Little Jim knew that something strange had happened, because Big Jim, his father, had sold their few head of cattle, the work team, and the farm implements, keeping only the two saddle-horses and the pack-horse, Filaree. When Little Jim asked where his mother had gone, Big Jim told him that she had gone on a visit, and would be away a long time. Little Jim wanted to know if his mother would ever come back. When Big Jim said that she would not, Little Jim manfully suppressed his tears, and, being of that frontier stock that always has an eye to the main chance, he thrust out his hand. "Well, I'll stick with you, dad. I reckon we can make the grade."

Big Jim turned away and stood for a long time gazing out of the cabin window toward town. Presently he felt a tug at his coat-sleeve.

"Is ma gone to live in town?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you go get her?"

"She don't want to come back, Jimmy."

Little Jim could not understand this. Yet he had often heard his mother complain of their life on the homestead, and as often he had watched his father sitting grimly at table, saying nothing in reply to his wife's querulous complainings. The boy knew that his father had worked hard to make a home. They had all worked hard. But, then, that had seemed the only thing to do.

Presently Big Jim swung round as though he had made a decision. He lighted the lamp in the kitchen and made a fire. Little Jim scurried out to the well with a bucket. Little Jim was a hustler, never waiting to be told what to do. His mother was gone. He did not know why. But he knew that folks had to eat and sleep and work. While his father prepared supper, Little Jim rolled up his own shirt-sleeves and washed vigorously. Then he filled the two glasses on the table, laid the plates and knives and forks, and finding nothing else to do in the house, just then, he scurried out again and returned with his small arms filled with firewood.

Big Jim glanced at him. "I guess we don't need any more wood, Jimmy. We'll be leaving in the morning."

"What? Leavin' here?"

His father nodded.

"Goin' to town, dad?"

"No. South."

"Just us two, all alone?"

"Yes. Don't you want to go?"

"Sure! But I wish ma was comin', too."

Big Jim winced. "So do I, Jimmy. But I guess we can get along all right. How would you like to visit Aunt Jane, down in Arizona?"

"Where them horn toads and stingin' lizards are?"

"Yes--and Gila monsters and all kinds of critters."

"Gee! Has Aunt Jane got any of 'em on her ranch?"

Big Jim forced a smile. "I reckon so."

Little Jim's face was eager. "Then I say, let's go. Mebby I can get to shoot one. Huntin' is more fun than workin' all the time. I guess ma got tired of workin', too. She said that was all she ever expected to do, 'long as we lived out here on the ranch. But she never told me she was goin' to quit."

"She didn't tell me, either, Jimmy. But you wouldn't understand."

Jimmy puckered his forehead. "I guess ma kind of throwed us down, didn't she, dad?"

"We'll have to forget about it," said Big Jim slowly. "Down at Aunt Jane's place in--"

"Somethin' 's burnin', dad!"

Big Jim turned to the stove. Little Jim gazed at his father's back critically. There was something in the stoop of the broad shoulders that was unnatural, strange--something that caused Little Jim to hesitate in his questioning. Little Jim idolized his father, and, with unfailing intuition, believed in him to the last word. As for his mother, who had left without explanation and would never return--Little Jim missed her, but more through habit of association than with actual grief.

He knew that his mother and father had not gotten along very well for some time. And now Little Jim recalled something that his mother had said: "He's as much your boy as he is mine, Jim Hastings, and, if you are set on sending him to school, for goodness' sake get him some decent clothes, which is more than I have had for many a year."

Until then Jimmy had not realized that his clothing or his mother's was other than it should be. Moreover, he did not want to go to school. He preferred to work on the ranch with his father. But it was chiefly the tone of his mother's voice that had impressed him. For the first time in his young life, Little Jim felt that he was to blame for something which he could not understand. He was accustomed to his mother's sudden fits of unreasonable anger, often followed by a cuff, or sharp reprimand. But she had never mentioned his need of better clothing before, nor her own need.

As for being as much his father's boy as his mother's--Little Jim felt that he quite agreed to that, and, if anything, that he belonged more to his father, who was kind to him, than to any one else in the world. Little Jim, trying to reason it out, now thought that he knew why his mother had left home. She had gone to live in town that she might have better clothes and be with folks and not wear her fingers to the bone simply for a bed and three meals a day, as Little Jim had heard her say more than once.

But the trip to Aunt Jane's, down in Arizona, was too vivid in his imagination to allow room for pondering. Big Jim had said they were to leave in the morning. So, while supper was cooking, Little Jim slipped into his bedroom and busied himself packing his own scant belongings. Presently his father called him. Little Jim plodded out bearing his few spare clothes corded in a neat bundle, with an old piece of canvas for the covering. His father had taught him to pack.

Big Jim stared. Then a peculiar expression flitted across his face. Little Jim was always for the main chance.

"I'm all hooked up to hit the trail, dad."

In his small blue overalls and jumper, in his alert and manful attitude, Little Jim was a pocket edition of his father.

"Where's your shootin'-iron?" queried Big Jim jokingly.

"Why, she's standin' in the corner, aside of yours. A man don't pack his shootin'-iron in his bed-roll when he hits the trail. He keeps her handy."

"For stingin' lizards, eh?"

"For 'most anything. Stingin' lizards, Injuns, or hoss-thieves, or anything that we kin shoot. We ain't takin' no chances on this here trip."

Big Jim gestured toward the table and pulled up his chair. Little Jim was too heartily interested in the meal to notice that his father gazed curiously at him from time to time. Until then, Big Jim had thought of his small son as a chipper, sturdy, willing boy--his boy. But now, Little Jim seemed suddenly to have become an actual companion, a partner, a sharer in things as they were and were to be.

Hard work and inherent industry had developed in Little Jim an independence that would have been considered precocious in the East. Big Jim was glad that the mother's absence did not seem to affect the boy much. Little Jim seemed quite philosophical about it. Yet, deep in his heart, Little Jim missed his mother, more than his father realized. The house seemed strangely empty and quiet. And it had seemed queer that Big Jim should cook the supper, and, later, wash the dishes.

That evening, just before they went to bed, Big Jim ransacked the bureau, sorting out his own things, and laying aside a few things that his wife had left: a faded pink ribbon, an old pair of high-heeled slippers, a torn and unmended apron, and an old gingham dress. Gathering these things together, Big Jim stuffed them in the kitchen stove. Little Jim watched him silently.

But when his father came from the stove and sat down, Little Jim slipped over to him. "Dad, are you mad at ma for leavin' us?" he queried.

Big Jim shook his head. "No, Jimmy. Just didn't want to leave her things around, after we had gone. Benson'll be movin' in sometime this week. I sold our place to him."

"The stove and beds and everything?"

"Everything."

Little Jim wrinkled his nose and sniffed. "Them things you put in the stove smell just like brandin' a critter," he said, gesturing toward the kitchen.

Big Jim gazed hard at his young son. Then he smiled to himself, and shook his head. "Just like brandin' a critter," he repeated, half to himself. "Just like brandin' a critter."

CHAPTER II

PANHANDLE

While his friends and neighbors called Jim Hastings "Big Jim," he was no more than average size--compact, vigorous, reared in the Wyoming cattle lands, and typical of the country. He was called Big Jim simply to distinguish him from Little Jim, who was as well known in Laramie as his father. Little Jim, when but five years of age, rode his own pony, jogging alongside his father when they went to town, where he was decidedly popular with the townsfolk because of his sturdy independence and humorous grin.

Little Jim talked horses and cattle and ranching with the grown-ups and took their good-natured joshing philosophically. He seldom retorted hastily, but, rather, blinked his eyes and wrinkled his forehead as he digested this or that pleasantry, and either gave it the indifferent acknowledgment of "Shucks! Think you can josh me?" or, if the occasion and the remark seemed to call for more serious consideration, he rose to it manfully, and often to the embarrassment of the initial speaker.

