McGee looked him all over with his clear measuring eye, and for some
minutes was singularly silent. At last he said slowly: "I've been
thinkin' suthin' o' goin' down to 'Frisco, and I'd be a heap easier in
my mind ef you'd promise to look arter Safie now and then."

"You surely are not going to leave her here ALONE?" said Wayne roughly.

"Why not?"

For an instant Wayne hesitated. Then he burst out. "For a hundred
reasons! If she ever wanted your protection, before, she surely does
now. Do you suppose the Bar is any less heathen or more regenerated than
it was when you thought it necessary to guard her with your revolver?
Man! It is a hundred times worse than then! The new claims have
filled it with spying adventurers--with wolves like Hamlin and his
friends--idolaters who would set up Baal and Ashteroth here--and fill
your tents with the curses of Sodom!"

Perhaps it was owing to the Scriptural phrasing, perhaps it was from
some unusual authority of the man's manner, but a look of approving
relief and admiration came into McGee's clear eyes.

"And YOU'RE just the man to tackle 'em," he said, clapping his hand on
Wayne's shoulder. "That's your gait--keep it up! But," he added, in
a lower voice, "me and my revolver are played out." There was a
strangeness in the tone that arrested Wayne's attention. "Yes,"
continued McGee, stroking his beard slowly, "men like me has their day,
and revolvers has theirs; the world turns round and the Bar fills up,
and this yer river changes its course--and it's all in the day's work.
You understand what I mean--you follow me? And if anything should happen