was your last cartridge that rang the bell. It was that
that made me come to you as I did--and tell you that you
were a great man, and that I wanted to enlist under you.
Ah, that kind of courage is so rare! When a man has it,
he can stand the world on its head." "But I was plumb scared,
all the while, myself," Thorpe protested, genially.
"Courage? I could feel it running out of my boots."

"Ah, yes, but that's the great thing," insisted the other.
"You didn't look as if you were frightened. From all
one could see, your nerve was sublime. And nothing else
matters--it was sublime."

"Curious--that thing happened to me once before,"
commented Thorpe, with ruminating slowness. "It was
out on the plains, years ago, and I was in pretty
hard luck, and was making my way alone from Tucson north,
and some cowboys held me up, and were going to make
kindling wood of me, they being under the impression
that I was a horse-thief they were looking after.
There was five or six minutes there when my life wasn't
worth a last year's bird's-nest--and I tell you, sir, I was
the scaredest man that ever drew the breath of life.
And then something happened to be said that put
the matter right--they saw I was the wrong man--and
then--why then they couldn't be polite enough to me.
They half emptied their flasks down my throat, and they
rode with me all the way to the next town, and there they
wanted to buy everything liquid in the place for me.
But what I was speaking of--do you know, those fellows