ing for a last look
at Jones, he turned once, and saw the three standing, and the chocolate
brick of the cabin, and the windmill white and idle in the sun.

"He'll be gutted by night," remarked Mr. Adams.

"I ain't buryin' him, then," said Ephraim.

"Nor I," said Specimen Jones. "Well, it's time I was getting to Tucson."

He went to the saloon, strapped on his pistol, saddled, and rode away.
Ephraim and Mr. Adams returned to the cabin; and here is the final
conclusion they came to after three hours of discussion as to who took
the chain and who had it just then:

_Ephraim._ Jones, he hadn't no cash.

_Mr. Adams._ The kid, he hadn't no sense.

_Ephraim._ The kid, he lent the cash to Jones.

_Mr. Adams._ Jones, he goes off with his chain.

_Both._ What damn fools everybody is, anyway!

And they went to dinner. But Mr. Adams did not mention his relations
with Jones's pistol. Let it be said, in extenuation of that
performance, that Mr. Adams supposed Jones was going to Tucson, where he
said he was going, and where a job and a salary were awaiting him. In
Tucson an unloaded pistol in the holster of so handy a man on the drop
as was Specimen would keep people civil, because they would not know,
any more than the owner, that it was unloaded; and the mere possession
of it would be sufficient in nine chances out of ten--though it was
undoubtedly for the tenth that Mr. Adams had a sneaking hope. But
Specimen Jones was not going to Tucson. A contention in his mind as to
whether he would do what was good for himself, or what was good for
another, had kept him sullen ever since he got up. Now it was settled,
and Jones in serene humor again. Of course he had started on the Tucson
road, for the benefit of Ephraim and Mr. Adams.

The tenderfoot rode along. The Arizona sun beat down upon the deadly
silence, and the world was no longer of crystal, but a mesa, dull and
gray and hot. The pony's hoofs grated in the gravel, and after a time
the road dived down and up among lumpy hills of stone and cactus, always
nearer the fierce glaring Sierra Santa Catalina. It dipped so abruptly
in and out of the shallow sudden ravines that, on coming up from one of
these into sight of the country again, the tenderfoot's heart jumped at
the close apparition of another rider quickly bearing in upon him from
gullies where he had been moving unseen. But it was only Specimen Jones.

"Hello!" said he, joining Cumnor. "Hot, ain'