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Intimate Relationships, 8e (Miller)

Chapter 1 The Building Blocks of Relationships
1) One primary reason why solitary confinement may be so difficult is that it interferes with the
satisfaction of our:
A) social needs.
B) need for acceptance.
C) esteem needs.
D) physical needs.
Answer: A
Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
2) Which of the following is NOT one of the ways in which casual relationships differ from
intimate relationships?
A) Interdependence
B) Knowledge
C) Mutuality
D) Honesty
Answer: D
3) Sarah reveals to her boyfriend that she and her father are estranged. Which of the six
characteristics of intimate relationships is illustrated by the preceding statement?
A) Mutuality
B) Care
C) Knowledge
D) Commitment
Answer: C
4) Jorge believes that he and his partner Suzie will be together forever. He invests a lot of time in
their relationship. Which of the six characteristics of intimate relationships is illustrated the
1
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written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
preceding statements?
A) Responsiveness
B) Trust
C) Knowledge
D) Commitment
Answer: D
2
5) As a participant in a research study, Chris is asked to describe his relationship with his
partner. The researchers ask him to choose a pair of overlapping circles, representing him and his
partner, which best describes the closeness in their relationship. In this scenario, which of the
following components of intimate relationships is being assessed by the researchers?
A) Mutuality
B) Knowledge
C) Responsiveness
D) Commitment
Answer: A
6) We generally expect intimate relationships to be characterized by all of the following

expectations EXCEPT:
A) your partner will not unduly hurt you.
B) your partnership will continue indefinitely.
C) your partner will treat you fairly and honorably.
D) your partner will stay the same.
Answer: B
7) Pauline and Hugh begin to address themselves as "us" rather than I and he/she. This change
reflects the development of:
A) dependency.
B) self-esteem.
C) singlism.
D) mutuality.
Answer: D
8) We are driven to establish and maintain intimacy with others to fulfill the need:
A) to belong.
B) for dependency.
C) for success.
D) to please others.
Answer: A
3
9) In the context of the nature and importance of intimacy, when the need to belong is satisfied,
the drive to form additional relationships is:
A) increased.
B) reduced.
C) developed.
D) lost.
Answer: B
10) In the context of the nature and importance of intimacy, people with ________ in their lives
are at a risk for a wide variety of health problems.
A) excessive mutuality
B) excessive commitment
C) insufficient intimacy
D) insufficient responsiveness
Answer: C
11) According to researchers, Eberhart and Hammen, a lack of intimacy can:

A) cause psychological problems only in those who are below 40 years of age.
B) causes destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse.
C) be fulfilled, regardless of the quality of our relationships.
D) be satisfied with certain solitary pursuits if one cannot find companionship.
Answer: B
12) Which of the following was NOT a characteristic of Americans in the 1960s?
A) Most children were born to parents married to each other.
B) Men and women married in their early 20s.
C) Most of the men and women cohabited before marriage.
D) Most women did not work outside the home.
Answer: C
13) Between 1960 and today, which aspect of marriage declined in the United States?
A) Importance of love within marriage
B) Ratio of the population that gets married
C) Average age at which people get married
D) Divorce rate for people with less education
Answer: B
4
14) Which of the following situations is currently ordinary within the United States?
A) Two-thirds of Americans are married by age 30.
B) Most preschool children have stay-at-home mothers.
C) Most young adults will live with a lover before marriage.
D) Most Americans rate their marriages as "not very happy."
Answer: C
15) On average, an American mother now has her first child:

A) after she gets married.
B) before she gets married.
C) by the age of 40.
D) by the age of 50.
Answer: B
16) According to a research conducted by Anderson, most young adults now feel that it is
desirable for a couple to live together before they get married so that:
A) they can avoid the chances of getting divorced.
B) they can spend more time together.
C) they do not have to make any commitments.
D) they do not have health problems.
Answer: B
17) After encountering a single 45-year-old woman at her new job, Jonah says, "It's not normal
that she's 45 and single. And I've heard it's unhealthy, too." Jonah's attitude is an example of:
A) singlism.
B) individualism.
C) avoidance motivation.
D) excessive mutuality.
Answer: A
18) In contrast to those who do not cohabitate, individuals who cohabitate are more likely to:
A) have a long-lasting marriage.
B) encounter infidelity.
C) stay together.
D) have a positive attitude toward marriage.
Answer: B
5
19) Which of the following factors has influenced the nature of close relationships in the United
States since 1960?
A) Increasing individualism
B) Socioeconomic development
C) Technological developments
D) All the above
Answer: D
20) When cultures shift from having an approximately equal ratio of marriageable men and
women to having a high sex ratio, family roles will likely become ________ traditional and
sexual standards become ________ permissive.
A) less; less
B) less; more
C) more; less
D) more; more
Answer: C
21) A count of the number of men for every 100 women in a population is called:
A) sex ratio.
B) gender ratio.
C) gender schema.
D) male/female count.
Answer: A
22) Forty years from now a survey says that there are currently more men than women in a
nation. What prediction will this survey make about the social climate?
A) Women will be encouraged to work outside the home.
B) Women will be discouraged to work outside the home.
C) Unmarried motherhood will be an option and more people will get married.
D) Women will be allowed or encouraged to have sex outside of marriage.
Answer: B
6
23) As described in the textbook, Victorian England had a ________ sex ratio and the Roaring
Twenties a ________ sex ratio.
A) low; high
B) high; low
C) low; low
D) high; high
Answer: B
24) The idea of attachment styles was originally developed in work with:
A) young adults.
B) adolescents.
C) infants and young children.
D) middle-aged adults.
Answer: C
25) Attachment styles are thought to be primarily the result of:

A) genetic predispositions.
B) early childhood experiences.
C) social cognitions.
D) sex differences.
Answer: B
26) Two-year-old Alice feels nervous and clingy when her mother is around and gets extremely
distressed when her mother leaves. Which of the following attachment styles does Alice likely
have?
A) Anxious-ambivalent
B) Secure
C) Distressed
D) Avoidant
Answer: B
7
27) What caused researchers to consider attachment styles as an important aspect of the close
relationships of adults?
A) Hazan and Shaver's Denver survey
B) Bartholomew's ideas about four categories of attachment style
C) Bowlby's interest in young children's actions toward their caregivers
D) Brennan and colleagues' development of a short attachment style measure
Answer: B
28) Joanne endorses the statement, "I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others,
but I often find that others are reluctant to get close to me. I sometimes worry that others do not
value me as much as I value them." Which of the following attachment styles does Joanne's
statement reflect?
A) Avoidant
B) Dismissing
C) Secure
D) Preoccupied
Answer: D
29) According to Bartholomew, people with a ________ attachment style feel that intimacy with
others isn't worth the trouble.
A) secure
B) dismissing
C) fearful
D) preoccupied
Answer: B
30) Fearfully attached individuals are characterized as being:

