Nettlewick settled himself in his chair.  There would be no leaving San Rosario for him that day.  He would have to telegraph to the Comptroller of the Currency; he would have to swear out a warrant before the United States Commissioner for the arrest of Major Kingman; perhaps he would be ordered to close the bank on account of the loss of the securities.  It was not the first crime the examiner had unearthed.  Once or twice the terrible upheaval of human emotions that his investigations had loosed had almost caused a ripple in his official calm.  He had seen bank men kneel and plead and cry like women for a chance—­an hour’s time—­the overlooking of a single error.  One cashier had shot himself at his desk before him.  None of them had taken it with the dignity and coolness of this stern old Westerner.  Nettlewick felt that he owed it to him at least to listen if he wished to talk.  With his elbow on the arm of his chair, and his square chin resting upon the fingers of his right hand, the bank examiner waited to hear the confession of the president of the First National Bank of San Rosario.

“When a man’s your friend,” began Major Tom, somewhat didactically, “for forty years, and tried by water, fire, earth, and cyclones, when you can do him a little favour you feel like doing it.”

("Embezzle for him $70,000 worth of securities,” thought the examiner.)

“We were cowboys together, Bob and I,” continued the major, speaking slowly, and deliberately, and musingly, as if his thoughts were rather with the past than the critical present, “and we prospected together for gold and silver over Arizona, New Mexico, and a good part of California.  We were both in the war of ’sixty-one, but in different commands.  We’ve fought Indians and horse thieves side by side; we’ve starved for weeks in a cabin in the Arizona mountains, buried twenty feet deep in snow; we’ve ridden herd together when the wind blew so hard the lightning couldn’t strike—­well, Bob and I have been through some rough spells since the first time we met in the branding camp of the old Anchor-Bar ranch.  And during that time we’ve found it necessary more than once to help each other out of tight places.  In those days it was expected of a man to stick to his friend, and he didn’t ask any credit for it.  Probably next day you’d need him to get at your back and help stand off a band of Apaches, or put a tourniquet on your leg above a rattlesnake bite and ride for whisky.  So, after all, it was give and take, and if you didn’t stand square with your pardner, why, you might be shy one when you needed him.  But Bob was a man who was willing to go further than that.  He never played a limit.