Little Jim liked to go to town with his father, yet he considered town really a sort of suburb to his real world, the homestead, which he had seen change from a prairie level of unfenced space to a small--and to him--complete kingdom of pasture lot, hayfield, garden, corrals, stable, and house. Town was simply a place to which you went to buy things, get the mail, exchange views on the weather and grazing, and occasionally help the hands load a shipment of cattle. Little Jim helped by sitting on the top rail of the pens and commenting on the individual characteristics of the cattle, and, sometimes, of the men loading them. In such instances he found opportunity to pay off old scores. Incidentally he kept the men in good humor by his lively comment.

Little Jim was six years of age when his mother left to resume her former occupation of waitress in the station restaurant of Laramie, where she had been popular because of her golden hair, her blue eyes, and her ability to "talk back" to the regular customers in a manner which they seemed to enjoy. Big Jim married her when he was not much more than a boy--twenty, in fact; and during the first few years they were happy together. But homesteading failed to supply more than their immediate needs.

Occasional trips to town at first satisfied the wife's craving for the attention and admiration that most men paid to her rather superficial good looks. But as the years slipped by, with no promise of easier conditions, she became dissatisfied, shrewish, and ashamed of her lack of pretty things to wear. Little Jim was, of course, as blind to all this as he was to his need for anything other than his overalls, shoes, and jumper. He thought his mother was pretty and he often told her so.

Meanwhile, Big Jim tried to blind himself to his wife's growing dissatisfaction. He was too much of a man to argue her own short-comings as against his inability to do more for her than he was doing. But when she did leave, with simply a brief note saying that she was tired of it all, and would take care of herself, what hit Big Jim the hardest was the fact that she could give up Little Jim without so much as a word about him. Every one liked Little Jim, and the mother's going proved something that Big Jim had tried to ignore for several years--that his wife cared actually nothing for the boy. When Big Jim finally realized this, his indecision evaporated. He would sell out and try his fortunes in Arizona, where his sister Jane lived, the sister who had never seen Little Jim, but who had often written to Big Jim, inviting him to come and bring his family for a visit.

Big Jim had enough money from the sale of his effects to make the journey by train, even after he had deposited half of the proceeds at the local bank, in his wife's name. But being a true son of the open, he wanted to see the country; so he decided to travel horseback, with a pack-animal. Little Jim, used to the saddle, would find the journey a real adventure. They would take it easy. There was no reason for haste.

It had seemed the simplest thing to do, to sell out, leave that part of the country, and forget what had happened. There was nothing to be gained by staying where they were. Big Jim had lost his interest in the ranch. Moreover, there had been some talk of another man, in Laramie, a man who had "kept company" with Jenny Simpson, before she became Mrs. Jim Hastings. Mrs. Hastings was still young and quite good-looking.

It had seemed a simple thing to do--to leave and begin life over again in another land. But Big Jim had forgotten Smiler. Smiler was a dog of vague ancestry, a rough-coated, yellow dog that belonged solely to Little Jim. Smiler stuck so closely to Little Jim that their shadows were veritably one. Smiler was a sort of chuckle-headed, good-natured animal, meek, so long as Little Jim's prerogatives were not infringed upon, but a cyclone of yellow wrath if Little Jim were approached by any one in other than a friendly spirit. Even when Big Jim "roughed" his small son, in fun, Smiler grew nervous and bristled, and once, when the mother had smacked Little Jim for some offense or other, Smiler had taken sides to the extent of jumping between the mother and the boy, ready to do instant battle if his young partner were struck again.

"I'm afraid we can't take Smiler with us," said Big Jim, as Little Jim scurried about next morning, getting ready for the great adventure.

Little Jim stopped as though he had run against a rope. He had not even dreamed but that Smiler would go with them.

Now, Little Jim had not forgathered with punchers and townsfolk for nothing. He was naturally shrewd, and he did not offer or controvert opinions hastily. He stood holding a bit of old tie-rope in his hand, pondering this last unthinkable development of the situation. Smiler was to be left behind. Jimmy wanted to ask why Smiler could not go. He wanted to assure his father that Smiler would be a help rather than a hindrance to the expedition.

Little Jim knew that if he wept, his father might pay some attention to that sort of plea. But Little Jim did not intend to weep, nor ask questions, nor argue. Smiler stood expectantly watching the preparations. He knew that something important was about to happen, and, with the loyalty of his kind, he was ready to follow, no matter where. Smiler had sniffed the floor of the empty house, the empty stables, the corral. His folks were going somewhere. Well, he was ready.

Little Jim, who had been gazing wistfully at Smiler, suddenly strode to his pack and sat down. He bit his lips. Tears welled to his eyes and drifted slowly down his cheeks. He had not intended to let himself weep--but there was Smiler, wagging his thick tail, waiting to go.

"I g-g-guess you better go ahead and hit the trail, dad."

"Why, that's what we're going to do. What--" Big Jim glanced at his boy. "What's the matter?"

Little Jim did not answer, but his attitude spoke for itself. He had decided to stay with Smiler.

Big Jim frowned. It was the first time that the boy had ever openly rebelled. And because it was the first time, Big Jim realized its significance. Yet, such loyalty, even to a dog, was worth while.

Big Jim put his hand on Little Jim's shoulder. "Smiler'll get sore feet on the trails, Jimmy. And there won't be a whole lot to eat."

Little Jim blinked up at his father. "Well, he can have half of my grub, and I reckon I can pack him on the saddle with me if his feet get tender."

"All right. But don't blame me if Smiler peters out on the trip."

"Smiler's tough, he is!" stated Little Jim. "He's so tough he bites barb wire. Anyhow, you said we was goin' to take it easy. And he can catch rabbits, I guess."

"Perhaps he won't want to come along," suggested Big Jim as he pulled up a cincha and slipped the end through the ring.

Little Jim beckoned to Smiler who had stood solemnly listening to the controversy about himself as though he understood. Smiler trotted over to Jimmy.

"You want to take it plumb easy on this trip," said Little Jim, "and not go to chasin' around and runnin' yourself ragged gettin' nowhere. If you get sore feet, we'll just have to beef you and hang your hide on the fence."

Smiler grinned and wagged his tail. He pushed up and suddenly licked Little Jim's face. Little Jim promptly cuffed him. Smiler came back for more.

Big Jim turned and watched the boy and the dog in their rough-and-tumble about the yard. He blinked and turned back to the horses. "Come on, Jimmy. We're all set."

"Got to throw my pack on ole Lazy, dad. Gimme a hand, will you?"

Little Jim never would admit that he could not do anything there was to be done. When he was stuck he simply asked his father to help him.

Big Jim slung up the small pack and drew down the hitch. Little Jim ducked under Lazy and took the rope on the other side, passing the end to his father.

"Reckon that pack'll ride all right," said the boy, surveying the outfit. "Got the morrals and everything, dad?"

"All set, Jimmy."

"Then let's go. I got my ole twenty-two loaded. If we run on to one of them stingin' lizards, he's sure a sconer. Does dogs eat lizards?"

Big Jim swung to the saddle and hazed the old pack-horse ahead. "Don't know, Jimmy. Sometimes the Indians eat them."

"Eat stingin' lizards?"

"Yep."

"Well, I guess Smiler can, then. Come on, ole-timer!"

Suddenly Little Jim thought of his mother. It seemed that she ought to be with them. Little Jim had wept when Smiler was in question. Now he gazed with clear-eyed faith at his father.

"It ain't our fault ma ain't goin' with us, is it?" he queried timidly.

Big Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"Say, dad, we're headed west. Thought you said we was goin' to Arizona?"

"We'll turn south, after a while."

Little Jim asked no more questions. His father knew everything--why they were going and where. Little Jim glanced back to where Smiler padded along, his tongue out and his eyes already rimmed with dust, for he would insist upon traveling tight to Lazy's heels.

Little Jim leaned back. "Stick it out, ole-timer! But don't you go to cuttin' dad's trail till he gets kind of used to seein' you around. Sabe?"

Smiler grinned through a dust-begrimed countenance. He wagged his tail.

Little Jim plunked his horse in the ribs and drew up beside his father. Little Jim felt big and important riding beside his dad. There had been some kind of trouble at home--and they were leaving it behind. It would be a long trail, and his father sure would need help.

