with me, and that twelve months I look back to as a sort of golden age at Holy Cross.

We were raising the best horses and the finest cattle in Arizona; prices were high, and the patrone was too busy to have time for cards or drink over at Grave City; and even the lady braced up enough to go for evening rides.

And then the Honourable James du Chesnay rode home to us from college.

The patrone and his lady were making a feast for their son; the cowboys were busy as a swarm of bees decorating the great hall; the padre fluttered about like a black moth, getting in everybody's way; so Curly and I rode out on the Lordsburgh trail to meet up with the Honourable Jim.

"I hate him!" Curly snarled.

"Why for, boy?"

"Dunno. I hate him!"

I told Curly about my first meeting with that same little boy Jim, aged six, and him turning his hot gun loose against hostile Indians, shooting gay and promiscuous, scared of nothing.

"I hate him," snarled Curly between his teeth. "Last night the lady was reading to me yonder, on the roof-top."

"Well?"

"There was a big chief on the range, an old long-horn called Abraham, and his lil' ole squaw Sarah. They'd a boy in their lodge like me, another woman's kid, not a son, but good enough for them while they was plumb lonely. That Ishmael colt was sure wild—came of bad stock, like me. 'His hand,' says the book, 'will be up agin every man, and every man's hand agin him.' I reckon that colt came of robber stock, same as me, but I allow they liked him some until their own son came. Then their own son came—a shorely heap big warrior called Isaac—and the old folks, they didn't want no more outlaw colts running loose around on their pasture. They shorely turned that Ishmael out to die in the desert. Look up thar, Chalkeye, in the north, and you'll see this Isaac a-coming on the dead run for home."

"Curly," says I, "this young chief won't have no use for old Chalkeye; he'll want to be boss on his own home range, and it's time he started in responsible to run Holy Cross. At the month's end I quit from this outfit, and I'm taking up a ranche five miles on the far side of Grave City. Thanks to the patrone, I've saved ponies and cattle enough to stock my little ranche yonder. Will you come at forty dollars a month, and punch cows for Chalkeye?"

"No, I won't, never. I come from the Wolf Pack, and I'm going back to the Wolf Pack to be a wolf. That's where I belong—thar in the desert!"

He swept out his hand to the north, and there, over a rise of the ground, I saw young Jim du Chesnay coming, on the dead run for home.