“Jee-whiz!” said the boy.  “You’ve hurt yourself.”

“That’s right,” Jeff replied.

“How did it happen?”

“The plug crossed his feet in the dip yonder, and rolled plum over me.  Say—­do you want to earn an honest dollar?”

The adjective was emphasised, for none knew better than Jeff that the foothills harboured queer folk.  The boy nodded.

“You must get a buggy, sonny.”

“A buggy?  Anything else?  As if buggies grew in the brush-hills!”

Just then Jeff’s sanguine complexion turned grey, and his eyes seemed to slip back into his head.  The boy perceived a bulging pocket, out of which he whipped a flask.  Jeff took a long drink; then he gasped out:  “Thunder! you was smart to find that flask.  Ah-h-h!”

“You’re in a real bad fix,” said the boy.

“I am in bad shape,” Jeff admitted.  “If I’d known I was going to lose the use o’ myself like this, I wouldn’t ha’ been so doggoned keen about my friend leavin’ me.”

“Your friend must be in a partic’lar hurry.”

“He was that,” Jeff murmured.  A queer buzzing in his ears and an overpowering feeling of giddiness made him close his eyes.  When he opened them, the boy had disappeared.  Jeff saw that his horse had been tied up in the shade of a scrub-oak.

“That boy seems to have some sense,” he reflected.  “This is a knock-out, sure.”

Again he closed his eyes.  A blue jay began to chatter; and when he had finished his screed, a cock-quail challenged the silence.  Very soon the wilderness was uttering all its familiar sounds.  Jeff, lying flat on his back, could hear the rabbits scurrying through the chaparral.  After an interminable delay his ears caught the crackle of dry twigs snapped beneath a human foot.

“Feelin’ lonesome?”

“I’m mighty glad to see you again,” Jeff admitted.  “Ah, water!  That’s a sight better’n whisky.”

He drank thirstily, for the sun was high in the heavens, and the road as hot as an oven.

“I reckoned you’d come back,” Jeff continued.

“Why?”

“To earn that dollar.”  He eyed the lad’s somewhat ragged overalls.  “Say—­what do they call ye to home?”

“Bud.”

“Bud, eh?  Short for brother.  Folks got a fam’ly.”  He reflected that Bud’s sister, if he had one, might be nice-looking.  “Well, Bud, I’m under obligations to ye, for hitchin’ up the plug in the shade.  ’Twas thoughtful.  Where ha’ ye been?”

“I’ve been hunting Dad.  But he’s off in the hills.  If I could get ye to our camp——­”

“The plug’ll have to do it.  Unhitch him.”

Bud untied the animal, who limped even more acutely than his master.  Perhaps he lacked his master’s grit.  Jeff was the colour of parchment when he found himself in the saddle, whereon he sat huddled up, gripping the horn.

“Freeze on,” said the boy.

“You bet,” Jeff replied laconically.