A) comfortable with closeness and low in anxiety about abandonment.
B) comfortable with closeness and high in anxiety about abandonment.
C) uncomfortable with closeness and low in anxiety about abandonment.
D) uncomfortable with closeness and high in anxiety about abandonment.
Answer: D
8
31) The two themes that underlie the four attachment styles described by Bartholomew are:
A) avoidance of intimacy and anxiety about abandonment.
B) avoidance of intimacy and concern for the well-being of others.
C) need to belong and anxiety about abandonment.
D) need to belong and concern for the well-being of others.
Answer: B
32) What do recent studies suggest about the labels we use in describing attachment?
A) The labels are widely and correctly used.
B) It is better to describe people regarding their relative standing on dimensions of anxiety and
avoidance.
C) Labels should be thought of as describing distinct categories that have nothing in common.
D) Labeling relationships is generally useless.
Answer: B
33) To predict the attachment style of a child with the greatest accuracy, it is best to assess:
A) the child's temperament.
B) the mother's attachment style.
C) the genetic influences.
D) the family structure.
Answer: B
34) In his book "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus," Gray writes that men and
women almost seem to be from different planets, speaking different languages, and needing
different nourishment. Social science research suggests that:
A) this statement is correct, i.e., the difference between the average man and the average woman
is large, and there is almost no overlap between the sexes at all.
B) this statement is correct because the range of behavior among members of a given sex is small
compared to the average difference between the sexes.
C) sex differences are statistically real but actual differences remain to be demonstrated.
D) men and women are much more similar than different on most of the dimensions and topics
of interest to relationship science.
Answer: D
9
35) Differences between individuals within a given sex are usually ________ in relation to the
differences between men and women.
A) large
B) inaccurate
C) small
D) vague
Answer: A
36) In terms of the number of sex partners, a highly active man has more in common with
________ on this trait than he does with ________.
A) a low-scoring woman; an average woman
B) a low-scoring man; an average woman
C) an average woman; a low-scoring man
D) an average man; a high-scoring woman
Answer: C
37) Sex differences refer to ________, while gender differences refer to ________ between men
and women.
A) biological differences; social and psychological distinctions
B) social and psychological distinctions; biological differences
C) behavioral differences; biological differences
D) social differences; behavioral differences
Answer: A
38) As parents, women are mothers and men are fathers. This is an example of:
A) a sex difference
B) a gender difference.
C) singlism.
D) individualism.
Answer: A
39) Which of the following items is an example of a gender difference?

A) Any difference in physical appearance between men and women
B) The belief that men are assertive while women are compassionate
C) Male tendency to have more intimate partners than women do
D) Male preference for savory foods and female preference for sweet foods
Answer: B
10
40) Alonzo seems to possess both well-developed emotional skills and task-oriented talents.
Alonzo can be entitled as:
A) androgynous.
B) masculine.
C) feminine.
D) undifferentiated.
Answer: A
41) The concept of androgyny assumes that:

A) masculinity and femininity are opposites.
B) masculine and feminine qualities are separate traits.
C) men are inevitably masculine and women are inevitably feminine.
D) biology is the source of all gender differences.
Answer: B
42) Which of the following traits is an instrumental trait?

A) Warmth
B) Compassion
C) Tenderness
D) Decisiveness
Answer: D
43) Identify the expressive trait among the following traits.

A) Self-reliance
B) Ambition
C) Leadership
D) Compassion
Answer: D
44) Couples in which both partners follow the traditional gender roles (i.e., the man is masculine
and the woman is feminine) tend have:
A) higher compassion.
B) higher marital satisfaction.
C) lower marital satisfaction.
D) lower self-reliance.
Answer: C
11
45) According to Marshall, married couples are likely to be the happiest when:
A) each partner conforms to traditional gender roles.
B) one of the partners is androgynous.
C) both partners score high in expressiveness and instrumentality.
D) one of the partners exhibits singlism.
Answer: C
46) According to the Big Five personality traits, people with high scores in ________ should
have more pleasant relationships.
A) extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness
B) neuroticism and openness to new experience
C) agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness
D) conscientiousness and openness to new experience
Answer: A
47) Which of the following Big Five personality traits is the most influential?
A) Conscientiousness
B) Neuroticism
C) Extraversion
D) Agreeableness
Answer: B
48) Which of the following Big Five personality traits represents the extent to which people are
outgoing and assertive versus cautious and shy?
A) Conscientiousness
B) Agreeableness
C) Neuroticism
D) Extraversion
Answer: D
49) John says, "I feel really good about myself." John can be said to possess high:
A) extraversion.
B) self-sufficiency.
C) agreeableness.
D) self-esteem.
Answer: D
12
50) Which of the following statements is true about self-esteem?
A) Self-esteem is an evolved mechanism that serves one's need to belong.
B) Events that involve interpersonal rejection damage one's self-esteem in a way that other
disappointments do.
C) Private events affect one's self-esteem more than public events witnessed by others.
D) People with high self-esteem most often sabotage their relationships by underestimating their
partner's love for them.
Answer: A
51) Which of the following statements about heterosexual and same-sex relationships is
accurate?
A) The differences between the two are significant.
B) Behaviors overlap so much that the distinction is not warranted.
C) Both sets of relationship function similarly.
D) There is not yet enough research on same-sex relationships to make any comparisons.
Answer: C
52) Which theory considers self-esteem to be a subjective gauge of the quality of our
relationships?
A) Attachment
B) Self-esteem
C) Self-awareness
D) Sociometer
Answer: D
53) The key factor for organisms in evolution is:

A) reproduction.
B) survival.
C) relationships.
D) physical advantages.
Answer: A
13
54) The time, energy, and resources one must provide to one's offspring to reproduce is termed
as:
A) parental investment.
B) reproduction.
C) evolution.
D) conscientiousness.
Answer: A
55) Paternity uncertainty refers to:

A) a man's uncertainty about whether a child of his partner is his.
B) a woman's uncertainty about who the father of her child is.
C) a child's dilemma in identifying his/her father.
D) the uncertainty couples face in knowing whether a child was conceived.
Answer: A
56) Which theory considers paternity uncertainty a key factor in close relationships?
A) Attachment to offspring
B) Self-belonging
C) Evolutionary psychology
D) Agreeableness
Answer: C
57) Observation of the interaction between partners in relationships reveals:

