"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, n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.surance 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 p.a.w.nbroker'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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 da.s.sent.

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. n.o.body 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 ent.i.tled 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."