At the crossroads in the valley stood the local jail, or "coop," as it was more descriptively called. Unpainted, isolated, its solitary ugliness lacked even the squalid dignity commonly associated with the word "jail." The sun pelted down upon its bleached, unshaded roof and sides. The burning air ran over its warped shingles like a kind of colorless fire.

The boy Collie, half-dreaming in the suffocating heat of the place, started to his feet as the door swung open. He had heard horses coming. They had stopped. He could hardly realize that the sunlight was swimming through the close dusk of the place. But the girl of Moonstone Cañon, reining Boyar round, was real, and she smiled and nodded a greeting.

"This is Mr. Stone, my uncle," she said. "He wants to talk with you."

With a glance that noted each unlovely detail of the place, the broken iron bed, the cracked pitcher, and the unspeakable blankets, Louise touched her pony and was gone.

Collie rubbed his eyes, blinking in the sun as he stood gazing after her.

Walter Stone, standing near the doorway, noted the lad's clear, healthy skin, his well-shaped head with its tumble of wavy black hair, and the luminous dark eyes. He felt an instant sympathy for the boy, a sympathy that he masked with a business-like brusqueness. "Well, young man?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come outside. It's vile in there."

Stone led his pony to the north side of the "coop."

Collie followed.

Away to the west he saw the hazy peaks. A lake of burning air pulsed above the flat, hot floor of the valley. Over there lay the hills and the shade and the road.... Somewhere beyond was Overland, his friend, penniless, hunted, hungry....

"She brung you?" queried the boy.

"Yes. I have seen Tenlow, the sheriff. He is willing to let you go at my request. What do you intend doing, now that you are free?"

"I don' know. Find Red, I guess."

Walter Stone nodded. "What then?"

"Oh, stick it out with Red. They'll be after him sure now. Red's my pal."

"What has he done to get the police after him?"

"Nothin'. It's the bunch."

"The bunch?"

"Uhuh. Them guys out on the Mojave. But say, are you workin' me to get next to Red and get him pinched again?"

"No. You don't have to answer me. This man Red is nothing to me, one way or the other. He took Miss Lacharme's pony, but she has overlooked that. I thought, perhaps, you might care to explain your position. Perhaps you had rather not. You may go now if you wish."

"Is that straight?"

"Yes."

For several tense seconds the lad gazed at his questioner. Finally his gaze shifted to the hills. "I guess you're straight," he said presently. "I guess she wouldn't have you for a relation if you wasn't straight."

The elder man laughed. "That's right—she wouldn't, young man."

"How's the sheriff guy?" asked the boy.

"He's getting along well enough. What made you ask?"

"Oh, nothin'. I hate to see any guy get hurt."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. I begin to think you are a bigger man than he is."

"Me?" And Collie flushed, misunderstanding the other's drift. "I guess you're kiddin'."

"No, I mean it. Mr. Tenlow still seemed pretty hot about your share in this—er—enterprise. You seem to have no hard feelings against him."

"Huh! He shouldn't to be sore at me. I didn't spur no horse onto him and ride him down like a dog. I guess Red would 'a' killed him if he'd seen it. Say, nobody got Red, did they?"

"I haven't heard of it. How did this man Red come to pick you up? You're pretty young to be tramping."

"Cross your heart you ain't tryin' to queer Red? You ain't tryin' to put the Injun sign on us, are you?"

"No. I have heard all about the Mojave affair—the prospector that died on the track—and the arrest of Overland Red at Barstow. You told my niece that this Overland Red was 'square.' How did you come to be mixed up in it?"

"I guess I'll have to tell you the whole thing, straight. Red always said that to tell the truth was just as good as lyin', because nobody would believe us, anyway. And if a fella gets caught tellin' the truth, why, he's that much to the good."

"Well, I shall try and believe you this time," said Stone. "Miss Lacharme thinks you're honest."

"A guy couldn't lie to her!" said the boy.

"Then just consider me her representative," said Stone, smiling.

Collie squatted in the meager shade of the "coop."

Walter Stone, dropping the pony's reins, came and sat beside the lad. There was something in the older man's presence, an unspoken assurance of comradeship and sincerity that annulled the boy's tendency to reticence about himself. He began hesitatingly, "My dad was a drinkin' man. Ma died, and he got worse at it. I was a kid and didn't care, for he never done nothin' to me. We lived back East, over a pawnbroker's on Main Street. One day pa come home with a timetable. He sat up 'most all night readin' it. Every time I woke up, he was readin' it and talkin' to himself. That was after ma died.

"In the mornin', when I was gettin' dressed, he come over and says to take the needle he had and stick it through the timetable anywhere. I was scared he was goin' to have the jimmies. But I took the needle—it had black thread in it—and stuck it through the timetable. He opened the page and laughed awful loud and queer. Albuquerque was where the needle went in. He couldn't say the name right, but he kept lookin' at it.

