The old man’s eye kindled.  “Look ye there, now!  Man, and have ye noticed that too?” he cried triumphantly.  “Ye have e’en the secret of it.  We’re good in emairgencies, the now; when the time comes when we get a glimmer that all life is emairgency and tremblin’ peril, that every turn may be the wrong turn—­when we can see that our petty system of suns and all is nobbut a wee darkling cockle-boat, driftin’ and tossed abune the waves in the outmost seas of an onrushing universe—­hap-chance we’ll no loom so grandlike in our own een; and we’ll tak’ hands for comfort in the dark.  ’Tis good theology, yon wise saying of the silly street:  ’We are all in the same boat.  Don’t rock the boat!’”

* * * * *

When Peter had gone, McClintock’s feeble hands, on the wheel-rims, pushed his chair to the wall and took from a locked cabinet an old and faded daguerreotype of a woman with smiling eyes.  He looked at it long and silently, and fell asleep there, the time-stained locket in his hands.  When Van Lear returned, McClintock woke barely in time to hide the locket under a cunning hand—­and spoke harshly to that aged servitor.

CHAPTER XVI

Before the two adventurers left Vesper, Johnson wired to Jose Benavides the date of his arrival at Tucson; and from El Paso he wired Jackson Carr to leave Mohawk the next day but one, with the last load of water.  Johnson and Boland arrived in Tucson at seven-twenty-six in the morning.  Benavides met them at the station—­a slender, wiry, hawk-faced man, with a grizzled beard.

“So this is Francis Charles?” said Stanley.

“Frank by brevet, now.  Pete has promoted me.  He says that Francis Charles is too heavy for the mild climate, and unwieldy in emergencies.”

“You ought to see Frankie in his new khaki suit!  He’s just too sweet for anything,” said Pete.  “You know Benavides, Stan?”

“Joe and I are lifelong friends of a week’s standing. Compadres—­eh, Joe?  He came to console my captivity on your account, at first, and found me so charming that he came back on his own.”

“Ah, que hombre! Do not beliefing heem, Don Hooaleece.  He ees begging me efery day to come again back—­that leetle one,” cried Joe indignantly.  “I come here not wis plessir—­not so.  He is ver’ triste, thees boy—­ver’ dull.  I am to take sorry for heem—­sin vergueenza! Also, perhaps a leetle I am coming for that he ordaire always from the Posada the bes’ dinners, lak now.”

“Such a care-free life!” sighed Francis-Frank.  “Decidedly I must reform my ways.  One finds so much gayety and happiness among the criminal classes, as I observed when I first met Mr. Johnson—­in Vesper Jail.”

“Oh, has Pete been in jail?  That’s good.  Tell us about it, Pete.”