A) that relationships are more than the sum of their parts.
B) the relationships that adequately capture their essence.
C) the inherently positive nature of relationships.
D) that there are divorce-prone people who are likely to have marital problems regardless of
whom they select as a partner.
Answer: A
58) According to the text, which of the following is NOT a risk that we take in close
relationships?
A) Loss of autonomy and control
B) Worry about abandonment
C) Revealing secrets shared in confidence
D) Sex differences
Answer: D
14
15
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contributory negligence, propinquities, clergyman’s sore throat,
equilateral strangulation and collar galls, veracity, pessimism, Scylla
and Charybdis, stuttering, processions of equine oxen and similar
phenomena, insubordination, altitude, consanguinity, chalcedony,
irritation of the Ephemeridæ, symmetry, vocalization, mammalia,
clairvoyance, inertia, acrimony, persecution, paresis, paraphernalia,
perspective, perspiration, tyranny, architecture and entire absence of
mind—take another dose!” He cast an appealing glance around. “I
can’t get at what Jeff’s trying to say,” declared Mr. Pringle with some
asperity, “but if I could, I’m damned if I couldn’t tell it! Speak up!
Play it out on the typewriter.”
Acting upon this hint, Aughinbaugh turned to the typewriter and
clattered furiously on the keys. He took off two sheets and spread
them on the table, face to face, so that one sheet covered all of the
other but the first two lines. “There!” he said, pointing. Beebe read
aloud:
“‘Now is the time for all good men and true to come to the
aid of the party.
A quick move by the enemy will jeopardize six fine
gunboats.’”
“He spoke twice—once in each letter,” said George Aughinbaugh, “of
learning to use the typewriter. He gave a speed sentence that he
had made up, containing the entire alphabet. These are similar
sentences, used by nearly every one who learns to typewrite. Jeff
was familiar with them. He practised the first one by the hour. I gave
him the second one the last night he was here. He is calling on us to
come to his help; he is warning us to be careful, that one
unconsidered move on our part, ‘a quick move,’ will be dangerous to
him. Taken in connection with the other allusions in his letter, and to
things that I know outside of his letter, it probably means that such a
quick move might be fatal to him. He is imprisoned—not legally;
secretly—and in great danger. Of course, parts of his letter are only
padding to introduce and join plausibly the vital allusions so that his
captors would allow the letter to go. The allusions are not
consecutive. When he speaks of——”
“Hold on, old man; you’re getting all balled up again,” said Pringle.
“Suppose, first of all, you tell us, as clearly as you can, exactly what
you understand him to mean, just as if he had written it to you
direct, without any parables. Then you can explain to us how you
got at it, afterwards.”
George walked the room, rearranged his thoughts and, in the
process, mastered his agitation.
Finally he faced the three friends and said: “He is in prison, in
Juarez, the victim of a conspiracy. He is in utmost danger; he is
closely guarded; the persons involved have such powerful reasons
for holding him that they would kill him rather than allow him to be
rescued. What we do must be done with the greatest caution; his
guards must not have the slightest suspicion that a rescue is
attempted, or planned, or possible, till it is carried out. In addition to
this he tells us that we are to communicate with him by means of
the personal columns of the El Paso papers——”
“I got that,” said Pringle, “but that is about all I did get. Of course,
we all figured it out that we were to come to you for instructions,
and that there was something about a typewriter we wanted to look
into. That was plain enough. There, I’m talking with my mouth. Go
on!”
“And, in his great danger and distress, he sends you—to Mr. Pringle
first, and then to all of you—a last and tenderest farewell, and the
strong assurance of his faith that you will do for him all that men can
do.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Leo. “And was there no hint of who it was
that had done this?”
“There was!” said Aughinbaugh, with sparkling eyes. “It was two
well-known, wealthy and influential El Paso men—the Honorable S.
S. Thorpe and Sam Patterson.”
“Show me!” said Pringle—“though I begin to see.”
“Half the letter is taken up by comment on the play of Julius Cæsar,
which he and I had been reading together,” said George. “He tells us
plainly, over and over, in different words, to look in it for meanings
beneath the surface. You remember that?”
“Yes,” said Billy.
“Well, the play hinges upon the conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius—a
conspiracy carried out on the Ides of March. Look!” He moved the
paper to expose another line:
Remember March, the Ides of March remember!
“Not till then did I remember that the sixteenth of March, the day on
which Jeff disappeared, was—not indeed the Ides of March, the
fifteenth, but devilish close to it, close enough. So what he says is:
‘George, remember—think carefully—remember exactly what took
place the day you saw me last.’
“He left my rooms just before midnight. And at midnight exactly, as
sworn to by many people, at a spot about a mile from here—at a
spot which Jeff might have reached at just that time—something
happened: a street fight in which two men were killed, and the
survivor, Captain Charles Tillotson, was wounded. Have you, by any
chance, read the evidence in the Tillotson case?”
“Every word of it,” said Billy. “We read the full account of the trial at
Escondido yesterday, while we were waiting for the train.”
“Good! Good! That simplifies matters. Think closely—keep in your
minds the evidence given at that trial—while I follow Jeff up after he
left my door. He must have gone somewhere, you know—and he
said he was going home. He usually took the car, but I have already
told you that he didn’t that night.
“Now, my rooms are two blocks north of the street-car line; Jeff’s
were three blocks south, and a long way up toward town. The
corner of Colorado and Franklin, where the fight took place, was on
one of the several routes he might have taken. And, if he had
chosen that particular way, he would have reached the scene of the
shooting precisely in time to get mixed up in it. I ought, by all
means, to have thought of that before, but I didn’t—till my wits were
sharpened trying to make out Jeff’s letter.
“Tillotson, you remember, claims that Krouse shot him without cause
or warning; that he, himself, only fired in self-defense; that a fourth
man killed Broderick—a fourth man who mysteriously disappeared,
as Jeff did.
“Thorpe and Patterson, on the contrary, swore that Tillotson made
the attack, not upon Krouse but upon Broderick. Few have ever
doubted that evidence, because it was not likely that a man of
Broderick’s known and deadly quickness could be shot twice without
firing a shot himself, except by a man who took him by surprise.
“But, if Tillotson tells the truth, Thorpe and Patterson lied; and there
is a conspiracy for you. And if Tillotson tells the truth, a fourth man
did kill Broderick—who more likely than Jeff Bransford, who
disappeared, due at that time and place?”
“You mean, possibly due at that time and place,” interrupted Billy.
“And how do you account for Jeff’s taking Broderick at a
disadvantage? It seems to me you are giving him a poor character.”
“Possibly due at that time and place,” corrected Aughinbaugh, “but
certainly disappeared—like Tillotson’s fourth man. As to taking
Broderick unawares—wait till you hear Jeff’s story. I can suggest one
solution, however—which holds only if there was a conspiracy to
murder Tillotson, which, failing, took the turn of hanging him
instead. Assassins in ambush are not entitled to the usual courtesies.
If Jeff happened along and observed an ambuscade, he would be
likely to waive ceremony.”
“But Thorpe and Patterson have good characters, haven’t they?”
asked Pringle.
“Good reputations,” said George tartly. “Though it is whispered that
Thorpe, as a young man, was habitually careless with firearms. But
Tillotson also bore an excellent reputation, minus the whispering. It
is at least half as probable that two men of good repute should turn
perjurers over-night, as that one should. Broderick had a very bad
reputation and Krouse had no reputation at all. In fact, that is the
only reason a few cling to their belief in Tillotson’s innocence. No
motive or reason of any kind is assigned for Tillotson’s unprovoked
attack upon Krouse, as alleged. But the enmity of Thorpe and
Tillotson was of common knowledge. It is also rumored that both
had been paying marked attention to the same lady. Here are two
possible motives for a conspiracy: hatred and jealousy. Of the two
dead men, Broderick was a led captain, a bravo, a proven tool for
any man who had a handle to him; the other man was unknown.”
“The cab driver told the same story,” said Pringle. “Was he an enemy
of Tillotson?”
“He did,” agreed George. “He also ran away. When he came back,
the next day, he accounted for himself by saying that he was scared.
That sounds queer to me. Timid people may drive cabs, but timid
people do not drive cabs in El Paso. The life is too hilarious. But, if
he wasn’t scared, why did he run away? But again, Jeff Bransford
wouldn’t get scared——”
“You’re all wrong there,” said Pringle. “Me—I’ve been scared stiff,
lots of times. And anyhow—how could any fourth man get away?
The neighborhood turned out at once—and they didn’t see him.”
“Jeff Bransford wouldn’t be scared enough to run away, nor you
either,” amended George. “If you did that, you wouldn’t want
anybody to believe you under oath. Come back now. How did the
fourth man get away, if he was Jeff Bransford and wouldn’t run
away, no matter what he had done? To figure it out, suppose you
knew it was Jeff, but didn’t know how he got away—you see? He
went in that cab! If the driver was really so timid, why did he ever
come back to mix in the trouble of a murder trial? To help hang
Tillotson. And his evidence was needed because Thorpe and
Patterson were known foes to Tillotson—while he was not.
“If they lied, if the whole thing was a put-up job, if they carried Jeff
off in the cab, probably wounded——”
“It strikes me,” said Leo, “that there are a fatal number of ‘ifs’ and
‘buts’ in your theory. Given a series of four even chances, each of
which you are to win, and each of which, to count for you, is
contingent upon your winning each of the other three, and your
chances are not one in eight but one in two hundred and fifty-six.”
“This is not a game of dice, Mr. Ballinger,” retorted Aughinbaugh.
“This letter is not the result of chance, but purposed and planned by
an unusual man—who had ten days in which to study it out. I have
only touched on a few of his significant allusions and stopped to put
forward the complete theory based on them all. If you will be patient
I will now show you how he unmistakably denounces these men.”
“I’m sorry,” said Billy, “but I have to acknowledge that I agree with
Leo. A theory based upon too many probabilities becomes
improbable for that very reason. Too many ‘ifs’!”
“There is no ‘if’ about Jeff’s disappearance,” rejoined George hotly.
“That we know. There is no ‘if’ about this letter, written in his own
hand long after, written to a non-existent wife, in care of Billy Beebe;
written under no conceivable conditions and for no conceivable
purpose except to convey information under the very eyes of a
vigilant jailer; a wanton and senseless folly, that could serve no
purpose but to stir us to cruel and useless alarm, if it does not carry
to us this information. When two hundred and fifty-six grossly
improbable things point each to a common center, the grossness of
each separate improbability makes the designed pointing just so
much more convincing. You won’t let me go on. By Heavens, we are
discussing the laws of evidence and lower mathematics, instead of
deciphering this letter!”
“Let Mr. Aughinbaugh be!” said Pringle. “Jeff said, once and again,
that George would tell us what to do. We know two very significant
truths, and only two: Jeff left Mr. Aughinbaugh’s rooms a few
minutes before midnight. He should have reached his own rooms
just after midnight; he didn’t. There are the contradicting events,
apparently giving each other the lie; there, and not at another time.
If Thorpe and his striker lied—and men do lie, even politicians—Jeff
is accounted for. And it is the weakness of a lie that it is no real
thing, but an appearance botched upon the very truth. When in
doubt, search for the joint. The lie is compressed by hard facts into
these few minutes. George is looking in the right place, George
knows what to do; go on, George! That will be all from the Great
Objectors.”
Chapter X
“And then he will say to himsel’, The son of Duncan is in the