"Then he went out and was gone all day and all night. When he come back he showed me a whole wad of money. I says, 'Where did you get it?' He got mad and tells me to shut up.

"That day we got on a train. I says, 'Where are we goin'?' and he says to never mind, and did I want some peanuts.

"We kept ridin' and ridin' in the same car, and eatin' bananas and san'wiches and sleepin' settin' up at nights. I was just about sick when we come to Albuquerque. You see, that was where the needle went through the timetable, and dad said we would get off there. He got awful drunk that night.

"Next day he said he was goin' to quit liquor and make a fresh start. I knowed he wouldn't, 'cause he always said that next mornin'. But I guess he tried to quit. I don't know.

"One night he didn't come back to the room where we was stayin' upstairs over the saloon. They found him 'way down the track next day, all cut to pieces by the train."

The boy paused, reached forward, and plucked a withered stem of grass which he wound round and round his finger.

Walter Stone sat looking across the valley.

"I guess his money was all gone," resumed the boy. "Anyhow, 'bout a year after, Overland Red comes along. He comes to the saloon where I was stayin',—they give me a job cleanin' out every day,—and he got to talkin' a lot of stuff about scenery and livin' the simple life, and all that guff. The bartender got to jawin' with him, and I laughed, and the bartender hits me a lick side the head. Red, he hits the bartender a lick side of his head—and the bartender don't get up right away. 'I'll learn him to hit kids,' said Red. 'If you learn him to hit 'em as hard as that,' I says to Red, 'then it will be all off with me the next time.'

"Does he hit you very often?' said Red.

"Whenever he feels like it,' I told him.

"Red laughed and said to come on. I was sick of there, so I run away with Red. We tried it on a freight and got put off. Red had some water in a canteen he swiped. It was lucky for us he did. We kept walkin' and goin' nights, and mebby ridin' on freights in the daytime if we could. One day, a long time after that, we was crossin' the desert again. We got put off a freight that time, too. We was walkin' along when we found a guy layin' beside the track. Red said he wasn't dead, but was dyin'. We give him some water. Then he kind of come to and wanted to drink it all. Red said, 'No.' Then the guy got kind of crazy. He got up and grabbed Red. I was scared.

"Red, he passed me the canteen and told me to keep it away from the guy because more water would kill him. Then the guy went for Red. 'He's dyin' on his feet,' said Red. 'It's his last flash.' And he tried to hold the guy quiet, talkin' decent to him all the time. They was staggerin' around when the guy tripped backwards over the rail. His head hit on the other rail and Red fell on top of him. Anyway, the guy was dead."

Walter Stone shifted his position, turning to gaze at the boy's white face. "Yes—go on," he said quietly.

"Red was for searchin' the guy, but I says to come on before we got caught. Red, he laughed kind of queer, and asked me, 'Caught at what?' Then I said, 'I dunno,' but I was scared.

"Anyway, he went through the dead guy's clothes and found some papers and old letters and a little leather bag with a whole lot of gold-dust in it. Red said mebby five hundred dollars!"

"Gold-dust?"

"Uhuh! Then Red was scared. He buried the bag and the papers 'way out in the sand and made a mark on the ties to find it by."

"Did you find out the dead man's name?" asked Stone, glancing curiously at the boy.

"Nope. We just beat it for the next station. I was feelin' sick. I give out, and Red, he lugged me to the next water-tank. He was pourin' water on me when the Limited come along and stopped, and she throwed the rose to us. Red told me about it after. You wouldn't go back on a pal like that, would you?"

"No, I don't know that I should."

"That's me!" said the boy. "Then they went to work and pinched us at Barstow. Said we killed the guy because his head was smashed in where he hit the rails. They tried to make Red say that he robbed the guy after killin' him. But Red told everything, except he didn't tell about the letters and the gold-dust. They tried to make me say it, but I dassent. I knowed they would fix Red sure if I did, and he told me not to tell about the gold if they did pinch us."

"They let you go—after the police examination. Then how is it that the authorities are after you again?"

"It's the bunch," replied the boy. "Them guys out there knowed the dead guy had a mine or a ledge or somethin' where he got the gold. Nobody was wise to where. They told at the jail how he used to come in once in a while and send his dust to Los Angeles by the express company. All them guys like the sheriff and the station agent and all the people in that town are workin' tryin' to find out where the gold come from. They think because Red and me is tramps that they can make us tell and arrest us whenever they like. But even Red don't know, unless it's in the papers he hid in the sand."

"That sounds like a pretty straight story," said Stone. "So you intend to stick to this man Red?"

"Sure! Would you quit him now, when they're after him worst?"

"They will get him finally."

"Mebby. But Red's pretty slick at a getaway. If they do pinch him again, that's where I come in. I'm the only witness and the only friend he's got."

