the next six
months or so, somewhere about the African bend, on the Colorado River,
in South Texas, an' I mean to try an' keep my pulse a-goin' _without_
drink. I've seen more than enough o' the curse that comes to us all on
account of it, and I won't be caught in _that_ trap again."

"Then you've bin caught in it once already, Jo Pinto?" said a comrade.

"Ay, I just have, but, you bet, it's the last time. I don't see the fun
of makin' my veins a channel for firewater, and then finishin' off with
D.T., if bullet or knife should leave me to go that length."

"I suppose, Pinto," said Crux, with a smile of contempt, "that you've
bin to hear that mad fellow Gough, who's bin howlin' around in these
parts of late?"

"That's so," retorted Pinto, flushing with sudden anger. "I've been to
hear J.B. Gough, an' what's more I mean to take his advice in spite of
all the flap-jack soakers 'tween the Atlantic and the Rockies. He's a
true man, is Gough, every inch of him, and men and women that's bin used
chiefly to cursin' in time past have heaped more blessin's on that man's
head than would sink you, Crux,--if put by mistake on _your_ head--right
through the lowest end o' the bottomless pit."

"Pretty deep that, anyhow!" exclaimed Crux, with a careless laugh, for
he had no mind to quarrel with the stout young cow-boy whose black eyes
he had made to flash so keenly.

"It seems to me," said another of the band, as he hung the coils of his
lasso round the horn of his Mexican saddle, "that we must quit talkin'
unless we make up our minds to stop here till sun-up. Who's goin'
north? My old boss is financially busted, so I've hired to P.T.
Granger, who has started a new ranch at the head o' Pugit's Creek. He
wants one or two good hands I know, an' I've reason to believe he's an
honest man. I go up trail at thirty dollars per month. The outfit's to
consist of thirty hundred head of Texas steers, a chuck wagon and cook,
with thirty riders includin' the boss himself an' six horses to the
man."

A couple of stout-looking cow-boys offered to join the last speaker on
the strength of his representations, and then, as the night bid fair to
be bright and calm, the whole band scattered and galloped away in
separate groups over the moonlit plains.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THEY RETURN TO THE RANCH OF ROARING BULL, WHERE SOMETHING SERIOUS
HAPPENS TO DICK DARVALL.

When Dick Darvall and Hunky Ben returned from the expedition which