Little Jim drew a deep breath. He wanted to express his unwavering loyalty to his father. He wanted to talk of his willingness to go anywhere and share any kind of luck. But his resolve to speak evaporated in a sigh of satisfaction. This was a real holiday, an adventure. "Smiler's makin' it fine, dad."

But Big Jim did not seem to hear. He was gazing ahead, where in the distance loomed an approaching figure on horseback. Little Jim knew who it was, and was about to say so when his father checked him with a gesture. Little Jim saw his father shift his belt round so that his gun hung handy. He said nothing and showed by no other sign that he had recognized the approaching rider, who came on swiftly, his high-headed pinto fighting the bit.

Within twenty yards of them, the rider reined his horse to a walk. Little Jim saw the two men eye each other closely. The man on the pinto rode past. Little Jim turned to his father.

"I guess Panhandle is goin' to town," said the boy, not knowing just what to say, yet feeling that the occasion called for some remark.

"Panhandle" Sears and his father knew each other. They had passed on the road, neither speaking to the other. And Little Jim was not blind to the significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to hand.

Yet he soon forgot the incident in visioning the future. Arizona, Aunt Jane, and stingin' lizards!

Big Jim rode with head bowed. He was thinking of the man who had just passed them. If it had not been for the boy, Big Jim and that man would have had it out, there on the road. And Jenny Hastings would have been the cause of their quarrel. "Panhandle" Sears had "kept company" with Jenny before she became Big Jim's wife. Now that she had left him--

Big Jim turned and gazed back along the road. A far-away cloud of dust rolled toward the distant town of Laramie.

CHAPTER III

A MINUTE TOO LATE

The Overland, westbound, was late. Nevertheless, it had to stop at Antelope, but it did so grudgingly and left with a snort of disdain for the cow-town of the high mesa. Curious-eyed tourists had a brief glimpse of a loading-chute, cattle-pens, a puncher or two, and an Indian freighter's wagon just pulling in from the spaces, and accompanied by a plodding cavalcade of outriders on paint ponies.

Incidentally the westbound left one of those momentarily interested Easterners on the station platform, without baggage, sense of direction, or companion. He had stepped off the train to send a telegram to a friend in California. He discovered that he had left his address book in his grip. Meanwhile the train had moved forward some sixty yards, to take water. Returning for his address book, he boarded the wrong Pullman, realized his mistake, and hastened on through to his car. Out to the station again--delay in getting the attention of the telegraph operator, the wire finally written--and the Easterner heard the rumble of the train as it pulled out.

Even then he would have made it had it not been for a portly individual in shirt-sleeves who inadvertently blocked the doorway of the telegraph office. Bartley bumped into this portly person, tried to squeeze past, did so, and promptly caromed off the station agent whom he met head on, halfway across the platform. Gazing at the departing train, Bartley reached in his pocket for a cigar which he lighted casually.

The portly individual touched him on the shoulder. "'Nother one, this afternoon."

"Thanks. But my baggage is on that one."

"You're lucky it ain't two sections behind, this time of year. Travel is heavy."

Bartley's quick glance took in the big man from his high-heeled boots to his black Stetson. A cattleman, evidently well to do, and quite evidently not flustered by the mishaps of other folks.

"There's a right comfortable little hotel, just over there," stated the cattleman. "Wishful runs her. It ain't a bad place to wait for your train."

Bartley smiled in spite of his irritation.

The cattleman's eyes twinkled. "You'll be sending a wire to have 'em take care of your war bag. Well, come on in and send her. You can catch Number Eight about Winslow."

The cattleman forged ahead, and in the telegraph office, got the immediate attention of the operator, who took Bartley's message.

The cattleman paid for it. "'Tain't the first time my size has cost me money," he said, as Bartley protested. "Now, let's go over and get another cigar. Then we can mill around and see Wishful. You'll like Wishful. He's different."

They strode down the street and stopped in at a saloon where the cattleman called for cigars. Bartley noticed that the proprietor of the place addressed the big cattleman as "Senator."

"This here is a dry climate, and a cigar burns up right quick, if you don't moisten it a little," said the cattleman. "I 'most always moisten mine."

Bartley grinned. "I think the occasion calls for it, Senator."

"Oh, shucks! Just call me Steve--Steve Brown. And just give us a little Green River Tom."

A few minutes later Bartley and his stout companion were seated on the veranda of the hotel, gazing out across the mesas. They were both comfortable, and quite content to watch the folk go past, out there in the heat. Bartley wondered if the title "Senator" were a nickname, or if the portly gentleman placidly smoking his cigar and gazing into space was really a politician.

A dusty cow-puncher drifted past the hotel, waving his hand to the Senator, who replied genially. A little later a Navajo buck rode up on a quick-stepping pony. He grunted a salutation and said something in his native tongue. The Senator replied in kind. Bartley was interested. Presently the Navajo dug his heels into his pony's ribs, and clattered up the road.

The Senator turned to Bartley. "Politics and cattle," he said, smiling.

Having learned the Senator's vocation, Bartley gave his own as briefly. The Senator nodded.

"It is as obvious as all that, then?" queried Bartley.

"I wouldn't say that," stated the Senator carefully. "But after you bumped into me, and then stepped into the agent, and then turned around and took in my scenery, noticin' the set of my legs, I says to myself, 'painter-man or writer.' It was kind of in your eye. I figured you wa'n't no painter-man when you looked at the oil paintin' over the bar.

"A painter-man would 'a' looked sad or said somethin', for that there paintin' is the most gosh-awful picture of what a puncher might look like after a cyclone had hit him. I took a painter-man in there once, to get a drink. He took one look at that picture, and then he says, kind of sorrowful: 'Is this the only place in town where they serve liquor?' I told him it was. 'Let's go over and tackle the pump,' he says. But we had our drink. I told him just to turn his back on that picture when he took his."

"I might be anything but a writer," said Bartley.

"That's correct. But you ain't."

"You hit the nail on the head. However, I can't just follow your line of reasoning it out."

"Easy. Elimination. Now a tourist, regular, stares at folks and things. But a painter or writer he takes things in without starin'. There's some difference. I knew you were a man who did things. It's in your eye."

"Well," laughed Bartley, "I took you for a cattleman the minute I saw you."

"Which was a minute too late, eh?"

"I don't know about that. Since I've been sitting here looking at the mesa and those wonderful buttes over there, and watching the natives come and go, I have begun to feel that I don't care so much about that train, after all. I like this sort of thing. You see, I planned to visit California, but there was nothing definite about the plan. I chose California because I had heard so much about it. It doesn't matter much where I go. By the way, my name is Bartley."

"I'm Steve Brown--cattle and politics. I tell you, Mr. Bartley--"

"Suppose you say just Bartley?"

The Senator chuckled. "Suppose I said 'Green River'?"

"I haven't an objection in the world," laughed Bartley.

"Wishful, here, don't keep liquor," explained the Senator. "And he's right about that. Folks that stay at this hotel want to sleep nights."

The Senator heaved himself out of his chair, stood up, and stretched.

"I reckon you'll be wantin' to see all you can of this country. My ranch lays just fifty miles south of the railroad, and not a fence from here to there. Then, there's them Indians, up north a piece. And over yonder is where they dig up them prehistoric villages. And those buttes over there used to be volcanoes, before they laid off the job. To the west is the petrified forest. I made a motion once, when the Legislature was in session, to have that forest set aside as a buryin'-ground for politicians,--State Senators and the like,--but they voted me down. They said I didn't specify dead politicians.

"South of my place is the Apache reservation. There's good huntin' in that country. 'Course, Arizona ain't no Garden of Eden to some folks. Two kinds of folks don't love this State a little bit'--homesteaders and tourists. But when it comes to cattle and sheep and mines, you can't beat her. She sure is the Tiger Lily of the West. But let's step over and see Tom. Excuse me a minute. There's a constituent who has somethin' on his chest. I'll meet you at the station."

The Senator stepped out and talked with his constituent. Meanwhile, Bartley turned to gaze down the street. A string of empty freight wagons, followed by a lazy cloud of dust, rolled slowly toward town. Here and there a bit of red showed in the dun mass of riders that accompanied the wagons. A gay-colored blanket flickered in the sun. The mesas radiated keen dry heat.