"Of course. But don't you see, my boy, that your way of living is so much against you that you couldn't really help him? A man's naked word is worth just what his friends and neighbors will allow him for it, and no more."

"But ain't a guy got no rights in this country?"

"Certainly he has. But he has to prove that he is entitled to them, by his way of living."

"Then he's got to go to church, and work, and live decent, or he don't get a square deal, hey?"

"But why shouldn't he do that much?"

Collie did not answer. Instead, he inspected his questioner critically from head to foot. "I guess you're right," he said finally. "I've heard folks talk like that before, but I never took no stock. They kind of said it because they knowed it. I guess you say it because you mean it."

"Of course I do," said Stone heartily. "Well, here comes my niece with the mail. See! Over there is El Camino Real, running north. My ranch is up there, in the hills. My foreman's name is Williams. If you should ask him for work, I believe he might give you something to do. I heard him say he needed a man, not long ago."

Walter Stone cinched up the saddle and mounted his pony. The boy's eyes shone as he gazed at the strong, soldierly figure. Ah, to look like that, and ride a horse like that!

Boyar, the black pony, clattered up and stopped. "Hello, folks!" said Louise, purposely including the boy in her greeting.

Collie flushed happily. Then a bitterness grew in his heart as he thought of his friend Overland, hunted from town to town by the same law that protected these people—an unjust law that they observed and fostered.

"Well?" said Stone.

Collie's gaze was on the ground. "I don' know," he muttered. "I don' know."

"Well, good luck to you!" And the ponies swung into that philosophical lope of the Western horse who knows his journey's length.

The figures of the riders grew smaller. Still the boy stood in the road, watching them. Undecided, he gazed. Then came an answer to his stubborn self-questioning. Louise glanced back—glanced back for an instant in mute sympathy with his loneliness.

Slowly the boy turned and entered the jail. He folded his coat over his arm, stepped outside, and closed the door.

Before him stretched the hot gray level of El Camino Real, the road to the beyond. From it branched a narrower road, reaching up into the southern hills,—on, up to the mysterious Moonstone Cañon with its singing stream and its gracious shade. Somewhere beyond, higher, and in the shadowy fastness of the great ranges lay the Moonstone Ranch ... her home.

"I guess, steppin' up smart, I'll be there just about in time for supper," said the boy. And whistling cheerily, he set his feet toward the south and the Moonstone Trail.

After a week of weeding in the vegetable garden, Collie was put to work repairing fence. There were many miles of it, inclosing some twenty thousand acres of grazing-land, and the cross-fencing of the oat, alfalfa, fruit, and vegetable acreage. The fence was forever in need of repair. The heavy winter rains, torrential in the mountains, often washed away entire hillsides, leaving a dozen or so staggering posts held together by the wires, tangled and sagging. Cattle frequently pulled loosened posts from the earth by kneeling under the wire and working through, oblivious to the barbs. Again, "stock gone a little loco" would often charge straight through the rigid and ripping wire barriers as though their strands were of thread. Posts would split in the sun, and staples would drop out, leaving sagging spaces which cattle never failed to find and take advantage of. Trees uprooted by the rain and wind would often fall across the fence.

Altogether, the maintaining of a serviceable fence-line on a well-ordered ranch necessitates eternal vigilance.

The Moonstone Rancho was well ordered under the direct supervision of Walter Stone's foreman, "Brand" Williams. Williams was a Wyoming cowman of the old school; taciturn, lean, sinewy.

Some ten years before, Williams, seeking employment, had ridden over the range with Stone. Returning, the cowman remarked disconsolately, "I like your stock, and I'll tie to you. But, say, it's only playin' at ranchin' on twenty thousand fenced. I was raised in Wyoming."

"All right," Stone had replied. "Play hard and we'll get along first-rate."

Every inch of Brand Williams's six feet was steeped in the astringent of experience. He played hard and prospered, as did his employer.

Collie stood awaiting the foreman's instructions.

"Ever mend fence?" asked Williams.

"Nope."

"Good. Then you can learn right. Go rope a cayuse—get some staples and that leetle axe in my office, and go to it. There's plenty fence."

The "Go rope a cayuse" momentarily staggered the boy, but he went silently to the corral, secured a riata, and by puzzling the playful ponies by his amateur tactics he finally entangled "Baldy," a white-faced cow-pony of peaceful mien but uncertain disposition.

Williams, watching the performance, lazily rolled a straw-paper cigarette.

Snubbed to the post, bridled and saddled awkwardly, Baldy gave no outward sign of his malignant inward intent of getting rid of the lad the minute he mounted.

