take your horse, and
put it down in our account, at your own figure. As soon as this cursed
thing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through, you bet. I
don't desert my friends, however rough things go with me."

"I see you don't," returned Patterson, with an unconscious and serious
simplicity that had the effect of the most exquisite irony. "I was only
just saying to the sheriff that if there was anything I could have done
for you, you wouldn't have cut away without letting me know." Tucker
glanced uneasily at Patterson, who continued, "Ye ain't wanting anything
else?" Then observing that his former friend and patron was roughly but
newly clothed, and betrayed no trace of his last escapade, he added, "I
see you've got a fresh harness."

"That d----d Chinaman bought me these at the landing; they're not
much in style or fit," he continued, trying to get a moonlight view of
himself in the mirror behind the bar, "but that don't matter here." He
filled another glass of spirits, jauntily settled himself back in his
chair, and added, "I don't suppose there are any girls around, anyway."

"'Cept your wife; she was down here this afternoon," said Patterson
meditatively.

Mr. Tucker paused with the pie in his hand. "Ah, yes!" He essayed a
reckless laugh, but that evident simulation failed before Patterson's
melancholy. With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner,
rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, "Well?"

"That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the hacienda to
hold possession afore the news came out."

"Impossible!" said Tucker, rising hastily. "It don't belong--that is--"
he hesitated.

"Yer thinking the creditors 'll get it, mebbe," returned Patterson,
gazing at the floor. "Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whether
it's really hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's a
fixture, you bet. They're a team when they pull together, they are!"

The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigid
in the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window as
Patterson gloomily continued, "But that's nothing to you. You've got
ahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with the
gal. That's what I said all along. When folks--especially women
folks--wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go off
with a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there was
a reason. And when your wife came fla