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62 have gone caperin' over the brink after her with the bridle off the next second, an' we-alls would still talk well of him.

"'As it is, however, this riotous female don't last two months. Which it's also a fact that takin' us that time must have been a heap onlucky for them Greasers. Thar's nine of 'em, an' every last man dies in the next five months; an' never a one, nor yet the Princess, knows what they're ag'inst when they quits; or what breeze blows their light out. I knows, because me an' a party whose name is Tate—Bill Tate—never leaves them hills till the last of that outfit's got his heap of rocks piled up, with its little pine cross stickin' outen the peak tharof, showin' he's done jumped this earthly game for good.

"'This Bill Tate an' me breaks camp on them Greasers together while they're tankin' up on mescal, mebby it's two days later; an' they never gets their lariats on us no more.

"‘"You ain't got no dates, nor speshul engagements with nobody in the States, have you?" says Tate to me when we're safe outen them Mexican's hands.

"‘"No,"says I,"whatever makes you ask?

"‘"Oh, nothin',"says Tate lookin' at the sky sorter black an' ugly, "only since you-all has the leesure, what for a play would it be to make a long camp back in these hills by some water-hole some'ers, an' stand pat ontil we downs these