Williams slowly drew a match across his sleeve from elbow to wrist, ending with a flame that was extremely convenient to his cigarette. He wasted no effort at anything. He was a man who never met a yawn halfway, but only gave in to it when actually obliged to. Collie climbed into the saddle and started for the corral gate. He arrived there far ahead of the horse. He got to his feet and brushed his knees. The pony was humping round the corral with marvelous agility for so old a horse.

"He never did like a left-handed man," said Williams gravely. "Next time get on him from the other side, and see if he don't behave. Hold on; don't be in a hurry. Let him throw a few more jumps, then he'll quit for to-day most likely. And say, son, if he does take to buckin' with you again, don't choke that saddle to death hangin' on to the horn. Set up straight, lean a little back, and clinch your knees. You'll get piled, anyhow, but you might as well start right."

The boy approached the horse again, secured the dangling reins, and again mounted. Baldy was as demure as a spinster in church. He actually looked pious.

Collie urged the pony toward the gate. Baldy reared.

"A spade bit ain't made to pull teeth with, although you can," said Williams. "Baldy's old, but his teeth are all good yet. Just easy now. Ride in your saddle, not on your reins. That's it! And say, kid, I would 'a' got them staples and that axe before crawlin' the hoss, eh?"

Collie flushed. He dismounted and walked to the foreman's office. When he returned to the corral, the horse was gone. Williams still sat on the corral bars smoking and gazing earnestly at nothing.

Round the corner of the stable Collie saw the pony, his nose peacefully submerged in the water-trough, but his eye wide and vigilant. The boy ran toward him. Baldy snorted and, wheeling, ran back into the corral, circled it with an expression which said plainly, "Let us play a little game of tag, in which, my young friend, you shall always be 'It.'"

Again Collie tried to rope the pony.

"Want any help?" asked Williams, as he slid from the corral bars to the ground.

"Nope." And Collie disentangled his legs from an amazing contortion of the riata and tried to whirl the loop as he had seen the cowmen whirl it.

"Hold on, son!" said Williams. "You mean right, but don't go to rope him with the saddle on. If you looped that horn, he, like as not, would yank you clean to Calabasas before you got your feet out of that mess of rope you're standin' in. Anyway, you ain't goin' to Calabasas; you're due up the other way."

Collie was learning things rapidly, and, better still, he was learning in a way that would cause him to remember.

Williams spoke sharply to the pony. Baldy stopped and eyed the foreman with vapid inquisitiveness. "Now, son, I got three things to tell you," and the foreman gathered up the reins. "First—keep on keepin' your mouth shut and tendin' to business. It pays. Second—always drop your reins over a hoss's head when you get off, whether he's trained that way or not. And last—always figure a hoss thinks he knows more than you do. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he don't. Then he won't fool you so frequent, for you'll be watchin' him. I wouldn't 'a' said that much, only you're a tenderfoot from the East, I hear. If you was a tenderfoot from the West, you would 'a' had to take your own medicine."

Collie's shoulder was lame from his fall and was becoming stiff, but he grinned cheerfully, and said nothing, which pleased Williams.

The foreman leveled his slow, keen eyes at him for a minute. "You'll find a spring under the live-oaks by the third cross-fence north. Reckon you'll get there about noon. Keep your eye peeled for fire. I thought I seen somebody up there as I come across from the corral early this mornin'. We come close to burnin' out here once, account of a hobo's fire. Understand, if you ketch anybody cantelopin' around a-foot, you just ride 'em off the range pronto. That's all."

As Collie rode away through the morning sunshine, Williams loafed across the corral, roped and saddled a white-eyed pinto, and, spurring up a narrow cañon west of the ranch buildings, disappeared round a turn of the shady trail. As the foreman rode, he alternately talked to the pony and himself.

"Tramp, eh?" he said, addressing the pony. "What do you say, Sarko? Nothin', eh? Same as me.... Overland Red's kid pal, eh? Huh! I knowed Jack Summers, Red Jack Summers, down in Sonora in '83. Mexico was some open country then. Jack was a white pardner, too. Went to the bad, account of that Chola girl that he was courtin' goin' wrong.... Funny how the boss come to pick up that kid. Thinks there's somethin' in him. O' course they is. But what? Eh, Sarko, what? You say nothin', same as me.... Here, you! That's a lizard, you fool hoss. Never seen one before, so you're try in' to catch it by jumpin' through your bridle after it, eh? Never seen one before, oh, no! Don't like that, eh? Well, you quit, and I will. Exactly. It's me, and my ole Spanish spurs. I'm listenin'.... Nothin' to say?... Uhuh! I reckon little Louise had somethin' to do with gettin' the kid the job. Well, if she likes him, I got to. Guess I'd love a snake if she said to. Yes, I'm listenin' to myself ..." And the taciturn foreman's hard, weathered face wrinkled in a smile. "I'm listenin' ... None of the boys know Red's camped up by the spring. I do. Red used to be a damn white Injun in the old days. I'll give the kid a chance to put him wise for old times. And I'll find out if the kid means business or not ... which is some help to know how to handle him later."