heather and has need of me.”
—Alan Breck.
SO George went on: “As Mr. Pringle says, the fact of Jeff’s
disappearance at this exact time and possible place strengthened all
of the otherwise far-fetched ‘ifs’ twenty-fold. For that reason I
stopped any translation of Jeff’s letter, though I had barely begun it,
to state in full my theory, or rather my hypothesis, based on the
remarkable conjunction of a hinted conspiracy, the occasion and
motive of a conspiracy, and what was in all likelihood the
consummation of that conspiracy, with both Jeff and Tillotson as
victims.
“We will now take up the consideration of the letter. See if it does
not reinforce my hypothesis on every point, until, as block after
block falls inevitably into place, ordered and measured, it becomes a
demonstration.
“To begin with, the reference to the ‘French Revolution’ is to the
paragraph that I finished reading to him a few minutes before he left
me, telling of a man secretly and falsely imprisoned in the Bastille by
a lettre de cachet, a letter of hiding, procured by some powerful
personage; a man whose one vain thought and hope and prayer was
to have some word of his wife—of his dear wife. And there, I have
no doubt, is where Jeff got the idea for this dear, sudden wife of his.
Shall I read the paragraph for you?”
He should; and did.
“And from that paragraph—as I told Jeff in the very last words I
spoke to him—Dickens got the inspiration for his novel, ‘A Tale of
Two Cities.’ What did Jeff say? In effect, that a great writer could
find material for a novel from any page. ‘A Tale of Two Cities!’ And
here are the two cities, El Paso and Juarez, side by side—as closely
associated as Sodom and Gomorrah, of which, indeed, they remind
me at times. Could he, under the circumstances, say any plainer: ‘I
am in Juarez, in a strong and secret prison’?”
“That seems likely enough,” admitted Leo grudgingly.
“It is plain,” said Billy. “It is there; it must mean something; it means
that.”
“Keep that in mind, then, and consider all the other hints in the light
of that admitted message. Weigh them and their probable meaning
in connection with this plain warning.
“He speaks of Antony’s great oration. He actually quotes two words
of it: ‘Honorable men!’ Therefore, it was important; he wished to put
unusual emphasis on it. Three other important things were called to
our attention by being mentioned twice: one vital point, which I will
take up later—in fact, the last of all—was distinctly referred to no
less than four times. But this is the only direct quotation in the letter.
“Yet of all the words in the play, these two are precisely the two that
least need quoting to bring them to remembrance. No one who has
read Antony’s speech will ever forget them. Jeff had no need to
reiterate here; Antony has done it for him. They were the very heart
and blood of it; the master of magic freighted those two words, in
their successive differing expression, with praise, uncertainty, doubt,
suspicion, invective, certainty, hate, fury, denunciation and revenge.
‘Honorable men!’ And Thorpe, too, is an honorable man! The
Honorable S. S. Thorpe! Is that chance?
“More yet! Jeff went out of the way to drag in the wholly superfluous
statement that Antony said some things after that which would bear
reading. As a literary criticism this is beneath contempt. The words
of Antony, as reported by William Shakspere, would be all that
without the seal of his approval. But let us see! He says ‘after’
Cæsar’s funeral oration. Look at the words, Mr. Ballinger. Do you
observe anything unusual?”
“I see a blot,” said Leo.
“You see a blot—and you speak of it, unhesitatingly, as unusual.
Why? Because Jeff was a man of scrupulous neatness, over-
particular, old-maidish. If that blot had been made by accident he
would have written the page over again. It was made purposely. And
so anxious was he that we should not overlook it, that he has fairly
sprinkled the blank half-page below his signature with blots, trusting
that we would then notice and study out the other one. Let us do it.
‘After’ the funeral oration, he said—but wait. You look, Mr. Beebe;
look closely. Do you see anything else there? Pass your finger over
it.”
“I see and feel where he has twice thrust the pen through the
paper,” said Billy, changing color. “And I begin to see, and feel, and
believe.”
“You mean, doubtless, that you begin to believe and tremble,” said
George spitefully. “Now we will find what Antony says ‘after’ the
oration, so well worth looking into. Gentlemen, the first words
Shakspere puts into Antony’s mouth after the funeral scene are
these—and remember it is where the Triumvirs are proscribing
senators to death, and that Thorpe was formerly a senator, if only a
state senator—hear Mark Antony:
“‘These many, then, shall die; their names are prick’d.’”
“Pricked!” echoed George triumphantly. “He has denounced them—
two of them—the two we know! Thorpe and Patterson. But perhaps
that is a gross improbability—a mere coincidence. If anything is
lacking to make the denunciation complete, terrible and compelling,
it is now supplied. The next words Antony speaks——”
“Wait a minute,” said Pringle, eying Beebe. “Let’s see if Billy can
carry on your argument. Can you, Billy?”
Billy put a shaky finger on the blot. His voice was hoarse with
passion.
“‘He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him!’”
“He shall not live,” repeated Pringle, “this honorable senator—not if I
have to strangle him with my bare hands!”
“I—I suppose you are right,” gasped Leo, aghast. “But, suffering
saints, he must think we are remarkable men to study out anything
so obscure as all that. Why, there isn’t one chance in a million for it!”
“Well—so we all are, just that kind of men,” said George modestly,
“even if some of us are chiefly remarkable for incredulity and—
firmness. Obscure? Why, dear man, it had to be obscure! If it hadn’t
been obscure it would never have been allowed to reach us—I
mean, of course, to reach Mrs. Bransford. And yet, in a way, it was
neither so obscure nor so remarkable. In the first place, this is not a
case of solving puzzles, with a nickel-plated Barlow knife for a prize,
or a book for good little girls. This letter means something; it is the
urgent call of a friend in need; we are friends indeed, grown-up
men, and it is our business to find out what it means. We have to
find out; a man’s life is the prize—and more than that, as it turns
out. He sent you to me as interpreter, not because he wanted Mr.
Pringle to take orders from me, but for the one only reason that it
was not obscure to me, and that he knew it would not be obscure to
me. Do you notice that I did not have to turn to the play to verify
the quotations? It is fresh in my mind and in his: we read it aloud
together, we spouted it at each other, we used phrases of it instead
of words to carry on ordinary conversation. Mr. Beebe here, when
once he was on the right track, could supply the words for the most
difficult of all the allusions, though he had probably not read the
book for years.”
“I ain’t never read this Mr. Shakspere much, myself,” said Pringle
meditatively. “But oncet—’twas the first time I was ever in love—I
read all that stuff of Tennyson’s about King Arthur’s ‘Ten Knights in a
Bar Room,’ and I want to tell you that I couldn’t even think of
anything else for a month. So it seems mighty natural that Jeff, with
his head full of this Shakspere party, would try that particular way of
getting word to us, and no other. You spoke of a message for me,
Mr. Aughinbaugh?”
“I did. Of a message sent in the knowledge that for all your daring,
for all your devotedness, you may not be able to avert the
threatened danger. In his desperate pass he sends to you, as if he
spoke with you face to face for the last time, the words of Brutus to
his friend:
“‘Therefore, our everlasting farewell take:
Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.’”
Silence fell upon them. Pringle went to the window and stood
looking out at the night; the clock ticked loudly. Aughinbaugh,
keeping his eyes on the blurred typewritten lines, went on:
“And the other message, of hope, and confidence, and trust, is this:
“‘My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life,
I found no man but he was true to me.’”
“All of which adds force to his injunction that when the society of
good men and true come to his aid, they shall be careful to make no
move so quick as to jeopardize Jeff. Q.E.D.”
“Since the majority is plainly against me, and also since I am
convinced myself, I’ll give up,” said Ballinger. “And the next thing
plainly is, what are we going to do—or who are we going to do?”
Chapter XI
“I will advertise thee what this people shall do.”
—Balaam.
“JEFF tells us that too,” said George. “In both letters he speaks of
the El Paso papers. In the letter to ‘the kids’ he says that he read
every line of one of them. Knowing what we do, it is easy to see that
they are brought in to him and that he expects us to communicate
with him by means of personals worded for his eye alone. He is
looking for them now. As he is so certain of seeing personals, it
seems sure that the papers are brought in regularly to him. You
know he said his Chief had all the El Paso papers sent on. And since
they allow him this indulgence, it is probable and consistent that
they do not otherwise ill-treat him. I suppose they are trying to
extort a promise of silence from him under threat of death. But what
I don’t see is why they didn’t kill him right away.”
“I understand that well enough,” said Pringle. “Jeff has talked ’em
out of it! And did he give any hint about what to do?”
“That is the thing I put off till the last,” George responded. “It is the
most ambiguous of all the allusions. When he twice spoke of Cassius
as ‘Yond Cassius,’ when he mentioned Cæsar’s superstitions, and
afterward said some of his hunches were pretty good at that, he
might have been referring me to either ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and
hungry look’ or to the line immediately above: ‘Let me have men
about me that are fat.’ I am reasonably sure that he meant the last.
Because he knew that we would get this far—to the big question of
what we were going to do about it. We are clear as to Thorpe’s guilt;
but that isn’t going to help Jeff—or Tillotson.
“Under the circumstances it would have been imprudent for him to
give his street and number; they might not have liked it——”
“By Jove!” said Leo, “don’t you see? He tells us, in so many words:
‘That’s all I know.’ He didn’t know just where he was. It wasn’t likely
that he would know.”
“So he does! I hadn’t seen through that at all,” said George. “Thank
you. That makes it almost a certainty that he meant ‘the men about
him,’ his jailers, were fat. We have to find his jail, and our best
chance is to find his jailers. To tell us to look for ‘lean and hungry’
men in this country of hard-riding, thin, slim, slender, lean, lank,
scrawny men, would serve no purpose. But fat men are scarce
enough to be noticeable. Besides, Patterson is a mere mountain of
flesh; Thorpe himself is not actually fat, but is dangerously near it.
He laid so much stress on this, coming back to it four times, that he
must have meant it for a big, plain signpost for our guidance. That
settles it. He has men about him that are fat. And we’d better look
for them. Mr. Pringle, will you take the lines?”
“The head of the table is wherever Wes’ sits down, anyway,”
remarked Beebe loyally.
“It is moved and seconded that Mr. John Wesley Pringle be elected—
er—Sole Electee of the Most Ancient Society of Good Men and True,”
said Leo. “All in favor will rise or remain seated. Contrary-minded are
not members and will kindly leave the room. It is unanimously
carried and so ordered. Gentlemen, Mr. Pringle!”
“The Society will come to order,” said the Sole Electee severely.
“Some good man and true will please state the object of the
permanent session and, also, how and why and what he proposes to
do first.”
“Hadn’t we better get some detectives to work,” ventured Billy, “and
join forces with Tillotson’s lawyers?”
“No detectives,” said Pringle hastily and decidedly. And “No lawyers,”
echoed George with equal decision, adding: “Please excuse Mr.
Pringle and myself from giving the reasons for our respective vetoes.
But they are good ones.”
“Then we are to depend on our own resources alone?” demanded
Leo.
“Exactly. That’s the way the farmer in the second reader got in his
wheat. Let us by all means have Fools for Clients and Every Man His
Own Detective; that’s what makes the guilty quail,” said Pringle
darkly. “If we four can’t do the trick for love, no man can do it for
hire. And there will be no defalcation or failure for fear, favor or
funds or through any fatal half-heartedness. We four friends for our
friend unconditionally, without regard for law or the profits, man or
devil, death, debt, disgrace or damnation! To the last ditch—and
then some!”
Pringle reflected a little. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we will put our little
ad. in the papers to-night, at once, muy pronto and
immediatamente. After which I should think a good sleep would be
the one first wise move. We will then sally forth, or Sarah forth, in
pursuit of knowledge in general, both in El Paso and in Juarez—
vulgarly called Whereas—and, more especially, knowledge of Messrs.
Thorpe and Patterson and all fat men with whom they do consort. To
avoid giving any slightest ground for suspicion—which must be
avoided at all hazards—I will disguise myself as a bald-headed,
elderly cattleman from Rainbow. Mr. Aughinbaugh——”
“Mister? George, you mean,” said that person.
“George, then. George, you will masquerade as a lawyer’s clerk.
Billy, you’d better buy a haircut and canvas leggings and get yourself
up as a reformed Easterner in the act of backsliding. And you,
Leo”—he paused and regarded Ballinger doubtfully—“You,” he said,
and stopped again, with a puzzled frown. The unhappy victim
writhed and twisted, thus held up to public scorn and derision as
neither fish, flesh, nor herring.
“I have it,” said the poor nondescript, with a brave attempt at a
smile. “I’ll buy some clothes, some booze and a stack of blues—and
pass myself off for a Remittance Man.”
Pringle heaved a sigh of relief. “I hated to name it to you,” he said.
“Say, when Jeff first rescued you, exhumed you, resuscitated you, or
whatever it was, he told me a little quotation the first time you went
out and left us. His explanation went some like this:
“‘I traced my son through a street of broken windows, and
found him dead of old age at five-and-twenty.’
“So, my boy, it’s back to the husks and the hogs for yours. You are
assigned to cover the Street of Broken Windows. And that’s a pretty
big order—in El Paso.”
The next morning Jeff found what he had been looking for these
many days. In both the Times and the Herald was an inconspicuous
personal in the modest retirement of the advertising section, of
obscure wording and small type:
Now is the time for all good men and true to get a
cautious move on the trail sit tight coming up.
It was the twenty-fourth day of his imprisonment.
Chapter XII
“No, no! the adventures first: explanations take such a

