“You’re asking me to run before there’s anything to run away from.”  Jack’s lips began to show the line of stubbornness.  “I haven’t quarreled with the Captain, except that little fuss a month ago, when he was hammering that peon because he couldn’t talk English; I’m not going to.  And if they did try any funny work with me, old-timer, why—­as you say, these guns—­”

“Oh, all right, m’son!  Have it your own way,” Bill retorted grimly.  “I know you’ve got a brace of guns; and I know you can plant a bullet where you want it to land, about as quick as the next one.  I haven’t a doubt but what you’re equal to the Vigilantes, with both hands tied!  Of course,” he went on with heavy irony, “I have known of some mighty able men swinging from the oak, lately.  There’ll likely be more, before the town wakes up and weeds out some of the cutthroat element that’s running things now to suit themselves.”

Jack looked at him quickly, struck by something in Bill’s voice that betrayed his real concern.  “Don’t take it to heart, Bill,” he said, dropping his bantering and his stubbornness together.  “I won’t air my views quite so publicly, after this.  I know I was a fool to talk quite as straight as I did last night; but some one else brought up the subject of Sandy; and Swift called him a name Sandy’d have smashed him in the face for, if he’d been alive and heard it.  I always liked the fellow, and it made me hot to see them hustle him out of town and hang him like they’d shoot a dog that had bitten some one, when I knew he didn’t deserve it.  You or I would have shot, just as quick as he did, if a drunken Spaniard made for us with a knife.  So would the Captain, or Swift, or any of the others.

“I know—­I’ve got a nasty tongue when something riles me, and I lash out without stopping to think.  Dade has given me the devil for that, more times than I can count.  He went after me about this very thing, too, the other day.  I’ll try and forget about Sandy; it doesn’t make pleasant remembering, anyway.  And I’ll promise to count a hundred before I mention the Committee above a whisper, after this—­nine hundred and ninety-nine before I take the name of Swift or the Captain in vain!” He smiled full at Bill—­a smile to make men love him for the big-hearted boy he was.

But Bill did not grin back.  “Well, it won’t hurt you any; they’re bad men to fuss with, both of ’em,” he warned somberly.

“Come on out and climb a hill or two with me,” Jack urged.  “You’ve got worse kinks in your system, to-day, than I’ve got in my legs.  You won’t?  Well, better go back and take another sleep, then; it may put you in a more optimistic mood.”  He went off up the street towards the hills to the south, turning in at the door of a tented eating-place for his belated breakfast.

“Optimistic hell!” grunted Bill.  “You can’t tell a man anything he don’t think he knows better than you do, till he’s past thirty.  I was a fool to try, I reckon.”