“Meanin’ you sabe what I’m gittin’ at, eh?”

The principal nodded and smiled.

“I thought that was what you was tryin’ to say.  Well, professor—­”

“Dr. Wheeler, if you please.”

“All right, Doc.  But I didn’t know you was a doc too.”

“Doctor of letters, merely.”

Pete suspected that he was being joked with, but the principal’s manner was quite serious.  “If you will give me your address, I will drop a line to Mr. Forbes,” said the principal.

Pete gave his name and address.  As Principal Wheeler wrote them down in his notebook he glanced up at Pete curiously.  “You don’t happen to be the young man—­er—­similarity of names—­who was mixed up in that shooting affair in El Paso?  Name seemed familiar.  No doubt a coincidence.”

“It wa’n’t no coincidence—­it was a forty-five,” stated Pete.

The principal stared at Pete as though he half-expected to see him pull a gun and demand an education instanter.  But Pete’s smile helped the principal to pull himself together.  “Most extraordinary!” he exclaimed.  “I believe the courts exonerated you?”

“That ain’t all they did to me,” Pete assured him.  “Nope.  You got that wrong.  But I reckon they would ‘a’ done it—­if I hadn’t ‘a’ hired that there lawyer from El Paso.  He sure exonerated a couple o’ thousand out o’ me.  And the judge turned me loose.”

“Most extraordinary!”

“It was that lawyer that told me I ought to git a education,” exclaimed Pete.

“Of course!  Of course!  I had forgotten it for the moment.  Well, here is Mr. Forbes’s address.  I think you will find him at his room almost any evening.”

“I’ll be there!”

“Very good!  I suppose you are aware that it is illegal to carry concealed weapons inside the city limits?”

“I get you, Doc, but I ain’t packin’ a gun, nohow.”

As the weeks went by and the winter sun swung farther south, Mr. Forbes, the young Eastern scholar, and Pete began to understand each other.  Pete, who had at first considered the young Easterner affected, and rather effeminate, slowly realized that he was mistaken.  Forbes was a sincere and manly fellow, who had taken his share of hard knocks and who suffered ill health uncomplainingly—­an exile of his chosen environment, with little money and scarce a companion to share his loneliness.

As for Forbes, he envied Pete his abundant health and vigor and admired his unspoiled enthusiasm.  Pete’s humor, which somehow suggested to Forbes the startling and inexplicable antics of a healthy colt, melted Forbes’s diffidence, and they became friends and finally chums.  Pete really learned as much through this intimacy as he did from his books:  perhaps more.  It was at Pete’s suggestion that Forbes took to riding a horse, and they spent many afternoons on the desert, drifting slowly along while they discussed different phases of life.