Bartley turned and crossed over to the station. He blinked the effects of the white light from his eyes as he entered the telegraph office. The operator, in shirt-sleeves, and smoking a brown-paper cigarette, nodded and handed Bartley a service message stating that his effects would be carried to Los Angeles and held for further orders.

"It's sure hot," said the operator. "Did you want to send another wire?"

Bartley shook his head. "Who is that stout man I bumped into trying to catch my train?"

"That's Senator Steve Brown--State Senator. Thought you knew him."

"No. I just met him to-day."

The operator slumped down in his chair.

Bartley strode to the door and blinked in the Arizona sunshine. "By George!" he murmured, "I always thought they wore those big Stetsons for show. But all day in this sun--guess I'll have to have one."

CHAPTER IV

"A LITTLE GREEN RIVER"

To suddenly stop off at a cow-town station, without baggage or definite itinerary, was unconventional, to say the least. Bartley was amused and interested. Hitherto he had written more or less conventional stuff--acceptable stories of the subway, the slums, the docks, and the streets of Eastern cities. But now, as he strode over to the saloon, he forgot that he was a writer of stories. A boyish longing possessed him to see much of the life roundabout, even to the farthest, faint range of hills--and beyond.

He felt that while he still owed something to his original plan of visiting California, he could do worse than stay right where he was. He had thought of wiring to have his baggage sent back. Then it occurred to him that, aside from his shaving-kit and a few essentials, his baggage comprised but little that he could use out here in the mesa country. And he felt a certain relief in not having trunks to look after. Outing flannels and evening clothes would hardly fit into the present scheme of things. The local store would furnish him all that he needed. In this frame of mind he entered the Blue Front Saloon where he found Senator Steve and his foreman seated at a side table discussing the merits of "Green River."

"Hello!" called the Senator. "Mr. Bartley, meet my foreman, Lon Pelly."

They shook hands.

"Lon says the source of Green River is Joy in the Hills," asserted the Senator, smiling.

The long, lean cow-puncher grinned. "Steve, here, says the source of Green River is trouble."

"Now, as a writin' man, what would you say?" queried the Senator.

Bartley gazed at the label on the bottle under discussion. "Well, as a writer, I might say that it depends how far you travel up or down Green River. But as a mere individual enjoying the blessings of companionship, I should say, let's experiment, judiciously."

"Fetch a couple more glasses, Tom," called the Senator.

After the essential formalities, Bartley pushed back his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and lighted a cigar. "I'm rather inclined toward that Joy in the Hills theory, just now," he asserted.

"That's all right," said Lon Pelly. "Bein' a little inclined don't hurt any. But if you keep on reachin' for Joy, your foot is like to slip. Then comes Trouble."

"Lon's qualified for the finals once or twice," said the Senator. "Now, take me, for a horrible example. I been navigatin' Green River, off and on, for quite a spell, and I never got hung up bad."

"Speaking of rivers, they're rather scarce in this country, I believe," said Bartley.

"Yes. But some of 'em are noticeable in the rainy season," stated Senator Steve. "But you ain't seen Arizona. You've only been peekin' through your fingers at her. Wait till you get on a cayuse and hit the trail for a few hundred miles--that's the only way to see the country. Now, take 'Cheyenne.' He rides this here country from Utah to the border, and he can tell you somethin' about Arizona.

"Cheyenne is a kind of hobo puncher that rides the country with his little old pack-horse, stoppin' by to work for a grubstake when he has to, but ramblin' most of the time. He used to be a top-hand once. Worked for me a spell. But he can't stay in one place long. Wish you could meet him sometime. He can tell you more about this State than any man I know. He's what you might call a character for a story. He stops by regular, at the ranch, mebby for a day or two, and then takes the trail, singin' his little old song. He's kind of a outdoor poet. Makes up his own songs."

"What was that one about Arizona that you gave 'em over to the State House onct?" queried Lon Pelly.

"Oh, that wa'n't Cheyenne's own po'try. It was one he read in a magazine that he gave me. Let's see--

"Arizona! The tramp of cattle,
The biting dust and the raw, red brand:
Shuffling sheep and the smoke of battle:
The upturned face--and the empty hand.
"Dawn and dusk, and the wide world singing,
Songs that thrilled with the pulse of life,
As we clattered down with our rein chains ringing
To woo you--but never to make you wife."

The Senator smiled a trifle apologetically. "There's more of it. But po'try ain't just in my line. Once in a while I bust loose on po'try--that is, my kind of po'try. And I want to say that we sure clattered down from the Butte and the Blue in the old days, with our rein chains jinglin', thinkin'--some of us--that Arizona was ours to fare-ye-well.

"But we old-timers lived to find out that Arizona was too young to get married yet; so we just had to set back and kind of admire her, after havin' courted her an amazin' lot, in our young days." The Senator chuckled. "Now, Lon, here, he'll tell you that there ain't no po'try in this here country. And I never knew they was till I got time to set back and think over what we unbranded yearlin's used to do."

"For instance?" queried Bartley.

Senator Steve waved his pudgy hand as though shooing a flock of chickens off a front lawn. "If I was to tell you some of the things that happened, you would think I was a heap sight bigger liar than I am. Seein' some of them yarns in print, folks around this country would say: 'Steve Brown's corralled some tenderfoot and loaded him to the muzzle with shin tangle and ancient history!' Things that would seem amazin' to you would never ruffle the hair of the mavericks that helped make this country."

"This country ain't all settled yet," said the foreman, rising. "Reckon I'll step along, Steve."

After the foreman had departed, Bartley turned to the Senator. "Are there many more like him, out here?"

"Who, Lon? Well, a few. He's been foreman for me quite a spell. Lon he thinks. And that's more than I ever did till after I was thirty. And Lon ain't twenty-six, yet."

"I think I'll step over to the drug-store and get a few things," said Bartley.

"So you figure to bed down at the hotel, eh?"

"Yes. For a few days, at least. I want to get over the idea that I have to take the next train West before I make any further plans."

The Senator accompanied Bartley to the drug-store. The Easterner bought what he needed in the way of shaving-kit and brush and comb. The Senator excused himself and crossed the street to talk to a friend. The afternoon sun slanted across the hot roofs, painting black shadows on the dusty street. Bartley found Wishful, the proprietor, and told him that he would like to engage a room with a bath.

Wishful smiled never a smile as he escorted Bartley to a room.

"I'll fetch your bath up, right soon," he said solemnly.

Presently Wishful appeared with a galvanized iron washtub and a kettle of boiling water. Bartley thanked him.

"You can leave 'em out in the hall when you're through," said Wishful.

Bartley enjoyed a refreshing bath and rub-down. Later he set the kettle and tub out in the dim hallway. Then he sat down and wrote a letter to his friend in California, explaining his change of plan. The afternoon sunlight waned. Bartley gazed out across the vast mesas, lavender-hued and wonderful, as they darkened to blue, then to purple that was shot with strange half-lights from the descending sun.

Suddenly a giant hand seemed to drop a canopy over the vista, and it was night. Bartley lighted the oil lamp and sat staring out into the darkness. From below came the rattle of dishes. Presently Bartley heard heavy, deliberate footsteps ascending the stairway. Then a clanging crash and a thud, right outside his door. He flung the door open. Senator Steve was rising from the flattened semblance of a washtub and feeling of himself tenderly. The Senator blinked, surveyed the wrecked tub and the kettle silently, and then without comment he stepped back and kicked the kettle. It soared and dropped clanging into the hall below.

Wishful appeared at the foot of the stairs. "Did you ring, Senator?"

"Yes, I did! And I'm goin' to ring again."

"Hold on!" said Wishful, "I'll come up and get the tub. I got the kettle."

The Senator puffed into Bartley's room and sat on the edge of the bed. He wiped his bald head, smiling cherubically. "Did you hear him, askin' me, a member of the Society for the Prevention of Progress, if I rang for him! That's about all the respect I command in this community. I sure want to apologize for not stoppin' to knock," added the Senator.

