'I reckoned as there wuz somethin' not so green about you ez the others,' said Arizona. 'Havin' been in Texas is a great deal, oh, it's a great deal towards an eddication. But Arizona——'
'I was in Arizona too,' said Forder, 'at Tombstone!'
'I'm dod-busted,' cried Arizona, quite forgetting he was ill, 'squat alongside and tell us what you wuz doing over to Tombstone. This is real pie, ain't it? I yearns strangely over the plains of Arizona. Shake again! Tombstone, waal, I'm doggoned! Did you know Red Pete?'
'No, but——'
'Or Apache Adams, him without ears? Geronimo ear-marked him.'
'I've seen him,' said Forder.
And they let right into a yarn about Arizona and the Apaches, and Adams and Red Pete, and Ginger Simpson and Two-thumbed Thompson till the stars came out.
'But about this Mr. Fortescue?' said Forder, when the well of reminiscence was about dry. 'I want to know what the trouble will be?'
Arizona Bill looked exceedingly disagreeable. He would have impressed a member of the Peace Society very unfavourably.
'Bertie's goin' to die, I reckon,' he said simply. 'He cayn't survive long, if my opinion is worth a cent. He kicked three of the boys, though one don't count bein' a Dutchman, and he used language, which the Governor of no State could pardon, to Ben Wilkins.'