dreadful time.”
—The Gryphon.
BILLY took up his quarters at the leading hotel and permeated both
El Paso and Juarez with much abandon. He wired Cleveland, Ohio,
for funds, and Cleveland responded generously, sending him,
without delay or demur, a noble wad for the emergency.
George frequented the real-estate section on legitimate, if trivial,
pretexts connected with Hibler’s business; demanding vacation from
that legal luminary on his arrival. Pringle waxed talkative with visiting
and resident cowmen, among whom exists a curious freemasonry,
informal but highly effective.
Moreover, Pringle disregarded his own explicit instructions. Such
cowmen as he knew well—and trusted—began to infest Juarez. Their
mere orders—for he gave them no reasons—were to watch either
Thorpe or Patterson if they visited the Mexican city; also any
obnoxiously fat men with whom they should hold conference; and to
report progress.
The four friends between them watched Thorpe in all his doings,
dogged his footsteps by night and by day—passed him from one to
the other like the button in the game—with such vigilance that at the
end of the week they had discovered no single thing to their help.
Thorpe loitered through life in sybaritic fashion; rose late, fared
sumptuously; gave a little time to the real-estate office in which he
was investing partner; more to political conferences. In the
afternoons he rode or motored; sometimes he dropped in to the Fire
Company’s bowling alley instead, combating a certain tendency to
corpulence.
For the rest there was dinner at his club; bridge with a select
coterie, or perhaps the theater; occasionally, a social function. And
the day usually ended with a visit to the big Turkish Baths on
Franklin Street, another precaution against fatness. Nothing could be
more open and aboveboard than this respectable gentleman’s walk
and auto.
Patterson’s doings were much the same, save that he shunned the
little entertainments where the Judge shone with a warm and
mellow splendor, and ventured often into that quarter of the town
that was Leo’s particular care, breaking rather more than his full
quota of windows. He made also a brief trip to Silver City, on which
occasion Pringle again violated his own orders by sending red-
headed Joe Cowan, cowboy, of Organ, as an observer for the G. M.
A. T.—to no benefit to the society.
Patterson had gone to look over a mining proposition for a client.
This unavailing search had one curious and unexpected result.
Noticing many people closely, perforce, they observed that a
surprising number of these had done those things that they really
ought not to have done. Also, they kept on doing them; confident
that no man saw them: so cunning were they. So that Ballinger
gloomily avowed his intention of turning blackmailer, rather than
again to appeal to what he was pleased to term the “unremitting
kindness” of his family.
Only one thing had occurred so far which the most besotted optimist
could interpret as even a possible confirmation of their suspicions.
One night, the fourth of their surveillance, Judge Thorpe took a late
street car for Juarez, foregoing the baths. When he alighted from it,
at Calle San Rafael, John Wesley Pringle also left the car on the
farther side and walked smartly away.
Thorpe having turned eastward, Pringle came back and trailed along
far behind. He dared not follow closely; if Thorpe’s suspicions should
be aroused it would go hard with Jeff. He preferred to risk losing his
man rather than to risk the consequences of an alarm.
And lose him he did. The Judge turned to the left at Terrazas Street.
Pringle was just a little too far behind. He made haste to come up,
but when he reached the corner the Judge was out of sight; nor
could he catch the trail again. And the Judge returned to El Paso
without being seen again.
Of the other labors of the four friends during this weary time; of
myriad casual questions that came to naught; of unnumbered fat
men traced, unsuspecting, to their blameless homes; of hope
deferred, disappointments, fastings, vain vigils, and all their acts—
behold! are they not written in the book of Lost Endeavor?
Meanwhile Jeff read many books, he practised his typewriting, he

