spook as long as I hit the trail, but I don't never expect to draw
blood. Others has saw him, too, but me more especial. I reckon I'm
the biggest sinner of the G-Bar and has to be plagued most frequent
with visitations to make me a better man when I get to be old."

"He's a knowing old ghost if he's found you out, Mizzoo, but if you
want my company, tonight, you'll drop the Indian. What I want you
to talk about is that little girl you met on the trail down in
Texas, seven years ago."

Mizzoo burst out in a hearty laugh. "I reckon it suits you better
to take her as a little kid," he cried, his tall form shaking
convulsively. "I'll never forget how you looked, Bill, when we
tried to run a bluff on her daddy last month!"

The other did not answer with a smile. Apparently the reminiscence
pleased him less than it did the older man. He spurred his horse
impatiently, and it plunged forward through the drifted banks of
white sand.

Mizzoo hastened to overtake him, still chuckling. "Old Man Walker
never knowed what a proposition he was handing us when he ordered
us to drive the old mountain-lion out of his lair! Looks like the
six of us ought to have done the trick. Them other fellows looked
as wild as bears, and you was just like a United States soldier
marching on a Mexican strongholt, not stopping at nothing, and it
ain't for me to say how brave _I_ done. Pity you and me was at the
tail-end of the attacking party. Fust thing we knowed, them other
four galoots was falling backwards a-getting out of that trap of a
cove, and the bullets was whizzing about our ears--"