Williams picketed his pony in the meadow above the third cross-fence. Loafing down the slope toward the spring, he noticed the faint smoke of a fire. Farther down the line fence, he could see Collie in the distance, riding slowly toward the three live-oaks. The foreman found a convenient seat on a ledge, rolled another of his eternal cigarettes, and watched the boy approach from below.

Collie had already dismounted three times that morning; twice to mend fence, and once more involuntarily. He determined, with a mighty vow to the bow-legged god of all horseflesh, to learn to stay on a broncho or die learning.

The boy had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in the grip of the "bunch," annulled that desire. He would save every cent for that emergency.

Arrived at the spring, both boy and horse drank gratefully, for the day was hot. Then Collie noticed the thin smoke coming through the trees and strode toward it.

"It ain't much of a fire yet," said Overland. "Our hired girl—" and he grinned through a two-weeks' tangle of red beard. "Oh, but ain't he the 'cute little workin'-man with his little ole hoss and his garments of toil."

"Oh, Red!" exclaimed the boy.

"Me sure! I been hidin' in my whiskers so long I didn't know if you'd know me."

"I been thinking about you every day."

"Uhuh. So have I. I reckon some others has, too. Say, what you been doin' lately, studyin' law or learnin' the piano? I been lookin' for you for a week. It's the first day I seen you out on the range."

"I was working in the garden first. Then they put me at this, this mornin'."

"Uhuh. Well, Col, that there getaway of mine is in all the papers. 'Tramp Cowboy Steals Horse and Escapes.' Say, did she yip about my borrowin' the cayuse?"

"She was mad at first. But your fancy ridin' kind of made her forget. I told her you was square, Red."

"Huh! I guess she could tell that herself."

"But, Red, I'm not kidding. I told her uncle about the bunch and the guy on the desert."

"Did he believe it?"

"I guess so. He ain't said much. But he gives me the chance to make good. He must have believed somethin'."

"Well, stick to it, Collie. You never was cut out for a genuine towerist like me, anyhow. It ain't in your blood."

"What you goin' to do now, Red?"

"Me? Listen! There's gold out there, somewhere. I'm broke now. I need some dough. I got ideas. Ten dollars does it. I get a new set of clothes and get shaved and me hair trimmed close. Then I commence me good work in Main Street, in Los. Down on North Main is where I catch the gent from the East who will fall for anything that wears a Stetson and some outdoors complexion. I tell all about my ledge in the Mojave and get staked to go out and prospect. It's bein' done every day—it and the other fella."

"But, Red—"

"Hold on, kid. I ain't goin' to bunk nobody. This here's square. I need financin'—a burro and a grubstake and me for the big dry spot. Ship the outfit to the desert town, and then hit it along the rails to where we hid it. If the papers we hid is any good, me to locate the ledge. Anyhow, there's a good five hundred in the poke, and that's better than a kick in the pants."

"You'll get pinched sure, Red."

"Nix, kiddo. Not out there. Money talks. 'Course it ain't makin' any distressin' sounds around here jest now, but, say, got the makin's?"

"I ain't smoked since I been here, Red."

"Excuse me, Miss Collie. What denomination did you say?"

"Straight, Red. I'm savin' my money."

"What do they pay you for settin' on that cayuse?"

"Fifteen a month, and board, and the horse to ride."

"Don't mention the hoss, pal. Jest make motions with your hands when you mean him. Talkin' is apt to wake him up."

"He pitched me twice."

"Just havin' bad dreams, that's all," said Overland, grinning. "Fifteen a month and found ain't bad for a bum, is it?"

"Cut that out, Red. I ain't no bum."

"Ex-cuse me. There I gone and laminated your feelin's again. Why in hell don't you blush, or drop your little ole lace handkerchief, or fix your back hair, so I can remember I'm talkin' to a lady? It ain't manners, this here impersonatin' you're a boy like that."

"Quit your kiddin', Red. Mebby you think it was easy to cut out the old stuff, and everybody on the ranch on to what I used to be. I was cryin' the first night. I was lonesome for you."

Overland's eyelids flickered. He grinned. "Uhuh! I could hear you clean over in the Simi Valley. I was thinkin' of comin' right back, only—"

"Oh, if you think I'm lyin to you—"

Overland thrust up a soiled palm. "Nix; you never did yet. How much coin can you rustle?"

"I got that eight-and-a-half I had when we was pinched. It's down to the bunk-house."

"Well, bring it up here to-morrow mornin'. And, say, swipe a sogun for me. I near froze last night."

Collie's brows drew together. "I'll bring the money, sure! but I can't swipe no blanket, even for you. The boss thinks I'm square, and so does she. I'll bring tobacco and papers. Got any grub?"

