“We figured you’d stay till after the round-up, anyhow,” said Bailey.

“Beckon it’s too tame for Pete here,” growled Andy.

“That’s no fault of yours, Andrew,” observed Ma Bailey.

“You’re always peckin’ at me,” grumbled Andy, who detested being called “Andrew” quite as much as that robust individual known to his friends as Bill detests being called “Willie”—­and Ma Bailey knew it.

“So you aim to leave us,” said Haskins, quite unaware of Ma Bailey’s eye which glared disapproval of the subject.

“Pete’s going—­next Tuesday—­and just to set your mind at rest and give you a chance to eat your supper”—­Bill had been doing scarcely anything else since he sat down—­“Pete has a right good reason to go.”

“Kin I have another cup of coffee?” queried Bill.

“Sakes alive, yes!  I reckon that’s what’s ailing you.”

“I only had three, Ma.”

“Pete is going away on business,” asserted Ma Bailey.

“Huh,” snorted Andy.

Bailey glanced at his wife, who telegraphed to him to change the subject.  And that good man, who had been married twenty-five years, changed the subject immediately.

But Andy did not let it drop.  After supper he cornered Pete in the bunk-house, and following some wordy fencing, ascertained that Pete was going to Tucson for the winter to get an education.  Pete blushingly admitted that that was his sole intent, swore Andy to secrecy, and told him that he had discussed the subject with Ma Bailey, who had advised him to go.

“So you’re quittin’ the game,” mourned Andy.

“Nope, jest beginnin’.”

“Well, you might ‘a’ said somethin’, anyhow.”

Pete put his hand on Andy’s shoulder.  “I wa’n’t sure—­till yesterday.  I was goin’ to tell you, Andy.  Shucks!  Didn’t I tell you about the money and everything—­and you didn’t say a word to the boys.  I ain’t forgittin’.”

“Oh, I knowed havin’ money wouldn’t swell you up.  It ain’t that.  Only, I was wonderin’—­”

“So was I, Andy.  And I been wonderin’ for quite a spell.  Come on out and let’s go set on the corral bars and smoke and—­jest smoke.”

But they did more than just smoke.  The Arizona stars shot wondrous shafts of white fire through the nipping air as the chums sensed the comfortable companionship of horses moving slowly about the corral; and they heard the far, faint call of the coyote as a drift of wind brought the keen tang of the distant timberlands.  They talked together as only youth may talk with youth, when Romance lights the trail, when the heart speaks from itself to heart in sympathy.  Yet their chat was not without humor or they would not have been Pete and Andy.

“You always was a wise one,” asserted Andy; “pickin’ out a professional nurse for your girl ain’t a bad idee.”

“I had a whole lot to do with pickin’ her out, didn’t I?”