under the ear.  Then I take my belt, and my bandana handkerchief, and I tie him.  I tie his hands.  I tie his legs, too.  And all the time I am saying ‘No,’ to the dog, and that he must leave the man alone.  And the dog looks.  He knows I am his friend and am tying the man.  And he does not bite me, though I am very much afraid.  The dog is a terrible dog.  Do I not know?  Have I not seen him take a strong man out of the saddle?—­a man that is like a mountain lion?

“And then the men come.  They all have guns-rifles, shotguns, revolvers, pistols.  And I think, first, that justice is very quick in the United States.  Only just now have I kicked a man in the head, and, one-two-three, just like that, men come with guns to take me to jail for kicking a man in the head.  At first I do not understand.  The many men are angry with me.  They call me names, and say bad things; but they do not arrest me.  Ah!  I begin to understand!  I hear them talk about three thousand dollars.  I have robbed them of three thousand dollars.  It is not true.  I say so.  I say never have I robbed a man of one cent.  Then they laugh.  And I feel better and I understand better.  The three thousand dollars is the reward of the Government for this man I have tied up with my belt and my bandana.  And the three thousand dollars is mine because I kicked the man in the head and tied his hands and his feet.

“So I do not work for Mister Kennan any more.  I am a rich man.  Three thousand dollars, all mine, from the Government, and Mister Kennan sees that it is paid to me by the Government and not robbed from me by the men with the guns.  Just because I kicked the man in the head who was like a mountain lion!  It is fortune.  It is America.  And I am glad that I have left Italy and come to chop wood on Mister Kennan’s ranch.  And I start this hotel in Glen Ellen with the three thousand dollars.  I know there is large money in the hotel business.  When I was a little boy, did not my father have a hotel in Napoli?  I have now two daughters in high school.  Also I own an automobile.”

* * * * *

“Mercy me, the whole ranch is a hospital!” cried Villa Kennan, two days later, as she came out on the broad sleeping-porch and regarded Harley and Jerry stretched out, the one with his leg in splints, the other with his leg in a plaster cast.  “Look at Michael,” she continued.  “You’re not the only ones with broken bones.  I’ve only just discovered that if his nose isn’t broken, it ought to be, from the blow he must have received on it.  I’ve had hot compresses on it for the last hour.  Look at it!”

Michael, who had followed in at her invitation, betrayed a ridiculously swollen nose as he sniffed noses with Jerry, wagged his bobtail to Harley in greeting, and was greeted in turn with a blissful hand laid on his head.

“Must have got it in the fight,” Harley said.  “The fellow struck him with the whip many times, so Piccolomini says, and, naturally, it would be right across the nose when he jumped for him.”