“That lawyer was right, Pete.  And if I had had your chance, money, and no responsibilities—­at your age, I wouldn’t have waited to pack my war-bag to go to college.”

“Well, I figured you was educated, all right.  Why, that there lawyer was sayin’ right out in court about you bein’ intelligent and well-informed, and readin’ character.”

“He was spreading it on thick, Pete.  Regular stuff.  What little I know I got from observation—­and a little reading.”

“Well, I aim to do some lookin’ around myself.  But when it comes to readin’ books—­”

“Reckon I’ll let you take ’Robinson Crusoe’—­it’s a bed-rock story.  And if you finish that before you leave, I’ll bet you a new Stetson that you’ll ask for another.”

“I could easy win that hat,”—­and Pete grinned.

“Not half as easy as you could afford to lose it.”

“Meanin’ I could buy one ’most any time?”

“No.  I’ll let you figure out what I meant.”  And the sturdy little sheriff heaved himself out of a most comfortable chair and waddled up the street, while Pete stared after him trying to reconcile bow-legs and reading books, finally arriving at the conclusion that education, which he had hitherto associated with high collars and helplessness, might perhaps be acquired without loss of self-respect.  “It sure hadn’t spoiled Jim Owen,” who was “as much of a real man as any of ’em”—­and could handle talk a whole lot better than most men who boasted legs like his.  Why, even that El Paso lawyer had complimented Owen on his “concise and eloquent summary of his findings against the defendant.”  And Pete reflected that his lawyer had not thrown any bouquets at any one else in that courtroom.

Just how much a little gray-eyed nurse in El Paso had to do with Pete’s determination to browse in those alien pastures is a matter for speculation—­but a matter which did not trouble Pete in the least, because it never occurred to him; evident in his confession to Andy White, months later:  “I sure went to it with my head down and my ears laid back, takin’ the fences jest as they come, without stoppin’ to look for no gate.  I sure jagged myself on the top-wire, frequent, but I never let that there Robinson Crusoe cuss git out of sight till I run him into his a home-corral along with that there man-eatin’ nigger of his’n.”

So it would seem that not even the rustle of skirts was heard in the land as Pete made his first wild ride across the pleasant pastures of Romance—­for Doris had no share in this adventure, and, we are told, the dusky ladies of that carnivorous isle did not wear them.

CHAPTER XLIII

A NEW HAT—­A NEW TRAIL

The day before Pete left Sanborn he strolled over to the sheriff’s office and returned the old and battered copy of “Robinson Crusoe,” which he had finished reading the night previous.  “I read her, clean through,” asserted Pete, “but I’d never made the grade if you hadn’t put me wise to that there dictionary.  Gosh!  I never knowed there was so many ornery words bedded down in that there book.”