baited Mac mercilessly, he experimented with new dishes procured
by that trusty henchman; and day by day he noted in the papers
little personals: “Understand situation perfectly that quick move will
jeopardize”; “Making haste slowly to come to aid of party,
whereabouts unknown sit steady”; and others, variously worded to
report no progress, to extol the difficult virtue of patience and to
recommend its practice—always with a fragment from one of the
catchword sentences for an identification tag. One of them gave no
news at all. It read: “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
Practise that for quick movement. Lots of time.”
But as John Wesley sagely remarked, “It’s a long worm that has no
turning.” And as he said again, “The end doesn’t come till along
towards the last.”
Chapter XIII
“You’ve been listening at doors—and behind trees—and
down chimneys—or you couldn’t have known it!”
—Humpty-Dumpty.
AT last, on a happy day, there came to the Judge’s office,
demanding and receiving brief audience, a fat man with an
indictable face; a man disreputable, vast and unkempt, with a
sloven’s shoebrush for beard. Him, so propitiously ill-favored,
Aughinbaugh dogged to Leo’s satrapy. There Leo took cognizance of
him and, after a window-breaking progress, companied him to
Juarez.
Mindful of Pringle’s adventure and mishap with the Judge he took a
long chance. Reasoning that, if their theories held good, this man
would take the same route the Judge did, Leo left the car at the first
street before San Rafael and followed it eastward till he came to
Calle Terrazas. After heartbreaking delay he had the satisfaction of
seeing his man turn the corner above and come lurching on his way.
Apparently the delay had not been totally unconnected with the
wineshops en route.
Leo took refuge in a curio store, buying things he did not in the least
want. Emerging with his compulsory parcels, he followed in the wake
of the unwieldy leviathan to the International Hotel. Leo entered
shortly after him, ordered supper, and went into eclipse behind a
paper. The big man took another at the bar, called for his key and
stumbled upstairs.
Supper over, Leo loafed aimlessly; and so became involved in many
games of pool with a person in a voluble plaid vest—who beat him
shamefully. After this hanger-on had been encouraged a few times,
a careless mention of the big man ‘on the bat’ elicited the
information that the big man’s name was Borrowman, that he was
off his schedule by reason of his hilarity, since he usually did night
work—running a stationary engine, the pool shark thought, or
something like that—that he was a sulky swine and several other
things.
Ballinger lost enough more games and departed to ’phone
Aughinbaugh. Not getting him, he next sent urgent summons to Billy
Beebe’s hotel, the whereabouts of John Wesley being problematical
in the extreme. Mr. Beebe was not in; but the clerk would deliver any
message when he came. So Leo made an appointment, naming a
hostelry in the block adjacent to the International, whither he
repaired, engaged a room and kept sharp watch till Billy came.
After consultation, Billy registered at the International. Borrowman
had not seen him before, whereas he might easily remember
Ballinger’s face and become suspicious. This was no ordinary chase:
an alarm meant, in this case, not a mere temporary setback, but
irremediable disaster. Leo went to El Paso, left an ad. with the
papers, the purport of the same being that the search was “getting
warm for enemy of good men and true,” and then hunted up Pringle
and Aughinbaugh. They returned to Juarez and there separated, to a
loitering patrol of the streets east, south and north of the
International House.
Billy passed a tedious evening in the office and barroom of the
International. At midnight Borrowman had not shown up as
expected; it began to look as though his work had gone by the
board for that night. But he came down shortly before one, little the
worse for his liquor, and set forth at once.
When Borrowman came out he turned east at the first corner. A little
in front of him was a slim and sauntering youth—Aughinbaugh by
name—who presently quickened his pace and drew ahead, keeping
straight on. Far behind, Beebe brought up the rear, and on the next
streets, paralleling the quarry’s course, came Pringle on the north
and Ballinger on the south, with varying gaits; one or the other
waiting at each corner till the chase had crossed between them.
So the pursuit drew on for blocks. Aughinbaugh was far ahead,
when, near the town’s edge, Borrowman turned to the left again,
northward to the river. The chase wheeled with him—Pringle, a block
to the north, crossed the street openly and walked briskly ahead;
Billy turned riverward on the street west of him; Aughinbaugh
brought up the east side, and Ballinger fell in behind.
There was no more doubling. Pringle, in front, saw the river close
ahead. The end must be near; he turned east into a side street and
disappeared. Borrowman kept straight on; Ballinger, hidden in a
doorway, close behind, saw him enter an adobe house on the river
bank. It was a dark and shuttered house; no light appeared from
within, but smoke was rising from the chimney.
Ballinger turned back, rounded the block and so foregathered with
Aughinbaugh and Pringle. After a long wait Beebe joined them,
guided at the last by sundry guarded whistlings; slowly, stealthily,
tiptoe, they glided through the rustling shadows to reconnoiter.
The old adobe was flat-roofed and one-storied, as usual. They found
chinks in the shuttered windows. No fire was to be seen; the smoke
came from an underground room; the hunt was over.
Billy plucked Pringle by the sleeve and bent over, clasping Leo in a
fond embrace. After wordless investigation of this human stairway,
by sense of touch, Pringle stepped from Billy’s back to Ballinger’s
broad shoulders, and so wriggled to the roof with noiseless caution.
After an hour-long infinity he reappeared, bulked black and startling
against the starlight; descended, led his little flock to the safety of
the open playa by the river bank and made exultant oration:
“Jeff’s there! Having the time of his life! Chimney goes straight
down; I could hear every word they said. They’re a clever gang of
all-round crooks, counterfeiters, smugglers and what-not. Thorpe is
the brains. They have a stand-in with some of the police and
officials. This cellar was used as a warehouse for storing Chinamen,
to be smuggled across in boatload lots. The other man on guard is
fat, as we expected, and better looking than Borrowman. He was
hopping mad at Borrowman for getting full and leaving him on guard
overtime; threatened him with discipline, gave him a tongue-lashing
—Jeff egging him on, enjoying himself very much and urging
Borrowman not to stand such abuse. He wouldn’t trust Jeff to
Borrowman till he was comparatively sober; cussed him again and
made him turn in to sleep it off. So of course they’ll both be here all
night.”
“Why, how can you tell that this other man is better looking than
Borrowman?” asked George, puzzled. “You couldn’t possibly see
him.”
“Suppose I didn’t—I’ve seen Borrowman, haven’t I?” retorted Pringle
triumphantly.
“What else did you gather?” asked Billy.
“Well, not much except that we had it all figured out about right.
They kept him there at first to make him join ’em. He wouldn’t, and
what they are keeping him for instead of wiping him out I don’t just
see. I’d sure hate to have to keep him. And now, boys, us for El
Paso, U. S. A. No more to be done here to-night.”
“How are we going to get him out without getting him slightly
killed?” demanded George. “I can sit down in an office and study
things out, all right—I learned deduction from observing Hibler’s
methods of settling up estates. But when it comes to violent action I
don’t know which foot goes first.”
“Easiest thing there is,” said Pringle. “We’ll put him wise by a
personal. To-morrow we’ll keep out of sight for a day to give him
time to see it. We’ll get a hook, a line and a gun, wait till only one
man is with Jeff, till Jeff is standing by the fire, and till he gives us
the signal we mention in our little ad. Then we let the gun down the
chimney to him and he’ll do the rest. Why, it’s the only way! There
ain’t no other way, and couldn’t be. Two days more and the jig is
strictly up. Let’s go home and sleep those two days.”
Chapter XIV
“It’s a long worm that has no turning.”
—J. W. Pringle.
THE tracking of Borrowman had ended on Wednesday in the wee

