Pete blinked the sleep from his eyes.  “Keep your hands right where they be and step down off that hoss—­”

The rider obeyed.  Pete moved from the fire that his own shadow might not fall upon the other.  “Pete!” exclaimed the horseman in a sort of choking whisper.

The gun sagged in Peters hand.  “Andy!  For God’s sake!—­I come clost to killin’ you!” And he leaped and caught Andy White’s hand, shook it, flung his arm about his shoulders, stepped back and struck him playfully on the chest, grabbed him and shook him—­and then suddenly he turned and walked back to the fire and sat down, blinking into the flames, and trying to swallow nothing, harder than he had ever tried to swallow anything in his life.

He heard Andy’s step behind him, and heard his own name spoken again.  “It was my fault, Pete.  I ought to ‘a’ hollered.  I saw your fire and rode over—­” Andy’s hand was on Pete’s shoulder, and that shoulder was shaking queerly.  Andy drew back.  “There goes that dam’ cayuse,” cried Andy.  “I’ll go catch him up, and let him drag a rope.”

When Andy returned from putting an unnecessary rope on a decidedly tired horse that was quite willing to stand right where he was, Pete had pulled himself together and was rolling a cigarette.

“Well, you ole sun-of-a-gun!” said Pete; “want to swap hats?  Say, how’ll you swap?”

Andy grinned, but his grin faded to a boyish seriousness as he took off his own Stetson and handed it to Pete, who turned it round and tentatively poked his fingers through the two holes in the crown.  “You got my ole hat yet, eh?  Doggone if it ain’t my ole hat.  And she’s ventilated some, too.  Well, I’m listenin’.”

“And you sure are lookin’ fine, Pete.  Say, is it you?  Or did my hoss pitch me—­and I’m dreamin’—­back there on the flat?  No.  I reckon it’s you all right.  I ain’t done shakin’ yet from the way you come at me when I rode in.  Say, did you git Jim’s letter?  Why didn’t you write to a guy, and say you was comin’?  Reg’lar ole Injun, same as ever.  Quicker ‘n a singed bob-cat gittin’ off a stove-lid.  That Blue Smoke ’way over there?  Thought I knowed him.  When did they turn you loose down to El Paso?  Ma Bailey was worryin’ that they wasn’t feedin’ you good.  When did you get here?  Was you in the gun-fight when The Spider got bumped off?”

Pete was still gazing at the little round holes in Andy’s hat.  “Andy, did you ever try to ride a hoss down the ole mesa trail backwards?”

“Why, no, you sufferin’ coyote!  What you drivin’ at?”

“Here’s your hat.  Now if you got anything under it, go ahead and talk up.  Which way did you ride when we split, over by the timber there?”