And, if I didn't say so before, I'm sure glad to meet the
man that helped me through that alley. That big, fat devil would
have landed me, sure, if you hadn't--"
"Ah--what?" Andy leaned and peered into the face of Miguel, his
jaw hanging slack. "You don't mean to tell me--it's true?"
"True? Why, I thought you were the fellow--" Miguel faced him
steadily. His eyes were frankly puzzled.
"I'll tell you the truth, so help me," Andy said heavily. "I
don't know a darned thing about it, only what I read in the
papers. I spent the whole winter in Colorado and Wyoming. I was
just joshing the boys."
"Oh," said Miguel.
They stood there in the dusk and silence for a space, after which
Andy went forth into the night to meditate upon this thing.
Miguel stood and looked after him.
"He's the real goods when it comes to lying--but there are
others," he said aloud, and smiled a peculiar smile. But for all
that he felt that he was going to like Andy very much indeed.
And, since the Happy Family had shown a disposition to make him
one of themselves, he knew that he was going to become quite as
foolishly attached to the Flying U as was even Slim, confessedly
the most rabid of partisans.
In this wise did Miguel Rapponi, then, become a member of Jim
Whitmore's Happy Family, and play his part in the events which
followed his adoption.
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