sma’ hours. On Friday Jeff found this communication in his morning
paper:
Run to earth hear everything by hot air now is time for
party to aid himself to-night at nine sharp be at fire signal
when ready by cowboy’s lament hold fast all six fine
friends I give you.
Jeff was pleased. Yet this was the hardest day of his captivity. He
made things very unpleasant for Borrowman, who was on guard, his
drunk having disarranged the previous schedule. The day dragged
slowly on. Mac came at seven and Borrowman left as soon as supper
was cooked.
Jeff had let the fire run low. He stood with his back to it, carrying on
an earnest conversation with Mac, who sat on the bed.
“What time is it, Mac?”
“Eight-feefty.”
“Most bedtime,” said Jeff, yawning. “Can’t you manage to stick it out
till this time to-morrow night?” he demanded querulously. “That’ll
put it back the way it was, so Borrowman’ll be on while I’m asleep.
That filthy brute isn’t fit for a gentleman to associate with. Besides,
he’ll be letting me get away.”
“He’s all that and worse,” said Mac, grinning toothsomely, “but he’ll
na let ye get away. Man, I jalouse he fair aches to kill ye. Ye treat
him with much disrespect. Ye’ll na get away from him or me, neither.
We’ll hold you here till crack o’ doom, if need be.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll escape sooner or later, of course,” said Jeff pleasantly.
“And that reminds me—I’ll be wanting a hat before long. I wish
you’d get me a good one. You didn’t fetch mine here, you know. I
suppose the barrel of Broderick’s gun cut it. Certainly it did. How
else could it have cut my head open so? Get a J. B., 7⅛, four-inch
brim, pearl gray. It’ll supply a long-wanted felt.”
“Ye’ll need no hat. Man, ye vex me wi’ your frantic journeys. Ye
canna escape. It is na possible. If ye do, ye may e’en take my hat,
for I’ll no be needin’ it mair.”
“Oh, well, I’ll not argue with you. It just ruffles you up, without
convincing you of your error,” said Jeff. “But you’re wrong.” He
turned his face to the fire and lightly hummed the first line of the
Cowboy’s Lament:
“‘As I rode down to Latern in Barin——’”
Immediately the long, blue barrel of a .45 nosed inquiringly down
the chimney. Jeff disengaged the gun from the hook and slipped it
under his coat. He jerked the line slightly; it was drawn up. Jeff left
the fire and sat down, facing Mac across the table.
“Mac what?” he demanded. “We’ve spent a good many pleasant
days together, but I don’t know your name till this very yet. Mac
what?”
“It is no new thing for men of my blood to be nameless,” said Mac
composedly. His voice took on a tone of pride; his bearing was not
without a certain dignity. “For generations we were a race proscribit,
outlawed, homeless and nameless. The curse of yon wild man
Ishmael was ours, and the portion of unblessed Esau—to live by the
sword alone, wi’ the dews of heaven for dwelling-place. Who hasna
heard of the Gregara?”
“Oh! So you’re a MacGregor? Well, Mr. MacGregor, it is likewise said
in that same book that they who take up the sword shall perish by
the sword,” said Jeff, fondling the gun handle beneath the table. “It
seems almost a pity that an exception should be made in your case.
For you have your points; I’ll not deny it. Of course, you richly
deserve to be hung on the same scaffold with Thorpe. But you are
so much the more wholesome scoundrel of the two, so
straightforward and thoroughgoing in your villainy, that I must admit
that I shall feel a certain regret at seeing you make such an
unsatisfactory end. Besides, you don’t deserve it from me. If Thorpe
had listened to you I would never have escaped to hang you both.”
“Let me tell you then,” said MacGregor with spirit, “that I could hang
in no better company. And I shall na stumble on the gallow-steps.
Dinna trouble yourself. If I could hang for him it would be na mair
than he has deservit at my hands. He has been staunch wi’ me. Wi’
wealth and name to lose, he broke me out of San Saba prison wi’ his
own hands, where else I had been rotting now. But we talk
foolishness.” He tamped tobacco into his pipe, struck a match and
held it over the bowl.
“I assure you that I do not,” said Jeff earnestly. “But I’ll change the
subject. Did you know there was a much shorter sentence with all
the letters in it than we’ve been using? There is. ‘Pack my box with
five dozen liquor jugs.’ It reached me by R. F. D. So did this!”
He rose; the long barrel leaped to level with sinister exultance. “Hold
your hands there, Mr. MacGregor—it’ll warm your fingers.”
The MacGregor held his fingers there, eying the unwavering blue
barrel steadily. He kept his pipe going. Bransford could not withhold
his admiration for such surly, indomitable courage. Making a wary
circuit to the rear of the defeated warrior, and keeping him covered,
he gingerly reached forth to take the MacGregor gun. “Now you can
take ’em down. Come on, boys—all clear!” he said, raising his voice.
Sound of running feet from above; the outer door smashed open.
Mac flung his hat over to Jeff and sat glowering in wordless rage.
Footsteps hurried down the stairs and the passageway. An ax hewed
at the door. It crashed in; Pringle, gun in hand, burst through the
splintered woodwork; the others pressed behind. John Wesley
leaned upon his ax, fumbled at his coat pocket, and extended the
famous leather bottle:
“Well, Brutus, old pal, we meet again! Shall we smile?”
Chapter XV
“If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love

