“Laddy, I’m lined up beside you with both guns,” replied Jim, plaintively.  “Hungry?  Say, the smell of breakfast in that kitchen made my mouth water so I near choked to death.  I reckon we’re gettin’ most onhuman treatment.”

“But I’m a sick man,” protested Ladd, “an’ I’m agoin’ to fall over in a minute if somebody doesn’t feed me.  Nell, you used to be fond of me.”

“Oh, Laddy, I am yet,” replied Nell.

“Shore I don’t believe it.  Any girl with a tender heart just couldn’t let a man starve under her eyes...Look at Dick, there.  I’ll bet he’s had something to eat, mebbe potatoes an’ gravy, an’ pie an’—­”

“Laddy, Dick has had no more than I gave you—­in deed, not nearly so much.”

“Shore he’s had a lot of kisses then, for he hasn’t hollered onct about this treatment.”

“Perhaps he has,” said Nell, with a blush; “and if you think that—­they would help you to be reasonable I might—­I’ll—­”

“Well, powerful fond as I am of you, just now kisses ’ll have to run second to bread an’ butter.”

“Oh, Laddy, what a gallant speech!” laughed Nell.  “I’m sorry, but I’ve Dad’s orders.”

“Laddy,” interrupted Belding, “you’ve got to be broke in gradually to eating.  Now you know that.  You’d be the severest kind of a boss if you had some starved beggars on your hands.”

“But I’m sick—­I’m dyin’,” howled Ladd.

“You were never sick in your life, and if all the bullet holes I see in you couldn’t kill you, why, you never will die.”

“Can I smoke?” queried Ladd, with sudden animation.  “My Gawd, I used to smoke.  Shore I’ve forgot.  Nell, if you want to be reinstated in my gallery of angels, just find me a pipe an’ tobacco.”

“I’ve hung onto my pipe,” said Jim, thoughtfully.  “I reckon I had it empty in my mouth for seven years or so, wasn’t it, Laddy?  A long time!  I can see the red lava an’ the red haze, an’ the red twilight creepin’ up.  It was hot an’ some lonely.  Then the wind, and always that awful silence!  An’ always Yaqui watchin’ the west, an’ Laddy with his checkers, an’ Mercedes burnin’ up, wastin’ away to nothin’ but eyes!  It’s all there—­I’ll never get rid—­”

“Chop that kind of talk,” interrupted Belding, bluntly.  “Tell us where Yaqui took you—­what happened to Rojas—­why you seemed lost for so long.”

“I reckon Laddy can tell all that best; but when it comes to Rojas’s finish I’ll tell what I seen, an’ so’ll Dick an’ Thorne.  Laddy missed Rojas’s finish.  Bar none, that was the—­”

“I’m a sick man, but I can talk,” put in Ladd, “an’ shore I don’t want the whole story exaggerated none by Jim.”

Ladd filled the pipe Nell brought, puffed ecstatically at it, and settled himself upon the bench for a long talk.  Nell glanced appealingly at Dick, who tried to slip away.  Mercedes did go, and was followed by Thorne.  Mr. Gale brought chairs, and in subdued excitement called his wife and daughter.  Belding leaned forward, rendered all the more eager by Dick’s reluctance to stay, the memory of the quick tragic change in the expression of Mercedes’s beautiful eyes, by the strange gloomy cast stealing over Ladd’s face.