"Well, some. I ain't exactly livin' on sagebrush and scenery yet. I been trainin' some chickens to do the Texas Tommy. Every one that learns to do it in one lesson gets presented with a large hot fryin'-pan. Surprisin' how them chickens is fond of dancin'. I reckon I learned six of 'em since I seen you last. But don't forget the eight rollers and four bits. I need ten, but eight-fifty will do. I'll have to leave out the silk pejammies and the rosewater this trip. But kickie pants is good enough for me to sleep in. How's that sheriff gent?"

"Busted his collar-bone and killed his horse."

"I'm sad for the hoss. How do you like livin' decent?"

"Fine, Red! I wish you would—"

"Hold on, Collie, not me! I'm gettin' too old, too plumb old and disgusted with this vale of steers to change and tie down to short grass. Now you're near enough to the age of that little Louise girl to make life interestin'."

"Who said anything about her?"

"Whoa, Chico! Back up. You're steppin' on your bridle. Don't go 'way mad. Why, I said somethin' about her, that's who. You got any idea of hobblin' my talk?"

"No. But—"

"Oh, you can't flim your ole pal, nohow. You're just commencin' life on what that little Louise lady thinks you ought to be. And you will be it some day, if you keep straight. So will I."

"You?" Collie was unable to associate a reconstructive idea with Overland's mode of life.

"Say! Just as if I never knowed a good woman. Say, I could actooly give up smokin' for her, if I had to hire some guy to do it for me. That's what I think of her. When I get me plush rags and the dizzy lid, I'll call around in me private caboose and take you both for a little ride."

For a moment the boy gazed away to where the silver of the Southern Pacific rails glinted in the valley. Overland Red's presence brought back poignantly the long, lazy days of loafing and the wide, starry nights of wayside fire, tobacco, and talk. There was a charm in the free life of the road—that long gray road that never ended—never ended in the quiet shade of a mountain ranch or in the rose-bordered pathway to a valley cottage. The long gray road held out no promise of rest for worn and aged folk. After all, its only freedom was the freedom of eternal wandering ... until one could adventure no longer ... and then? Better to tread the harder path of duty.

The boy's black eyes were lifted pleadingly. "Red," he said hesitatingly. "Red, I got to tell you to camp the other side of that line fence till I come to-morrow."

Overland understood instantly that the lad was but following general instructions. He loved the boy, and so, perversely, worked upon his feelings. "Oh, the other side? Ex-cuse me, chief, for intrudin' on this here resavation. Sorry I'm crowdin' you so."

"Now, Red, wait—"

"Wait? What, for you to insult your ole pal again by tellin' him he might drink all the water in this here spring, mebby, or inflooence the morals of the cattle, or steal the wire off the fence? Huh! I thought I was your pal?"

"Oh, Red, quit kiddin'. Don't you see I got orders? I got orders."

"You're gettin' civilized fast, all right. The first thing civilization does is to projooce hobos and bums. Then she turns up her nose because hobos and bums ain't civilized. Did you ever see a ma cat get mad because one of her kittens was born with sore eyes? I guess not. Cats has got sense. Now, what if I don't indignify myself to the extent of crawlin' under that line fence?"

"'Course I'll bring you the coin in the mornin'. But if you don't go now, why, I got to quit this job. I got to play square to him."

"So it's orders or me, eh?"

"Yes, Red, and I want to use you right, and be square, too."

Overland Red's beard hid the quiver of his lips as he asked huskily: "And you would be comin' back on the road with your ole pal again? You would give up the job and the chance of a smile from that little Rose-Lady Girl and flew the coop with me again if I said the word?"

"Sure I would. You come first and the job comes second; but—but I want to keep the job."

Overland's keen blue eyes filled with instant emotion. "Oh, you go chase a snake up your sleeve. Do you think I'd bust your chances of makin' good here? Do you reckon I'd let a line fence stand between me and you, speakin' poetical? Say, I'll go camp in that sheriff gent's front yard if it'll do any good to you, or before I'll see you in bad with the little Rose Girl!"

"Please, Red; I mean it."

"So do I. I'll fade quicker than spit on a hot stove. Don't forget to-morrow mornin'. Some day I'll put you hep to how to ride. You better get to your fence job."

Brand Williams watched the man and the boy as they walked along the line-fence trail together. Collie leading the pony, the man talking and gesticulating earnestly. Finally they shook hands. The tramp crawled under the fence. The boy mounted Baldy and rode away.

Williams, catching up his own horse, spurred quickly across the ridge above the spring that the boy might not see him.

Broad avenues of feathery pepper trees, long driveways between shadowy rows of the soldierly eucalyptus, wide lawns and gigantic palms of the southern isles, weaving pampas grass, gay as the plumes of romance, jasmine, orange-bloom, and roses everywhere. Over all is the eternal sunshine and noon breeze of the sea, graciously cooling. Roundabout is a girdle of far hills.

