“Axell himself, by the white coat of Horace Greeley!  Wonder who he’s got with him!  They seem to be having a difficulty about something!”

The gentlemen who had arraigned Spidertracks allowed him to be acquitted by default.  Far better to them was a fight near by than the most interesting lady afar off.

They stuck their hands into their pockets, and stared intently.  Finally one of them, in a tone of disgusted resignation, remarked: 

“Axell ought to be ashamed of hisself; he’s draggin’ along a little feller not half the size he is.  Blamed if he ain’t got his match, though; the little feller’s jest doin’ some gellorious chawin’ an’ diggin’.”

The excitement finally overcame the inertia of the party, and each man started deliberately to meet the major and his captive.  Spidertracks, faithful to his profession, kept well in advance of the others.  Suddenly he exclaimed to himself: 

“Good Lord! don’t they know each other?  The major didn’t wear that beard when in New York; but the boy—­he’s just the same scamp, in spite of his dirt and rags.  If she were to see them now—­but, pshaw! ’twould all fall flat—­no live paper to take hold of the matter and work it up.”

“There, curse your treacherous heart!” roared the major, as he gave his prisoner a push which threw him into the reporter’s arms.  “Now we’re in a civilized community, and you’ll have a chance of learning the opinions of gentlemen on such irregularities.  Tried to kill me, gentlemen, upon my honor!—­did it after I had shared my eatables and pocket-pistol with him, too.  Did it to get my dust.  Got me at a disadvantage for a moment, and made a formal demand for the dust, and backed his request with a pistol—­my own pistol, gentlemen!  I’ve only just reached here; I don’t yet know who’s here, but I imagine there’s public spirit enough to discourage treachery.  Will some one see to him while I take something?”

Spidertracks drew his revolver, mildly touched the young man on the shoulder, and remarked: 

“Come on.”

The ex-knight of the pencil bowed his prisoner into an abandoned gopher-hole (i.e., an artificial cave,) cocked his revolver, and then stretched himself on the ground and devoted himself to staring at the unfortunate youth.  To a student of human nature Ernest Mattray was curious, fascinating, and repulsive.  Short, slight, handsome, delicate, nervous, unscrupulous, selfish, effeminate, dishonest, and cruel, he was an excellent specimen of what city life could make of a boy with no father and an irresolute mother.

The reporter, who had many a time studied faces in the Tombs, felt almost as if at his old vocation again as he gazed into the restless eyes and sullen features of the prisoner.

Meanwhile Happy Rest was becoming excited.  There had been some little fighting done since the settlement of the place, but as there had been no previous attempt at highway robbery and murder made in the vicinity, the prisoner was an object of considerable interest.