“It ain’t our fault ma ain’t goin’ with us, is it?” he queried timidly.

Big Jim shrugged his shoulders.

“Say, dad, we’re headed west.  Thought you said we was goin’ to Arizona?”

“We’ll turn south, after a while.”

Little Jim asked no more questions.  His father knew everything—­why they were going and where.  Little Jim glanced back to where Smiler padded along, his tongue out and his eyes already rimmed with dust, for he would insist upon traveling tight to Lazy’s heels.

Little Jim leaned back.  “Stick it out, ole-timer!  But don’t you go to cuttin’ dad’s trail till he gets kind of used to seein’ you around.  Sabe?”

Smiler grinned through a dust-begrimed countenance.  He wagged his tail.

Little Jim plunked his horse in the ribs and drew up beside his father.  Little Jim felt big and important riding beside his dad.  There had been some kind of trouble at home—­and they were leaving it behind.  It would be a long trail, and his father sure would need help.

Little Jim drew a deep breath.  He wanted to express his unwavering loyalty to his father.  He wanted to talk of his willingness to go anywhere and share any kind of luck.  But his resolve to speak evaporated in a sigh of satisfaction.  This was a real holiday, an adventure.  “Smiler’s makin’ it fine, dad.”

But Big Jim did not seem to hear.  He was gazing ahead, where in the distance loomed an approaching figure on horseback.  Little Jim knew who it was, and was about to say so when his father checked him with a gesture.  Little Jim saw his father shift his belt round so that his gun hung handy.  He said nothing and showed by no other sign that he had recognized the approaching rider, who came on swiftly, his high-headed pinto fighting the bit.

Within twenty yards of them, the rider reined his horse to a walk.  Little Jim saw the two men eye each other closely.  The man on the pinto rode past.  Little Jim turned to his father.

“I guess Panhandle is goin’ to town,” said the boy, not knowing just what to say, yet feeling that the occasion called for some remark.

“Panhandle” Sears and his father knew each other.  They had passed on the road, neither speaking to the other.  And Little Jim was not blind to the significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to hand.

Yet he soon forgot the incident in visioning the future.  Arizona, Aunt Jane, and stingin’ lizards!

Big Jim rode with head bowed.  He was thinking of the man who had just passed them.  If it had not been for the boy, Big Jim and that man would have had it out, there on the road.  And Jenny Hastings would have been the cause of their quarrel.  “Panhandle” Sears had “kept company” with Jenny before she became Big Jim’s wife.  Now that she had left him—­

Big Jim turned and gazed back along the road.  A far-away cloud of dust rolled toward the distant town of Laramie.