“He was only bluffin’ at bein’ drunk—­he meant to rush Rojas, to start a rough house.  The bandit was after a girl.  This girl was in the hotel, an’ she was the sweetheart of a soldier, the young fellow’s friend.  The hotel was watched by Rojas’s guards, an’ the plan was to make a fuss an’ get the girl away in the excitement.  Well, Jim an’ me got a hint of our bein’ Americans—­that cowboys generally had a name for loyalty to women.  Then this amazin’ chap—­you can’t imagine how scornful—­said for me an’ Jim to watch him.

“Before I could catch my breath an’ figger out what he meant by ‘rush’ an’ ‘rough house’ he had knocked over a table an’ crowded some Greaser half off the map.  One little funny man leaped up like a wild monkey an’ began to screech.  An’ in another second he was in the air upside down.  When he lit, he laid there.  Then, quicker’n I can tell you, the young man dove at Rojas.  Like a mad steer on the rampage he charged Rojas an’ his men.  The whole outfit went down—­smash!  I figgered then what ‘rush’ meant.  The young fellow came up out of the pile with Rojas, an’ just like I’d sling an empty sack along the floor he sent the bandit.  But swift as that went he was on top of Rojas before the chairs an’ tables had stopped rollin’.

“I woke up then, an’ made for the center of the room.  Jim with me.  I began to shoot out the lamps.  Jim throwed his guns on the crazy rebels, an’ I was afraid there’d be blood spilled before I could get the room dark.  Bein’s shore busy, I lost sight of the young fellow for a second or so, an’ when I got an eye free for him I seen a Greaser about to knife him.  Think I was some considerate of the Greaser by only shootin’ his arm off.  Then I cracked the last lamp, an’ in the hullabaloo me an’ Jim vamoosed.

“We made tracks for our hosses an’ packs, an’ was hittin’ the San Felipe road when we run right plumb into the young man.  Well, he said his name was Gale—­Dick Gale.  The girl was with him safe an’ well; but her sweetheart, the soldier, bein’ away without leave, had to go back sudden.  There shore was some trouble, for Jim an’ me heard shootin’.  Gale said he had no money, no friends, was a stranger in a desert country; an’ he was distracted to know how to help the girl.  So me an’ Jim started off with them for San Felipe, got switched, and’ then we headed for the Rio Forlorn.”

“Oh, I think he was perfectly splendid!” exclaimed the girl.

“Shore he was.  Only, Nell, you can’t lay no claim to bein’ the original discoverer of that fact.”

“But, Laddy, you haven’t told me what he looks like.”