"First, Doc Andover says to hire a good lawyer, which I done, and good ones sure come high." Pete sighed heavily—then grinned. "Well, say two thousand—jest like that! Then the lawyer says to git a education. Wonder if I was to git a education what the professor would be tellin' me to do next. Most like he'd be tellin' me to learn preachin' or somethin'. Then if I was to git to be a preacher, I reckon all I could do next would be to go to heaven. Shucks! Arizona's good enough for me."
But Pete was not thinking of Arizona alone—of the desert, the hills and the mesas, the cañons and arroyos, the illimitable vistas and the color and vigor of that land. Persistently there rose before his vision the trim, young figure of a nurse who had wonderful gray eyes… "I'm sure goin' loco," he told himself. "But I ain't so loco that she's goin' to know it."
"I suppose you'll be hitting the trail over the hill right soon," said Owen as he returned from the station and seated himself in one of the ample chairs on the hotel veranda. "Have a cigar."
Pete shook his head.
"They're all right. That El Paso lawyer smokes 'em."
"They ought to be all right," asserted Pete.
"Did he touch you pretty hard?"
"Oh, say two thousand, jest like that!"
The sheriff whistled. "Shooting-scrapes come high."
"Oh, I ain't sore at him. What makes me sore is this here law that sticks a fella up and takes his money—makin' him pay for somethin' he never done. A poor man would have a fine chance, fightin' a rich man in court, now, wouldn't he?"