Bartley grinned. "It was hardly necessary. I heard you."

"I just came up to see if you would take dinner with me and my missus. We're goin' to eat right soon. You see, my missus never met up with a real, live author."

"Thanks, Senator. I'll be glad to meet your family. But suppose you forget that author stuff and just take me as a tenderfoot out to see the sights. I'll like it better."

"Why, sure! And while the House is in session, I might rise to remark that I can't help bein' called 'Senator,' because I'm guilty. But, honest, I always feel kinder toward my fellow-bein's who call me just plain 'Steve.'"

"All right. I'll take your word for it."

"Don't you take my word for anything. How do you know but I might be tryin' to sell you a gold mine?"

"I think the risk would be about even," said Bartley.

The Senator chuckled. "I just heard Wishful lopin' down the hall with his bathin' outfit, so I guess the right of way is clear again. And there goes the triangle--sounds like the old ranch, that triangle. You see, Wishful used to be a cow-hand, and lots of cow-hands stop at this hotel when they're in town. That triangle sounds like home to 'em. I'm stoppin' here myself. But I got a real bathroom out to the ranch. Let's go down and look at some beef on the plate."

CHAPTER V

"TOP HAND ONCE"

Bartley happened to be alone on the veranda of the Antelope House that evening. Senator Brown and his "missus" had departed for their ranch. Mrs. Senator Brown had been a bit diffident when first meeting Bartley, but he soon put her at her ease with some amusing stories of Eastern experiences. The dinner concluded with an invitation from Mrs. Brown that anticipated Bartley visiting the ranch and staying as long as he wished. The day following the Senator's departure Bartley received a telegram from his friend in California, wishing him good luck and a pleasant journey in the Arizona country. The friend would see to Bartley's baggage, as Bartley had forwarded the claim checks in his letter.

The town was quiet and the stars were serenely brilliant. The dusty, rutted road past the hotel, dim gray in the starlight, muffled the tread of an occasional Navajo pony passing in the faint glow of light from the doorway. Bartley was content with things as he found them, just then. But he knew that he would eventually go away from there--from the untidy town, the railroad, the string of box-cars on the siding, and seek the new, the unexpected, an experience to be had only by kicking loose from convention and stepping out for himself. He thought of writing a Western story. He realized that all he knew of the West was from hearsay, and a brief contact with actual Westerners. He would do better to go out in the fenceless land and live a story, and then write it. And better still, he would let chance decide where and when he would go.

His first intimation that chance was in his vicinity was the distant, faint cadence of a song that floated over the night-black mesa from the north. Presently he heard the soft, muffled tread of horses and a distinct word or two of the song. He leaned forward, interested, amused, alert. The voice was a big voice, mellowed by distance. There was a take-it-or-leave-it swing to the melody that suggested the singer's absolute oblivion to anything but the joy of singing. Again the plod, plod of the horses, and then:

I was top-hand once for the T-Bar-T,
In the days of long ago,
But I took to seein' the scenery
Where the barbed-wire fence don't grow.
I was top-hand once--but the trail for mine,
And plenty of room to roam;
So now I'm ridin' the old chuck line,
And any old place is home ... for me ...
And any old place is home.

Bartley grinned. Whoever he was, drifting in from the northern spaces, he had evidently lost the pack-horse that bore his troubles. Suddenly, out of the wall of dusk that edged the strip of road loomed a horse's head, and then another. The lead horse bore a pack. The second horse was ridden by an individual who leaned slightly forward, his hands clasped comfortably over the saddle horn. The horses stopped in the light of the doorway.

"Well, I reckon we're here," said a voice. "But hotels and us ain't in the same class. I stop at the Antelope House, take a look at her, and then spread my roll in the brush, same as always. Nobody to home? They don't know what they're missin'."

Bartley struck a match and lighted his cigar. The pack-horse jerked its head up.

"Hello, stranger! Now I didn't see you settin' there."

"Good-evening! But why 'stranger' when you say you can't see me?"

"Why? 'Cause everybody knows me, and you didn't whoop when I rode up. Me, I'm Cheyenne, from no place, and likewise that's where I'm goin'. This here town of Antelope got in the way--towns is always gittin' in my way--but nobody can help that. Is Wishful bedded down for the night or is he over to the Blue Front shootin' craps?"

"I couldn't say. I seem to be the only one around here, just now."

"That sure excuses me and the hosses. Wishful is down to the Blue Front, all right. It's the only exercise he gets, regular." Cheyenne pushed back the brim of his faded black Stetson and sighed heavily. Bartley caught a glimpse of a face as care-free as that of a happy child--the twinkle of humorous eyes and a flash of white teeth as the other grinned. "Reckon you never heard tell of me," said the rider, hooking his leg over the horn.

I just arrived yesterday. I have not heard of you--but I heard you down the road, singing. I like that song."

"One of my own. Yes, I come into town singin' and I go out singin'. 'Course, we eat, when it's handy. Singin' sure keeps a fellow's appetite from goin' to sleep. Guess I'll turn the hosses into Wishful's corral and go find him. Reckon you had your dinner."

"Several hours ago."

"Well, I had mine this mornin'. The dinner I had this mornin' was the one I ought to had day before yesterday. But I aim to catch up--and mebby get ahead a couple of eats, some day. But the hosses get theirs, regular. Come on, Filaree, we'll go prospect the sleepin'-quarters."

Bartley sat back and smiled to himself as Cheyenne departed for the corral. This wayfarer, breezing in from the spaces, suggested possibilities as a character for a story No doubt the song was more or less autobiographical. "A top-hand once, but the trail for mine," seemed to explain the singer's somewhat erratic dinner schedule. Bartley thought that he would like to see more of this strange itinerant, who sang both coming into and going out of town.

Presently Cheyenne was back, singing something about a Joshua tree as he came.

He stopped at the veranda rail. His smile was affable. "Guess I'll go over and hunt up Wishful. I reckon you'll have to excuse me for not refusin' to accompany you to the Blue Front to get a drink."

Bartley was puzzled. "Would you mind saying that again?"

"Sure I don't mind. I thought, mebby, you bein' a stranger, settin' there alone and lookin' at the dark, that you was kind of lonesome. I said I reckoned you'd have to excuse me for not refusin' to go over to the Blue Front and take a drink."

"I think I get you. I'll buy. I'll try anything, once."

Cheyenne grinned. "I kind of hate to drink alone, 'specially when I'm broke."

Bartley grinned in turn. "So do I. I suppose it is all right to leave. The door is wide open and there doesn't seem to be any one in charge.

"She sure is an orphan, to-night. But, honest, Mr.--"

"Bartley."

"Mr. Bartley, nobody'd ever think of stealin' anything from Wishful. Everybody likes Wishful 'round here. And strangers wouldn't last long that tried to lift anything from his tepee. That is, not any longer than it would take Wishful to pull a gun--and that ain't long."

"If he caught them."

"Caught 'em? Say, stranger, how far do you think a man could travel out of here, before somebody'd get him? Anyhow, Wishful ain't got nothin' in his place worth stealin'."

"Wishful doesn't look very warlike," said Bartley.

"Nope. That's right. He looks kind of like he'd been hit on the roof and hadn't come to, yet. But did you ever see him shoot craps?"

"No."

"Then you've got somethin' comin', besides buyin' me a drink."

Bartley laughed as he stepped down to the road. Bartley, a fair-sized man, was surprised to realize that the other was all of a head taller than himself. Cheyenne had not looked it in the saddle.

"Are you acquainted with Senator Brown?" queried Bartley as he strode along beside the stiff-gaited outlander.

Cheyenne stopped and pushed back his hat. "Senator Steve Brown? Say, pardner, me and Steve put this here country on the map. If kings was in style, Steve would be wearin' a crown. Why, last election I wore out a pair of jeans lopin' around this here country campaignin' for Steve. See this hat? Steve give me this hat--a genuwine J.B., the best they make. Inside he had printed on the band, in gold, 'From Steve to Cheyenne, hoping it will always fit.' Do I know Steve Brown? Next time you see him just ask him about Cheyenne Hastings."

