All, except one, were tanned a dark, ruddy hue, unshaven, unkempt, but tough-looking and hardy. The pale-faced exception was a thin, sick-looking fellow with deep hollows under his eyes, and lips as ashen as a corpse. He it was who was talking, and his recital demanded a great display of dramatic gesture.

Tresler came up and joined the group. “I never ast to git put up ther’,” he heard the sick man saying; “never ast, an’ didn’t want. It was her doin’s, an’ I tell you fellers right here she’s jest thet serrupy an’ good as don’t matter. I’d ’a’ rotted down here wi’ flies an’ the heat for all they’d ’a’ cared. That blind son of a —— ’ud ’a’ jest laffed ef I’d handed over, an’ Jake—say, we’ll level our score one day, sure. Next time Red Mask, or any other hoss thief, gits around, I’ll bear a hand drivin’ off the bunch. I ain’t scrappin’ no more fer the blind man. Look at me. Guess I ain’t no more use’n yon ‘tenderfoot.’” The speaker pointed scornfully at Tresler, and his audience turned and looked. “Guess I’ve lost quarts o’ blood, an’ have got a hole in my chest ye couldn’t plug with a corn-sack. An’ now, jest when I’m gittin’ to mend decent, he comes an’ boosts me right out to the bunkhouse ’cause he ketches me yarnin’ wi’ that bit of a gal o’ his. But, say, she just let out on him that neat as you fellers never heerd. Yes, sir, guess her tongue’s like velvet mostly, but when she turned on that blind hulk of a father of hers—wal, ther’, ef I was a cat an’ had nine lives to give fer her they jest wouldn’t be enough by a hund’ed.”

“Say, Arizona,” said one of the men quietly, “what was you yarnin’ ’bout? Guess you allus was sweet on Miss Dianny.”

Arizona turned on the speaker fiercely. “That’ll do fer you, Raw; mebbe you ain’t got savee, an’ don’t know a leddy when you sees one. I’m a cow-hand, an’ good as any man around here, an’ ef you’ve any doubts about it, why——”

“Don’t take no notice, Arizona,” put in a lank youth quickly. He was a tall, hungry-looking boy, in that condition of physical development when nature seems in some doubt as to her original purpose. “’E’s only laffin’ at you.”

“Guess Mister Raw Harris ken quit right here then, Teddy. I ain’t takin’ his slack noways.”

“Git on with the yarn, Arizona,” cried another. “Say, wot was you sayin’ to the gal?”

“Y’ see, Jacob,” the sick man went on, falling back into his drawling manner, “it wus this ways. Miss Dianny, she likes a feller to git yarnin’, an’, seein’ as I’ve been punchin’ most all through the States, she kind o’ notioned my yarns. Which I ’lows is reasonable. She’d fixed my chest up, an’ got me trussed neat an’ all, an’ set right down aside me fer a gas. You know her ways, kind o’ sad an’ saft. Wal, she up an’ tells me how she’d like gittin’ in to Whitewater next winter, an’ talked o’ dances an’ sech. Say, she wus jest whoopin’ wi’ the pleasure o’ the tho’t of it. Guess likely she’d be mighty pleased to git a-ways. Wal, I don’t jest know how it come, but I got yarnin’ of a barbecue as was held down Arizona way. I was tellin’ as how I wus ther’, an’ got winged nasty.