“Well,” said Jeff judicially, “it seems to be at least as good a proposition as doing good that evil may come of it. Why, Capricorn, there isn’t one thing we call wrong, when other men do it, that hasn’t been lawful, some time or other. When to break a law is to do a wrong, it’s evil. When it’s doing right to break a law, it’s not evil. Got that? It’s not wrong to keep a just law—and if it’s wrong to break an unjust law I want a new dictionary with pictures of it in the back.”
“But laws is useful and excitin’ diversions to break up the monogamy,” said Aforesaid. “And it’s a dead easy way to build up a rep. Look at the edge I’ve got on you fellows. You’re just supposed to be honest—but I’ve been proved honest, frequent!”
“Hark!” said Pringle.
A weird sound reached them—the night wrangler, beguiling his lonely vigil with song.
“Oh, the cuckoo is a pretty bird; she comes in the spring——”
“What do you s’pose that night-hawk thinks about the majesty of the law?” he said. There was a ringing note in his voice. Smith and Headlight nodded gravely; their lean, brown faces hardened.
“You haven’t heard of it? Old John Taylor, daddy to yonder warbler, drifted here from the East. Wife and little girl both puny. Taylor takes up a homestead on the Feliz. He wasn’t affluent none. I let him have my old paint pony, Freckles—him being knee-sprung and not up to cow-work. To make out an unparalleled team, he got Ed Poe’s Billy Bowlegs, née Gambler, him havin’ won a new name by a misunderstanding with a prairie-dog hole. Taylor paid Poe for him in work. He was a willin’ old rooster, Taylor, but futile and left-handed all over.
“John, Junior, he was only thirteen. Him and the old man moseyed around like two drunk ants, fixin’ up a little log house with rock chimbleys, a horse-pen and shelter, rail-fencin’ of the little vegas to put to crops, and so on.
“Done you good to drop in and hear ’em plan and figger. They was one happy family. How Sis Em’ly bragged about their hens layin’! In the spring we all held a bee and made their ’cequias for ’em. Baker, he loaned ’em a plow. They dragged big branches over the ground for a harrow. They could milk anybody’s cows they was a mind to tame, and the boys took to carryin’ over motherless calves for Mis’ Taylor to raise. Taylor, he done odd jobs, and they got along real well with their crops. They went into the second winter peart as squirrels.
“But, come spring, Sis wasn’t doin’ well. They had the Agency doctor. Too high up and too damp, he said. So the missus and Em’ly they went to Cruces, where Em’ly could go to school.