“I didn’t care to.  You may carry your own messages.”

“When I do I’ll carry them with a gun.”

“Interesting if true.”  Keller’s gaze passed derisively over him and dismissed the man.

“And I hope when I come I’ll meet Mr. Keller first.”

The nester’s attention was focused indolently upon the hills.  He seemed to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona.

Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the trail with his broncho on the buck.

Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a frosty eye.

“I’ve got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller,” he said.

“Unload ’em.”

Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it.

“In the first place, I’ll announce myself.  I don’t hold with rustlers or waddies.  I’m a white man.  That being understood, I want to know where we’re at.”

“Meaning?”

“Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up accidental.  Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me.  You ain’t that kind of a durn fool.  Would you mind handing me a dipper of water?  Thanks.”  Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back into the pail.  “I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand.  Your gun is on your right side.  Then how in Mexico, you being right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself in the right arm below the elbow?”

Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information.  “Quite a Sherlock Holmes, ain’t you?”

“Hell, no!  I got eyes in my head, though.  Moreover, that bullet went in at right angles to your arm.  How did you make out to do that?”

“Sleight of hand,” suggested the other.

“No powder marks, either.  And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a revolver.”

“Anything more?”

“Some.  That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn’t over and above clear to me then.  I savez it now.  She hates you like p’ison, but she’s too tender-hearted to give you up.  Ain’t that it?”

“That’s it.”

“She lied for you to me.  She lied again to Phil.  So did I. Oh, we didn’t lie in words, but it’s the same thing.  Now, I wouldn’t lie to save my own skin.  Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?”

“I’m a rustler and a thief, am I?”

“Ain’t you?”

“Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?”

Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, “No.”

“Then I won’t say it.”

The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled at him.  “Mr. Keller, you’re a newcomer here.  I wonder if you know what the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now.”

“I can guess.”

“Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn’t be worth a plugged quarter.”