"I met the Senator, yesterday. Come to think of it, he did mention your name--'Cheyenne--and said you knew the country."

"Was you lookin' for a guide, mebby?"

"Well, not exactly. But I hope to see something of Arizona."

"Uh-huh. Well, I travel alone, mostly. But right now I'm flat broke. If you was headin' south--"

"I expect to visit Mr. and Mrs. Brown some day. Their ranch is south of here, I believe."

"Yep. Plumb south, on the Concho road. I'm ridin' down that way."

"Well, we will talk about it later," said Bartley as they entered the saloon.

With a few exceptions, the men in the place were grouped round a long table, in the far end of the room, at the head of which stood Wishful evidently about to make a throw with the dice. No one paid the slightest attention to the arrival of Bartley and his companion, with the exception of the proprietor, who nodded to Bartley and spoke a word of greeting to Cheyenne.

Bartley did the honors which included a sandwich and a glass of beer for Cheyenne, who leaned with his elbow on the bar gazing at the men around the table. Out of the corner of his eye Bartley saw the proprietor touch Cheyenne's arm and, leaning across the bar, whisper something to him. Cheyenne straightened up and seemed to be adjusting his belt. Bartley caught a name: "Panhandle." He turned and glanced at Cheyenne.

The humorous expression had faded from Cheyenne's face and in its stead there was a sort of grim, speculative line to the mouth, and no twinkle in the blue eyes. Bartley stepped over to the long table and watched the game. Craps, played by these free-handed sons of the open, had more of a punch than he had imagined possible. A pile of silver and bills lay on the table--a tidy sum--no less than two hundred dollars.

Wishful, the sad-faced, seemed to be importuning some one by the name of "Jimmy Hicks" to make himself known, as the dice rattled across the board. The players laughed as Wishful relinquished the dice. A lean outlander, with a scarred face, took up the dice and made a throw. He evidently did not want to locate an individual called "Little Joe," whom he importuned incessantly to stay away.

Side bets were made and bills and silver withdrawn or added to the pile with a rapidity which amazed Bartley. Hitherto craps had meant to him three or four newsboys in an alley and a little pile of nickels and pennies. But this game was of robust proportions. It had pep and speed.

Bartley became interested. His fingers itched to grasp the dice and try his luck. But he realized that his amateurish knowledge of the game would be an affront to those free-moving sons of the mesa. So he contented himself with watching the game and the faces of the men as they won or lost. Bartley felt that some one was close behind him looking over his shoulder. Cheyenne's eyes were fixed on the player known as "Panhandle," and on no other person at that table. Bartley turned back to the game.

Just then some one recognized Cheyenne and spoke his name. The game stopped and Bartley saw several of the men glance curiously from Cheyenne to the man known as "Panhandle." Then the game was resumed, but it was a quieter game. One or two of the players withdrew.

"Play a five for me," said Bartley, turning to Cheyenne.

"I'll do that--fifty-fifty," said Cheyenne as Bartley stepped back and handed him a bill.

Cheyenne straightway elbowed deeper into the group and finally secured the dice. Wishful, for some unknown reason, remarked that he would back Cheyenne to win--"shootin' with either hand," Wishful concluded. Bartley noticed that again one or two players withdrew and strolled to the bar. Meanwhile, Cheyenne threw and sang a little song to himself.

His throws were wild, careless, and lucky. Slowly he accumulated easy wealth. His forehead was beaded with sweat. His eyes glistened. He forgot his song. Bartley stepped over to the bar and chatted for a few minutes with the proprietor, mentioning Senator Steve and his wife.

When Bartley returned to the game the players had dwindled to a small group--'Wishful, the man called "Panhandle," a fat Mexican, a railroad engineer, and Cheyenne.

Bartley turned to a bystander.

"Cheyenne seems to be having all the luck," he said.

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"Never saw him until to-night."

"He ain't as lucky as you think," stated the other significantly.

"How is that?"

"Panhandle, the man with the scar on his face, ain't no friend of Cheyenne's."

"Oh, I see."

Bartley turned from the man, and watched the players. Wishful had withdrawn from the game, but he stood near the table, watching closely. Presently the fat Mexican quit playing and left. Cheyenne threw and won. He played as though the dice were his and he was giving an exhibition for the benefit of the other players. Finally the engineer quit, and counted his winnings. Cheyenne and the man, Panhandle, faced each other, with Bartley standing close to Cheyenne and Wishful, who had moved around the table, standing close to Panhandle.

Panhandle took up the dice. There was no joy in his play. He shot the dice across the table viciously. Every throw was a, sort of insidious insult to his competitor, Cheyenne. Bartley was more interested in the performance than the actual winning or losing, although he realized that Cheyenne was still a heavy winner.

Presently Wishful stepped over to Bartley and touched his arm. Panhandle and Cheyenne were intent upon their game.

"You kin see better from that side of the table," said Wishful mildly, yet with a peculiar significance.

Bartley glanced up, his face expressing bewilderment.

"I seen you slip Cheyenne a bill," murmured Wishful. "Accordin' to that, you're backin' him. Thought I'd just mention it."

"I don't understand what you're driving at," said Bartley.

"That's just why I spoke to you." And Wishful's face expressed a sort of sad wonder. But then, the Easterner had not been in town long and he did not know Panhandle.

Wishful turned away casually. Bartley noticed that he again took up his position near Panhandle.

This time Panhandle glanced up and asked Wishful if he didn't want to come into the game.

Wishful shook his head. "No use tryin' to bust his luck," he said, indicating Cheyenne.

"Oh, I don't know," said Panhandle.

"And he's got good backin'," continued Wishful.

Panhandle slanted a narrow glance toward Bartley, and Bartley felt that the other had somehow or other managed to convey an insult and a challenge in that glance, which suggested the contempt of the tough Westerner for the supposedly tender Easterner.

Bartley did not know just what was on the boards, aside from dice and money, but he took Wishful's hint and moved around to Panhandle's side of the table, leaving Cheyenne facing his competitor alone. Bartley happened to catch Cheyenne's eye. The happy-go-lucky expression was gone. Cheyenne's face seemed troubled, yet he played with his former vigor and luck.

Panhandle posed insolently, his thumb in his belt, watching the dice. He was all but broke. Cheyenne kept rolling the bones, but now he evoked no aid from the gods of African golf. His lips were set in a thin line.

Suddenly he tossed up the dice, caught them and transferred them to his right hand. Hitherto he had been shooting with his left. "I'll shoot you, either hand," he said.

"And win," murmured Wishful.

Panhandle whirled and confronted Wishful. "I don't see any of your money on the table," he snarled.

"I'll come in--on the next game," stated Wishful mildly.

Panhandle's last dollar was on the table. He reached forward and drew a handful of bills from the pile and counted them. "Fifty," he said; "fifty against the pot that you don't make your next throw."

"Suits me," said Cheyenne, picking up the dice and shaking them.

Cheyenne threw and won on the third try. Panhandle reached toward the pile of money again.

Cheyenne, who had not picked up the dice, stopped him. "You can't play on that money," he stated tensely. "Half of it belongs to Mr. Bartley, there."

"What have you got to say about it," challenged Panhandle, turning to Bartley.

"Half of the money on the table is mine, according to agreement. I backed Cheyenne to win."

"No dam' tenderfoot can tell me where to head in!" exclaimed Panhandle. "Go on and shoot, you yella-bellied waddie!" And Panhandle reached toward the money.

"Just a minute," said Bartley quietly. "The game is finished."

"Take your mouth out of this, you dam' dude!"

"Put your gun on the table--and then tell me that," said Bartley.

Panhandle lowered his hand to his gun, hesitated, and then whirling, slapped Bartley's face.

Wishful, the silent, jerked out his own gun and rapped Panhandle on the head. Panhandle dropped in a heap.

It had happened so quickly that Bartley hardly realized what had happened. Panhandle was on the floor, literally down and out. Bartley was surprised that such an apparently light tap on the head should put a man out.

"Get him out of here," said Tom, the proprietor. "I don't want any rough stuff in here. And if I were in your boots, Cheyenne, I'd leave town for a while."

