"Riding a hawss, I reckon"—Crook bent forward, pulling up his boot legs by the tags—"and me too and the Dook. Our hawsses are waiting for us at the back door of this saloon. You understand?"
"I don't," says Jim. "Do you know, youngster, that only this morning I buried my mother, then I rode a hundred miles, and if Arizona freezes over to-night we'll go skating for all I care."
"Say, if the Dook gets shot up to-night will you be a lord?"
Jim laughed sort of patronising because he liked the youngster's cheek. "My father isn't pining for any such thing to-night."
"But suppose he went daid, would you be a lord?"
"I'd be Jim du Chesnay, riding for whatever wages I'm worth. A lord! what's the use of that?"
"But it must be fine!"
"It may be good enough for my father, but he's Irish, and he doesn't know any better. I'm an American."
"But still you'd be a lord."
"Would my lordship keep my pony from stumbling in front of a stampede of cattle? Would it save my scalp from Apaches, or help my little calves when the mountain lions want meat? Does my blood protect me from rattlesnakes, or Ryans, or skunks?"