His manner subtly changed then.  Possibly it took on a little swagger; certainly he lost the dignity that he had shown under stress of feeling; he was now more like a cowboy about to boast or affect some stunning maneuver.  Walking off the porch, he stood before the weary horse and burro.

“Played out!” he exclaimed.

Then with the swift violence so characteristic of men of his class he slipped the pack from the burro and threw saddle and bridle from the horse.

“There!  See ’em!  Take a look at the last dog-gone weight you ever packed!  You’ve been some faithful to Danny Mains.  An’ Danny Mains pays!  Never a saddle again or a strap or a halter or a hobble so long as you live!  So long as you live nothin’ but grass an’ clover, an’ cool water in shady places, an’ dusty swales to roll in an’ rest an’ sleep!”

Then he untied the pack and, taking a small, heavy sack from it, he came back upon the porch.  Deliberately he dumped the contents of the sack at Stillwell’s feet.  Piece after piece of rock thumped upon the floor.  The pieces were sharp, ragged, evidently broken from a ledge; the body of them was white in color, with yellow veins and bars and streaks.  Stillwell grasped up one rock after another, stared and stuttered, put the rocks to his lips, dug into them with his shaking fingers; then he lay back in his chair, head against the wall, and as he gaped at Danny the old smile began to transform his face.

“Lord, Danny if you hevn’t been an’ gone an’ struck it rich!”

Danny regarded Stillwell with lofty condescension.

“Some rich,” he said.  “Now, Bill, what’ve we got here, say, offhand?”

“Oh, Lord, Danny!  I’m afraid to say.  Look, Miss Majesty, jest look at the gold.  I’ve lived among prospectors an’ gold-mines fer thirty years, an’ I never seen the beat of this.”

“The Lost Mine of the Padres!” cried Danny, in stentorian voice.  “An’ it belongs to me!”

Stillwell made some incoherent sound as he sat up fascinated, quite beside himself.

“Bill, it was some long time ago since you saw me,” said Danny.  “Fact is, I know how you felt, because Gene kept me posted.  I happened to run across Bonita, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to let her ride away alone, when she told me she was in trouble.  We hit the trail for the Peloncillos.  Bonita had Gene’s horse, an’ she was to meet him up on the trail.  We got to the mountains all right, an’ nearly starved for a few days till Gene found us.  He had got in trouble himself an’ couldn’t fetch much with him.

“We made for the crags an’ built a cabin.  I come down that day Gene sent his horse Majesty to you.  Never saw Gene so broken-hearted.  Well, after he sloped for the border Bonita an’ I were hard put to it to keep alive.  But we got along, an’ I think it was then she began to care a little for me.  Because I was decent.  I killed cougars an’ went down to Rodeo to get