Pete was for staying right where they were until morning, but Brevoort, naturally restless, suggested that they go to a moving-picture theater.  They changed their clothes.  Pete felt decidedly uncomfortable in the coat, and was only persuaded to wear it when Brevoort pointed out that it was a case of either leave their guns in the room or wear something to cover them.  Then came the question of what they were to do with the money.  Pete was for taking it along with them, but Brevoort vetoed the suggestion.  “It’s as safe here as in a bank,” he said, and taking the two sacks from the saddle-pockets he lowered each one gently into the big water-pitcher.  “Nothin’ in there but water, which don’t interest a Chola nohow.  But I’ll cinch it.”  Which he did downstairs, as he drew a handful of gold pieces from his pocket, counted them carefully, and left something like fifty dollars with the proprietor, asking him to take care of the money for them, as they did not want to get “plumb broke” the first night in town.  The Mexican grinned understandingly.  He was familiar with the ways of cowboys.  Their money would be safe with him.

Outside Pete asked Brevoort if he had not “jest about made a present of fifty to that Mex.”

“Not any.  He figures he’ll get his share of it when we git to hittin’ the high-spots—­which we don’t aim to hit, this journey.  That Mexican sure thinks he’s got all the money we own except what’s on us right now.  So he won’t ever think of goin’ through our stuff upstairs.  That fifty was insurance on the big money.  Let’s go where we kin git a real drink—­and then we’ll have a look at a show.”

The “real drink” was followed by another.  When Brevoort suggested a third, Pete shook his head.  “It’s all right, if you want to hit it, Ed—­but it’s takin’ a big chanct.  Somethin’ might slip.  ’T ain’t the drinkin’—­but it’s the drinkin’ right now.”

“Reckon you ’re right,” concurred Brevoort.  “But I ain’t had a drink for so long—­let’s go see that show.”

They crowded into a cheap and odoriferous nickel theater, and straightway Pete forgot where he was and all about who he was in watching the amazing offerings of the screen.  The comedy feature puzzled him.  He thought that he was expected to laugh—­folks all round him were laughing—­but the unreality of the performance left him staring curiously at the final tangle of a comedy which struggled to be funny to the bitter end.  His attention was keen for the next picture, a Western drama, entitled “The Battle of the Border,” which ran swiftly to lurid climax after climax, until even Pete’s unsophisticated mind doubted that any hero could have the astounding ability to get out of tight places as did the cowboy hero of this picture.  This sprightly adventurer had just killed a carload of Mexicans, leaped from the roof of an adobe to his horse, and made off into the hills—­they were real hills of the desert country, sure enough—­as