Some old Spanish padre named it "Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles," making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial bound, treading upon sunbeams in their pilgrimage.

The plaza, round which the new town roars from dawn to dusk, is still haunted by a crumbling old adobe, while near it droop dusty pepper trees that seem to whisper to each other endlessly—"Mañana! Mañana!" Whisper as did those swarthy vaqueros and the young, lithe, low-voiced señoritas who strolled across the plaza in the dusk of by-gone days. "Mañana! Mañana!—To-morrow! To-morrow!"

And the to-morrows have come and gone as did those Spanish lovers, riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina, but the gay vaquero and his señorita are no more.

Overland Red, a harsh note in the somnolence of the place, stepped buoyantly across the square. And here, if ever, Overland was at home.

A swarthy, fat Mexican shaved him while a lean old rurale of Overland's earlier acquaintance obligingly accepted some pesos with which to drink the señor's health, and other pesos with which to purchase certain clothing for the señor.

The retired rurale drove a relentless bargain with a countryman, returning with certain picturesque garments that Overland donned in the back room of the little circus-blue barber shop.

The tramp had worthily determined to hold wise and remunerative converse with the first Easterner that "looked good to him." He would make half-truths do double duty. He needed money to purchase a burro, packs, canteen, pick, shovel, dynamite, and provisions. He intended to repay the investor by money-order from some desert town as soon as he found the hidden gold. This unusual and worthy intention lent Overland added assurance, and he needed it. Fortune, goddess evanishing and coy, was with him for once. If he could but dodge the plain-clothes men long enough to outfit and get away....

The "Mojave Bar," on North Main Street of the City of Angels was all but empty. Upon it the lassitude of early afternoon lay heavily. The spider-legged music-racks of the Mexican string orchestra, the empty platform chairs, the deserted side-tables along the pictured wall, the huge cactus scrawled over with pin-etched initials,—all the impedimenta of the saloon seemed to slumber.

The white-coated proprietor, with elbows on the bar, gazed listlessly at a Remington night-scene—a desert nocturne with a shadowy adobe against the blue-black night, a glimmer of lamplight through a doorway, and in the golden pathway a pony and rider and the red flash of pistol shots.

Opposite the bartender, at a table against the wall, sat a young man, clad in cool gray. He smoked a cigarette, and occasionally sipped from a tall glass. He was slender, clean-cut, high-colored, an undeniable patrician. In his mild gray eyes, deep down, gleamed a latent humor, an interior twinkling not apparent to the multitude.

Sweeney Orcutt, the saloon-keeper, noticed this reserve characteristic now for the first time, as the young man turned toward him. Sweeney was a retired plain-clothes man with a record, and a bank account. It was said that he knew every crook from Los Angeles to New York. Be it added, to his credit, that he kept his own counsel—attending to his own business on both sides of the bar.

"Do they ever do those things now?" queried the young man, nodding toward the picture.

Sweeney Orcutt smiled a thin-lipped smile. "Not much. Sometimes in Texas or Mexico. I seen the day when they did."

The young man lazily crossed his legs. "Nice and cool here," he remarked presently.

"Been in town long?" asked Sweeney.

"No, only a few days."

"I was goin' to say there's a good show over on Spring Street—movin'-pictures of the best ridin' and buckin' and ropin' I seen yet."

"Yes? Is there any one in town who is not working for the movies?"

Again Sweeney Orcutt smiled his thin-lipped smile. "Yes, I guess there is. I might scare up one or two I used to know who is workin' the transients, which ain't exactly workin' for the movies."

"I should like to meet some character who is really doing something in earnest; that is, some cowboy, miner, prospector, teamster,—one of those twenty-mule-team kind, you know,—or any such chap. Why, even the real estate men that have been up to my hotel seem to be acting a part. One expects every minute to see one of them pull a gun and hold up a fellow. No doubt they mean business."

"Bank on that," said Orcutt dryly.

"You see," continued the young man, "I have too much time on my hands just now. The doctors tell me to rest, and I've been doing nothing else all my life. It's pretty monotonous. I've tried to get interested in some of the chaps on North Main Street, and around the plaza. I've offered to buy them drinks and all that, but they seem to shy off. I suppose they think I'm a detective or something of that kind."

"More like, a newspaper man after a story. Hello, there! Now, what's doin'?"

Outside near the curb a crowd had collected. A traffic officer was talking to the driver of an automobile. As Sweeney Orcutt strolled toward the doorway, Overland Red, clean-shaven, clothed in new corduroys and high lace boots, and a sombrero aslant on his stiff red hair, dove into the saloon and called for a "bucket of suds."

"Close—shave—Red—" whispered Orcutt.

