o' them
vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey."

"I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger," said Flip, dubiously
producing a much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But it
did suit Lance, who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a
certain satisfaction in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, and
nodded coldly to the old man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to the
door.

"If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cut
to it," said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.

The paternal Fairley groaned. "That's it; let the chickens and the
ranch go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round
with; go on!"

Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted. "You
know yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable that
kem out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go round
by the canon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have to
come back!" This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip and
Lance stepped into the road together. They walked on for some moments
without speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.

"You did n't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?" he
asked, crossly.

Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.

"You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man serves
out to you regularly?" continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his ill
temper.

"I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think," replied
Flip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a dry
watercourse.

"And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and
dead-beat you've met since you came here," continued Lance, with
unmistakable ill humor. "How many have you helped over this road?"

"It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen from
the Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to come
out, and nigh most starved to death in thar. I had to drag him out and
start him on the mountain, for you couldn't get him back to the road.
He was the last one but _you_."

"Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run about
with trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of roughs
and bad company?" said Lance.

Flip stopped short. "Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll go
back."

The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly than a
consciousne