"I'm leavin' to-morrow mornin'." Cheyenne was coolly counting his winnings.

Wishful, the silent, doused a glass of water in Panhandle's face. Presently Panhandle was revived and helped from the saloon. His former attitude of belligerency had entirely evaporated. Wishful followed him to the hitch-rail and saw him mount his horse.

"Your best bet is to fan it back where you come from, and stay there," said Wishful softly. "You don't belong in this town, and you can't go slappin' any of my guests in the face and get away with it. And when you git so you can think it over, just figure that if I hadn't 'a' slowed you down, Cheyenne would 'a' killed you."

Panhandle did not feel like discussing the question just then. He left without even turning to glance back. If he had glanced back, he would have seen that Wishful had disappeared. Wishful, familiar with the ways of Panhandle and his kind, immediately sought the shadows, leaving the lighted doorway a blank. He entered the saloon from the rear.

Cheyenne was endeavoring to make Bartley take half of the winnings. "You staked me--and it's fifty-fifty, pardner," insisted Cheyenne.

Finally Bartley accepted his share of the money and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Now I can get back at you," stated Cheyenne, gesturing toward the bar.

His gesture included both Wishful and Bartley. Bartley, a bit shaken, accepted the invitation. Wishful, not at all shaken, but rather a bit more silent and melancholy than heretofore, also accepted.

Alone in his room at the hotel, Bartley wondered what would have happened if Wishful had not rapped Panhandle on the head. Bartley recalled the fact that he had drawn back his arm, intending to take one good punch at Panhandle, even if it were his last. But Panhandle had crumpled down suddenly, silently, and Wishful had stood over him, gazing down speculatively and swinging his gun back and forth before he returned it to the holster. "They move quick, in this country," thought Bartley. "And speaking of material for a story--" Then he smiled.

Somewhere out on the mesa Cheyenne had spread his bed-roll and was no doubt sleeping peacefully. Bartley shook his head. He had been in Antelope but two days and yet it seemed that months had passed since he had stepped from the westbound train to telegraph to his friend in California. Incidentally, he decided to purchase an automatic pistol.

CHAPTER VI

A HORSE-TRADE

When Bartley came down to breakfast next morning he noticed two horses tied at the hitch-rail in front of the hotel. One of the horses, a rather stocky gray, bore a pack. The other, a short-coupled, sturdy buckskin, was saddled. Evidently Cheyenne was trying to catch up with his dinner schedule, for as Bartley entered the dining-room he saw him, sitting face to face with a high stack of flapjacks, at the base of which reposed two fried eggs among some curled slivers of bacon.

Two railroad men, a red-eyed Eastern tourist who looked as though he had not slept for a week, a saturnine cattleman in from the mesas, and two visiting ladies from an adjacent town comprised the tale of guests that morning. As Bartley came in the guests glanced at him curiously. They had heard of the misunderstanding at the Blue Front.

Cheyenne immediately rose and offered Bartley a chair at his table. The two women, alone at their table, immediately became subdued and watchful. They were gazing their first upon an author. Wishful had made the fact known, with some pride. The ladies, whom Cheyenne designated as "cow-bunnies,"---or wives of ranchers,--were dressed in their "best clothes," and were trying to live up to them. They had about finished breakfast, and shortly after Bartley was seated they rose. On their way out they stopped at Cheyenne's table.

"Don't forget to stop by when you ride our way," said one of the women.

Bartley noticed the toil-worn hands, and the lines that hard work and worry had graven in her face. Her "best clothes" rather accentuated these details. But back of it all he sensed the resolute spirit of the West, resourceful, progressive, large-visioned.

"Meet Mr. Bartley," said Cheyenne unexpectedly.

Which was just what the two women had been itching to do. Bartley rose and shook hands with them.

"A couple of lady friends of mine," said Cheyenne when they had gone.

Cheyenne made no mention of the previous evening's game, or its climax. Yet Bartley had gathered from Wishful that Panhandle Sears and Cheyenne had an unsettled quarrel between them.

In the hotel office Cheyenne purchased cigars and proffered Bartley a half-dozen. Bartley took one. Cheyenne seemed disappointed. When cigars were going round, it seemed strange not to take full advantage of the circumstance. As they stepped out to the veranda, the horses recognized Cheyenne and nickered gently.

"Going south?" queried Bartley.

"That's me. I got the silver changed to bills and some of the bills changed to grub. I reckon I'll head south. Kind of wish you was headed that way."

Bartley bit the end from his cigar and lighted it, as he gazed out across the morning mesa. A Navajo buck loped past and jerked his little paint horse to a stop at the drug-store.

Cheyenne, pulling up a cinch, smiled at Bartley.

"That Injun was in a hurry till he got here. And he'll be in a hurry, leavin'. But you notice how easy he takes it right now. Injuns has got that dignity idea down fine."

"Did he come in for medicine, perhaps?"

"Mebby. But most like he's after chewin'-gum for his squaw, and cigarettes for himself, with a bottle of red pop on the side. Injuns always buy red pop."

"Cigarettes and chewing-gum?"

"Sure thing! Didn't you ever see a squaw chew gum and smoke a tailor-made cigarette at the same time? You didn't, eh? Well, then, you got somethin' comin'."

"Romance!" laughed Bartley.

"Ever sleep in a Injun hogan?" queried Cheyenne as he busied himself adjusting the pack.

"No. This is my first trip West."

"I was forgettin'. Well, I ain't what you'd call a dude, but, honest, if I was prospectin' round lookin' for Injun romance I'd use a pair of field-glasses. Injuns is all right if you're far enough up wind from 'em."

"When do you start?" asked Bartley.

"Oh, 'most any time. And that's when I'll get there."

"Well, give my regards to Senator Brown and his wife, if you happen to see them."

"Sure thing! I'm on my way. You know--

"I was top-hand once--but the trail for mine:
Git along, cayuse, git along!
But now I'm ridin' the old chuck line,
Feedin' good and a-feelin' fine:
Oh, some folks eat and some folks dine,
Git along, cayuse, git along!"

Bartley smiled. Here was the real hobo, the irrepressible absolute. Cheyenne stepped up and swung to the saddle with the effortless ease of the old hand. Bartley noticed that the pack-horse had no lead-rope, nor had he been tied. Bartley did not know that Filaree, the pack-horse, would never let Joshua, the saddle-horse, out of his sight. They had traveled the Arizona trails together for years.

In spite of his happy-go-lucky indifference to persons and events, Cheyenne had a sort of intuitive shrewdness in reading humans. And he read in Bartley's glance a half-awakened desire to outfit and hit the trail himself. But Cheyenne departed without suggesting any such idea. Every man for himself was his motto. "And as for me," he added, aloud:

Seems like I don't git anywhere,
Git along, cayuse, git along;
But we're leavin' here and we're goin' there:
Git along, cayuse, git along!
With little ole Josh that steps right free,
And my ole gray pack-hoss, Filaree,
The world ain't got no rope on me:
Git along, cayuse, git along!

Bartley watched him as he crossed the railroad tracks and turned down a side street.

Back in his room Bartley paced up and down, keeping time to the tune of Cheyenne's trail song. The morning sun poured down upon the station roof opposite, and danced flickering across the polished tracks of the railroad. Presently Bartley stopped pacing his room and stood at the window. Far out across the mesa he saw a rider, drifting along in the sunshine, followed by a gray pack-horse.

"By George!" exclaimed Bartley. "He may be a sort of wandering joke to the citizens of this State, but he's doing what he wants to do, and that's more than I'm doing. Just fifty miles to Senator Brown's ranch. Drop in and see us. As the chap in Denver said when he wrote to his friend in El Paso: 'Drop into Denver some evening and I'll show you the sights.' Distance? Negligible. Time? An inconsequent factor. Big stuff! As for me, I think I'll go downstairs and interview the pensive Wishful."

Wishful had the Navajo blankets and chairs piled up in the middle of the hotel office and was thoughtfully sweeping out cigar ashes, cigarette stubs, and burned matches. Wishful, besides being proprietor of the Antelope House, was chambermaid, baggage-wrangler, clerk, advertising manager, and, upon occasion, waiter in his own establishment. And he kept a neat place.