"Had me Orcutt, likewise," replied the tramp. "Say, Sweeney, stall off the Dick out there. I think he piped me as I blew in, but I ain't sure. He'll be pokin' in here in a minute. If he sees me talkin',—to the guy there, for instance,—and you give him a steer, he won't look too close. Sabe?" And Overland drank, observing the Easterner at the table over the top of his glass.

"They got that guy Overland Red mugged in every station from here to Chicago," whispered Orcutt. "Paper says he put it over a desert rat up near Barstow. Did you hear about it?"

"Some," replied Overland sententiously.

"And did you hear about his last get-away on one of the Moonstone Rancho ponies? Some class to that!"

"I read somethin' about it," replied Overland.

"Well, Red, if you won't tumble, all I got to say is, beat it. You're worth a thousand bucks to any fly-cop that nips you in this town. I'm handin' you a little dope that you can slide out on and not get stuck."

"Thanks, Sweeney. Well, I'll ring you up from Kalamazoo."

"Kalamazoo? In them clothes?"

"Sure. There's a law against travelin' naked in some States. Where you been grazin' lately?"

"In the bull-pasture; and say, Red, it's gettin' warm there, for some."

"Well, I guess I'll beat it," said Overland.

"Take a slant at the door first."

Overland turned leisurely. In the doorway stood the traffic officer. He glanced from Orcutt to the two men near the table. "Hello, Sweeney!" he called, glancing a second time at Overland.

"Hello!" answered Sweeney, strolling to the end of the bar. "Somebody speedin'?"

"Yes. Say, who's the guy, the big one?"

"Him? Oh, that's Billy Sample, the fella that does the desert stuff for the General Film Company. The kid is his pardner who acts the tenderfoot. They 're waitin' for the machine now to take 'em out to Glendale. Got some stunt to pull off this afternoon, so Billy was tellin' me. They're about half-stewed now. They make me sick."

"Thought I saw the big guy out on the street a minute ago," said the officer, hesitating. "There's a card out for a fella that looks like him. I guess—"

"He thought it was his machine comin'," said Orcutt. "He run out to see. It's a wonder how them movie actors can make up to look like most anybody. Why, I been in your line of business, as you know, and I been fooled lots of times. Makes a fella feel like he don't know where he's at with the town full of them movin'-picture actors."

"Well, so long, Sweeney." And the traffic officer, a little afraid of being laughed at by the famous ex-officer, Sweeney Orcutt, departed, just a thousand dollars poorer than he might have been had he had the courage of his convictions.

Overland and Orcutt exchanged glances. Orcutt's glance rested meaningly, for an instant, on the Easterner at the table. Overland grinned. Orcutt spoke to the young Easterner, who immediately rose to his feet and bowed.

"You was lookin' for somebody that's the real thing, you said. This here's my friend Jack Summers. He used to be sheriff of Abilene once. He ain't workin' for a movin'-picture outfit and he won't borrow your watch. Mebby he has a little business deal to put up to you and mebby not. Take my word for it, he's straight."

"I'm William Winthrop, back East. 'Billy' will do here. I'm a tenderfoot, but I'm not exactly a fool. I observed the delicacy with which you engineered the recent exodus of the policeman. I'm interested."

"Sounds like plush to me," said Overland. "I got a little time—not much. You're correct about the cop. I got a pretty good thing out in the Mojave—gold—"

Winthrop laughed. "You aren't losing any time, are you?"

"You wouldn't neither if you was in my boots," said Overland, grinning cheerfully.

"Oh, Red's all right," said Orcutt. "What'll you gents have?"

"Seein' I'm all right, Sweeney, I'll take five dollars in small change. I need the coin for entertainin' purposes, I'll pay you in the mornin'."

"You got me that time," said Orcutt. "Here's the coin."

"Shall we sit down here?" asked Winthrop, indicating one of the tables.

"Sure! Now this ain't no frame-up. No, I'll set where I can watch Sweeney. He's like to steal his own cash-register if you don't watch him." And Winthrop noticed that his companion faced the door. He also noticed, as the man's coat brushed against a chair as he sat down, that that same coat covered a shiny black shoulder holster in which gleamed the worn butt of an automatic pistol.

"My real name is Jack Summers," began Overland Red. "Some folks took to callin' me 'Overland Red,' seein' as I been some towerist in my time."

"Great!" murmured the Easterner. "'Overland Red!' That name has me hypnotized."

"You was sayin'?" queried Overland.

"Beg your pardon. Nothing worth while. I haven't been so happy for a year. Let me explain. I have a little money, pretty well invested. I also have lungs, I believe. The doctors don't quite agree about that, however. The last one gave me six months to live. That was a year ago. I owe him an apology and six months. I'm not afraid, exactly, and I'm certainly not glad. But I want to forget it. That's all. Go ahead about that desert and the gold. I'm listening."