"I think I'll get into the automobile business—driving a car, or something like that. I've got to be among the motors, Clip, in order to be happy."
"I'll buy Perry's motor-cycle and go with you. Never had a friend like Motor Matt. Don't want to let you get away."
Clipperton was as sudden in his resolutions as he was in his talk. Matt lifted his eyes quickly, and there was that in Clipperton's look which led him to reach over and grip his hand.
"We'd hook up like a house afire, Clip," said Matt heartily, "but you'd better think it over."
"I've got my way to make, same as you. Let me hitch my string to your kite. Maybe I can help. Don't have to think it over. You know they haven't ever made it very happy for me here," said Clipperton, his eyes flashing and chest heaving with the indignation that filled his soul.
At that moment, Susie came to the door and announced dinner. While they were eating, Matt struck into the experiences that had fallen to him and Chub. Beginning with the trouble caused by the freighter at the Bluebell Mine, he followed on down to the point where he had stopped the runaway horse. That incident he glided over, and finished by telling of his encounter with Hawley and Perry on the court-house steps. As he very well knew would be the case, Susie began at once to worry about her father. Welcome pushed away from the table, leaving his dinner half-eaten.
"It's up to me," said he excitedly. "I knowed it u'd come. I'll git out ole Lucretia Borgia an' hike fer the mountings immediate. Jim McReady's my pard, an' if a hair o' his head has been teched, I'll mow down Jacks, an' Bisbee, an' Hawley an' everybody else that's had a hand in his undoin'. Everybody listen to me! It's Eagle-eye Perkins, the Terror o' the Plains, what's talkin'. Don't grieve, gal," he added, turning to Susie, "I'll go out there an' I'll bring Jim back, or I'll leave my ole carkiss among the rocks."
Welcome thumped his chest—and immediately began to cough.
"Where's Lucretia Borgia, gal?" he demanded. "I been missin' 'er fer a day or two."
"Lucretia Borgia" was the high-sounding and significant name Welcome had bestowed upon an ancient revolver. The weapon had not been discharged in a dozen years, and owing to its rusty condition firing it had apparently ceased to become a possibility.