“Bring my horse, too,” said Anastacio.  “I’m staying.  I want to be sure the invalid gets ... proper care.”

“Me too,” said Breslin.

“And I’m staying to kinder superintend,” said Nueces dryly.  “Sheriff,” he added, as the main body of the posse fell off down the hill—­“and you, too, Barela—­I don’t just know what’s going on here, but I’m stayin’ with you to a fare-you-well.  You two seem to be bucking each other.”

No one answered.

“Sulky, hey?  Well, anyhow, call it off long enough to drive this Pringle thing away from here.  He ain’t fittin’ for no man to herd with.”

“I’m staying right with this man Foy till I get that reward,” announced Pringle.  “Those are my superintentions.  Much I care what you think about me!  There’s other places besides this.”

Breslin raised his eye from Foy’s face and regarded Pringle without heat—­a steady, contemplative look, as of one who studies some strange and interesting animal.  Then he waved his hand down the pass, where certain of the departing posse, were bringing the saddle horses in obedience to the sheriff’s instructions.

“They’ll carry a nice report of you,” observed Breslin quietly.  “What do you suppose that little girl will think?”

A flicker of red came to Pringle’s hard brown face.  Even the scorn of Espalin and Creagan had left him unabashed, but now he winced visibly; and, for once, he had no reply to make.

Foy gasped, struggled to a sitting position, aided by his oddly assorted ministrants, gazed round in a dazed condition and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

“I’ll take my dyin’ oath it ain’t the cut that ails him,” said the ranger, tucking a coat under Foy’s blood-stained head.  “That must have been a horrible jolt on his jaw, Pringle.  You’re no kind of a man at all—­no part of a man.  You’re a shameless, black-hearted traitor; but I got to hand it to you as a slugger.  Two knock-outs in one day—­and such men as them!  I don’t understand it.”

“He ’most keel Applegate,” said the Mexican.

“Aw, it’s easy!” said Pringle eagerly.  “There ain’t one man in a thousand knows how to fight.  It ain’t cussin’ and gritting your teeth, and swellin’ up your biceps and clenching your fists up tight that does the trick.  You want to hit like there wasn’t anybody there.  I’ll show you sometime.”

He paused inquiringly, as if to book any acceptance of this kindly offer.  No such engagements being made, Pringle continued: 

“Supposin’ you was throwin’ a baseball and your hand struck a man accidentally; you’d hurt him every time—­only you’d break your arm that way.  That ain’t the way to strike.  I’ll show you.”

“That wasn’t no olive branch I was holdin’ out,” stated Nueces River.  “You’ll show me nothin’—­turncoat!”

“It helps a lot, too, when the man you hit is not expecting it,” suggested Anastacio smoothly.  “You might show me sometime—­when I’m looking for it.”