punchers were swinging themselves upon their
mounts, when Raidler bade them wait. A boy was bringing up an extra
pony, bridled and saddled, to the gate. Raidler walked to McGuire's
room and threw open the door. McGuire was lying on his cot, not yet
dressed, smoking.

"Get up," said the cattleman, and his voice was clear and brassy, like
a bugle.

"How's that?" asked McGuire, a little startled.

"Get up and dress. I can stand a rattlesnake, but I hate a liar. Do I
have to tell you again?" He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him
on the floor.

"Say, friend," cried McGuire wildly, "are you bug-house? I'm
sick--see? I'll croak if I got to hustle. What've I done to yer?"--he
began his chronic whine--"I never asked yer to--"

"Put on your clothes," called Raidler in a rising tone.

Swearing, stumbling, shivering, keeping his amazed, shining eyes upon
the now menacing form of the aroused cattleman, McGuire managed to
tumble into his clothes. Then Raidler took him by the collar and
shoved him out and across the yard to the extra pony hitched at the
gate. The cow-punchers lolled in their saddles, open-mouthed.

"Take this man," said Raidler to Ross Hargis, "and put him to work.
Make him work hard, sleep hard, and eat hard. You boys know I done
what I could for him, and he was welcome. Yesterday the best doctor in
San Antone examined him, and says he's got the lungs of a burro and
the constitution of a steer. You know what to do with him, Ross."

Ross Hargis only smiled grimly.

"Aw," said McGuire, looking intently at Raidler, with a peculiar
expression upon his face, "the croaker said I was all right, did he?
Said I was fakin', did he? You put him onto me. You t'ought I wasn't
sick. You said I was a liar. Say, friend, I talked rough, I know, but
I didn't mean most of it. If you felt like I did--aw! I forgot--I
ain't sick, the croaker says. Well, friend, now I'll go work for yer.
Here's where you play even."

He sprang into the saddle easily as a bird, got the quirt from the
horn, and gave his pony a slash with it. "Cricket," who once brought
in Good Boy by a neck at Hawthorne--and a 10 to 1 shot--had his foot
in the stirrups again.

McGuire led the cavalcade as they dashed away for San Carlos, and the
cow-punchers gave a yell of applause as they closed in behind his
dust.

But in less than a mile he had lagged to the rear, and was last man
when they struck the patch of high chaparral