“Lark!” shrilled Hapgood.  “A lark—­to go wandering off into the desert—­”

“Not wandering! Pirutin’ is the word you want, the real vernacular of the West.  Or skallyhutin’!  I’m strong for the sound of the latter myself—­”

“Oh, rot!” broke in Hapgood.  “I was a fool to come out here with a fool like you.”

He turned his back squarely upon Conniston and stood staring out the little window, biting his thin lips.  Conniston stood eying him, and slowly the smile passed from his face, to be followed by a serious frown.

“I thought you’d kick in for the sport of it,” he said, after a moment, his voice quiet and a trifle cold.  “You don’t have to if you feel like that about it.  You still have your ticket to San Francisco.  You can have half of that twenty-seven dollars.  You can sell your horse if we win the brutes.”

Hapgood had been thinking about that before Conniston spoke.  And his thoughts had gone further.  It would not be long, he told himself shrewdly, before Conniston Senior softened.  And then there would be much money to help spend, many dinners to help eat, much wine to help drink, a string of glittering functions to attend.  And if he broke with Greek now—­

“See here, Greek,” he said, affably, forcing a smile.  “What’s the use of this nonsense?  Why not slip your father a wire now.  He’ll come across.  And then we can go on as we had intended and—­”

“Nothing doing.”  For once Conniston was stubborn.  “I’m going on with this thing.  If those horses come to us I am going to start early in the morning for the mountains to see what I can see.  You can do as you please.”

Hapgood glanced at him quickly, and, despite the wrath boiling up within him, the shrewder side of his nature prompted a peaceful answer.

“Then I’ll go with you.  You didn’t think that I was the sort of a fellow to go back on you now, did you?  We’ll see this thing through together.”

Conniston put out his hand impulsively, ashamed of having misjudged his friend.

Long before midnight Jimmie left the saloon and crept away to the stable to stroke the soft nose of a restive cow-pony, and to swear soft, endearing curses of eternal farewell.  Not long afterward he had the satisfaction of seeing his fellow-cowboy steal through the darkness to whisper good-by to his own horse.  And in the early dawn both Jimmie and Bart stood peering out from behind the corner of the barn at two figures riding rapidly southward into the morning mists.

That day’s ride was a matter never to be forgotten by the two men.  Their muscles were soft from dissipation and long years of idleness.  In particular did Hapgood suffer.  He was a slight man to whom nature had given none of the bigness of body which she had bestowed upon Conniston.  His luxury-loving disposition had made him abjure the sports which the other at one time and another had enjoyed.  He was, besides, a very poor horseman, while Conniston had ridden a great deal.  To-day his horse—­a spirited colt newly broken—­was not content to go straight ahead as Hapgood would have had him, but danced back and forth across the road, shied at every conceivable opportunity, threatening constantly to unseat his rider, and jerked at the restraining, tight-gathered reins until Hapgood’s arms ached.