him, I’ll be hanged.”
—Falstaff.
“At the envoy’s end, I touch!”
—Cyrano.
“NOW, we must get to work,” said Jeff, after hurried mutual

explanations. “The natural impulse is to throw the customs house
into the river, to link arms and walk up Main Street, five abreast,
pushing the policemen off of the curb, raising our feet high and
bringing them down ker-smack—hay-foot, straw-foot, right foot, left:
now is the time for all good men—and the rest of it. But, perhaps, it
wouldn’t be wise. We’ve got to catch Thorpe off his guard—and that
may be hard to do——”
Wes’ pulled him down and whispered in his ear. Jeff’s face became
radiant.
“And after we have him safe we’ll get the others. Let’s go down to
the bank and steal a boat. Boys, this is Mr. MacGregor. We’ll take him
with us. Mac, you’d better tie a handkerchief around your head.
You’ll take cold.”
“Ye canna take a man from Mexico without extradeetion papers. It’s
fair keednappin’,” said Mac with a leer.
“So we can’t, so we can’t,” said Jeff pleasantly. “Not live men. Go
first. If you don’t come quietly——”
“Dinna tell me,” said the MacGregor scornfully. “Would I no have
done as much for you? But let me tell you one thing—and that is
that ye are showing small thanks to Thorpe for sparing your life.”
“Fudge! I didn’t ask him for my life and I owe him no gratitude,” said
Jeff. “It was a square contract. I was to hang him if I could escape—
and I had practically escaped when he agreed to it, except for the
mere detail of time. I am doing nothing unfair. Go on!”
“You’re right, ’twas a contract—I’ll say nae mair,” admitted Mac
grudgingly, and went up the stair.
Once on the street, however, he paused. “Mr. Bransford, there have
been kindly passages atween us. Let me have a word more.”
“Well?” said Jeff.
The outlaw sat him down on a crumbling wall. “I value your good
opeenion, Mr. Bransford, and I would not have ye judge that fear
held me from fightin’ ye, drop or no drop. ’Twould have done no
good to any one and I should certainly have been killed. Men, ye’ve
a grand idee of strategy yourself. I wouldna hae ye think I’m daft
enough to throw away my life to no good purpose. But there the
case is verra diff’rent. There are no thick walls now to muffle the
noise: ye canna keel me wi’oot muckle deesturbance, bringin’ the
police on ye. Thorpe has friends here, verra alert folk—and ’gin he
gets wind o’ any deesturbance at just this place—ye see!” He
wagged his head in slow cunning; he drew in a long breath. “Ho!” he
bellowed. “Ho! Murder!”
They pulled him down, fighting savagely.—Page 166.
“Damnation!” said Jeff, and sprang at his throat. The others had his
arms: they pulled him down, fighting savagely, turned him over,
piled on his back, and gagged him. But it was too late. Two
policemen were already running down the street. The neighbors,
however, kept prudently within doors.
“Jeff, you and Pringle hike for the U. S. A.,” gasped Leo. “Get
Thorpe, anyhow. I’ll tap this devil dumb, and stay here and stand
the gaff, to give you a start.”
“Hold on! Don’t do it,” said Beebe. “Let me talk to the policemen. Do
you tie Mr. MacGregor up.”
“Talk to—why you can’t even speak Spanish!” said Pringle.
“You don’t know me. Watch!” said Billy.
Without waiting for further remonstrance he went to meet the
advancing officers. They halted; there was a short colloquy and, to

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