"I wish they was that valuable to you," hinted Pink.

"They ain't, so take it easy. Well, pretty soon they got closer
together, and then number two unhooked something on his saddle that
caught the light. There's where I got my field glasses into play. I
drew a bead with 'em, and seen right off it was a gun. And I hadn't no
more than got my brain adjusted to grasp his idea, when he puts it
back and takes down his rope. That there," Andy added naïvely,
"promised more real interest; guns is commonplace.

"I took down the glasses long enough to size up the layout. Glasses,
you know, are mighty deceiving when it comes to relative distances,
and a hilltop a mile back looks, through the glass, like just stepping
over a ditch. With the naked eye I could see that they were coming
together pretty quick, and they done so.

"Number one looks back, but whether he seen number two I couldn't say;
seemed to me like he just glanced back casual and in the wrong
direction. Be that is it may, number two edged off a little and rode
in behind a bunch uh mesquite--and then I seen that the trail took a
turn, right there. So he pulled up and stood still till the other one
had ambled past, and then he whirled out into the trail and swung his
loop.

"When I'd got the glasses focused on 'em again, he had number one
snared, all right, and had took his turns. The hoss he was riding--it
was a buckskin--set back and yanked number one end over end out uh the
saddle, and number one's hoss stampeded off through the brush. Number
two dug in his spurs and went hell-bent off the trail and across
country dragging the other fellow--and him bouncing over the rough