("Embezzle for him $70,000 worth of securities," thought the
examiner.)

"We were cowboys together, Bob and I," continued the major, speaking
slowly, and deliberately, and musingly, as if his thoughts were
rather with the past than the critical present, "and we prospected
together for gold and silver over Arizona, New Mexico, and a good
part of California. We were both in the war of 'sixty-one, but in
different commands. We've fought Indians and horse thieves side by
side; we've starved for weeks in a cabin in the Arizona mountains,
buried twenty feet deep in snow; we've ridden herd together when the
wind blew so hard the lightning couldn't strike--well, Bob and I
have been through some rough spells since the first time we met in
the branding camp of the old Anchor-Bar ranch. And during that time
we've found it necessary more than once to help each other out of
tight places. In those days it was expected of a man to stick to his
friend, and he didn't ask any credit for it. Probably next day you'd
need him to get at your back and help stand off a band of Apaches,
or put a tourniquet on your leg above a rattlesnake bite and ride
for whisky. So, after all, it was give and take, and if you didn't
stand square with your pardner, why, you might be shy one when you
needed him. But Bob was a man who was willing to go further than
that. He never played a limit.

"Twenty years ago I was sheriff of this county, and I made Bob my
chief deputy. That was before the boom in cattle when we both made
our stake. I was sheriff and collector, and it was a big thing for
me then. I was married, and we had a boy and a girl--a four and a
six year old. There was a comfortable house next to the courthouse,
furnished by the county, rent free, and I was saving some money. Bob