Bartley walked over to the desk. Wishful kept on sweeping. Bartley glanced at the signatures on the register. Near the bottom of the page he found Cheyenne's name, and opposite it "Arizona."

"Where does Cheyenne belong, anyway?" queried Bartley.

Wishful stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. "Wherever he happens to be." And Wishful sighed and began sweeping again.

"What sort of traveling companion would he make?"

Wishful stopped sweeping. His melancholy gaze was fixed on a defunct cigar. "Never heard either of his hosses object to his company," he replied.

Bartley grinned and glanced up and down the register. Wishful dug into a corner with his broom. Something shot rattling across the floor. Wishful laid down the broom and upon hands and knees began a search. Presently he rose. A slow smile illumined his face. He had found a pair of dice in the litter on the floor. He made a throw, shook his head, and picked up the dice. His sweeping became more sprightly. Amused by the preoccupation of the lank and cautiously humorous Wishful, Bartley touched the bell on the desk. Wishful promptly stood his broom against the wall, rolled down his sleeves, and stepped behind the counter.

"I think I'll pay my bill," said Bartley.

Wishful promptly named the amount. Bartley proffered a ten-dollar bill.

Wishful searched in the till for change. He shook his head. "You got two dollars comin'," he stated.

"I'll shake you for that two dollars," said Bartley.

Wishful's tired eyes lighted up. "You said somethin'." And he produced the dice.

Just then the distant "Zoom" of the westbound Overland shook the silence. Wishful hesitated, then gestured magnificently toward space. What was the arrival of a mere train, with possibly a guest or so for the hotel, compared with a game of craps?

While they played, the train steamed in and was gone. Wishful won the two dollars.

Bartley escaped to the veranda and his reflections. Presently he rose and strolled round to the corral. Wishful's three saddle-animals were lazying in the heat. Bartley was not unfamiliar with the good points of a horse. He rejected the sorrel with the Roman nose, as stubborn and foolish. The flea-bitten gray was all horse, but he had a white-rimmed eye. The chestnut bay was a big, hardy animal, but he appeared rather slow and deliberate. Yet he had good, solid feet, plenty of bone, deep withers, and powerful hindquarters.

Bartley stepped round to the hotel. "Have you a minute to spare?" he queried as Wishful finished rearranging the furniture of the lobby.

Wishful had. He followed Bartley round to the corral.

"I'm thinking of buying a saddle-horse," stated Bartley.

Wishful leaned his elbows on the corral bar. "Why don't you rent one--and turn him in when you're through with him."

"I'd rather own one, and I may use him a long time."

"I ain't sufferin' to sell any of my hosses, Mr. Bartley. But I wouldn't turn down a fair offer."

"Set a price on that sorrel," said Bartley.

Now, Wishful was willing to part with the sorrel, which was showy and looked fast. Bartley did not want the animal. He merely wanted to arrive at a basis from which to work.

"Well," drawled Wishful, "I'd let him go for a hundred."

"What will you take for the gray?"

"Him? Well, he's the best hoss I got. I don't think he's your kind of a hoss."

"The best, eh? And a hundred for the sorrel." Bartley appeared to reflect.

Wishful really wanted to sell the gray, describing him as the best horse he owned to awaken Bartley's interest. The best horse in the corral was the big bay cow-horse; but Wishful had no idea that Bartley knew that.

"Would you put a price on the gray?" queried Bartley.

"Why, sure! You can have him, for a hundred and twenty-five."

"A hundred for the sorrel--and a hundred and twenty-five for the gray; is that correct?"

"Yep."

"And you say the gray is the best horse in the corral?"

"He sure is!"

"All right. I'll give you a hundred for that big bay, there. I don't want to rob you of your best horse, Wishful."

Wishful saw that he was cornered. He had cornered himself, premising that the Easterner didn't know horses. "That bay ain't much account, Mr. Bartley. He's slow--nothin' but a ole cow-hoss I kind of keep around for odd jobs of ropin' and such."

"Well, he's good enough for me. I'll give you a hundred for him."

Wishful scratched his head. He did not want to sell the bay for that sum, yet he was too good a sport to go back on his word.

"Say, where was you raised?" he queried abruptly.

"In Kentucky."

"Hell, I thought you was from New York?"

"I lived in Kentucky until I was twenty-five."

"Was your folks hoss-traders?"

"Not exactly," laughed Bartley. "My father always kept a few good saddle-horses, however."

"Uh-huh? I reckon he did. And you ain't forgot what a real hoss looks like, either." Wishful's pensive countenance lighted suddenly. "You'll be wantin' a rig--saddle and bridle and slicker and saddle-bags. Now I got just what you want."

Bartley stepped to the stable and inspected the outfit. It was old and worn, and worth, Bartley estimated, about thirty dollars, all told.

"I'll let you have the whole outfit--hoss and rig and all, for two hundred," stated Wishful unblushingly.

"I priced a saddle, over in the shop across from the station, this morning," said Bartley.

"With bridle and blanket and saddle-pockets it would only stand me ninety dollars. If the bay is the poorest horse you own, then at your figure this outfit would come rather high."

"I might 'a' knowed it!" stated Wishful. "Say, Mr. Bartley, give me a hundred and fifty for the hoss and I'll throw in the rig."

"No. I know friendship ceases when a horse-trade begins; but I am only taking you at your word."

"I sure done overlooked a bet, this trip," said Wishful. "Say, I reckon you must 'a' cut your first tooth on a cinch-ring. I done learnt somethin' this mornin'. Private eddication comes high, but I'm game. Write your check for a hundred--and take the bay. By rights I ought to give him to you, seein as how you done roped and branded me for a blattin' yearlin' the first throw; and you been out West just three days! You'll git along in this country."

"I hope so," laughed Bartley. "Speaking of getting along, I plan to visit Senator Brown. How long will it take me to get there, riding the bay?"

"He's got a runnin' walk that is good for six miles an hour. He's a walkin' fool. And anything you git your rope on, he'll hold it till you're gray-headed and got whiskers. That ole hoss is the best cow-hoss in Antelope County--and I'm referrin' you to Steve Brown to back me up. I bought that hoss from Steve. Any time you see the Box-S brand on a hoss, you can figure he's a good one."

"I suppose I'd have to camp on the mesa two or three nights," said Bartley.

"Nope! Ole Dobe'll make it in two days. He don't look fast, but the trail sure fades behind him when he's travelin'. I'm kind of glad you didn't try to buy the Antelope House. You'd started in pricin' the stable, and kind of milled around and ast me what I'd sell the kitchen for, and afore I knowed it, you'd 'a' had me selling the hotel for less than the stable. I figure you'd made a amazin' hand at shootin' craps."

"Let's step over and buy that saddle, and the rest of it. Will you engineer the deal? I don't know much about Western saddlery."

"Shucks! You can take that ole rig I was showin' you. She ain't much on looks, but she's all there."

"Thanks. But I'd rather buy a new outfit."

"When do you aim to start?"

"Right away. I suppose I'll need a blanket and some provisions."

"Yes. But you'll catch up with Cheyenne, if you keep movin'. He won't travel fast with a pack-hoss along. He'll most like camp at the first water, about twenty-five miles south. But you can pack some grub in your saddle-bags, and play safe. And take a canteen along."

Wishful superintended the purchasing of the new outfit, and seemed unusually keen about seeing Bartley well provided for at the minimum cost. Wishful's respect for the Easterner had been greatly enhanced by the recent horse-deal. When it came to the question of clothing, Wishful wisely suggested overalls and a rowdy, as being weather and brush proof. Incidentally Wishful asked Bartley why he had paid his bill before he had actually prepared to start on the journey. Bartley told Wishful that he would not have prepared to start had he not paid the bill on impulse.

"Well, some folks git started on impulse, afore they pay their bills, and keep right on fannin' it," asserted Wishful.

An hour later Bartley was ready for the trail. With some food in the saddle-pockets, a blanket tied behind the cantle, and a small canteen hung on the horn, he felt equipped to make the journey. Wishful suggested that he stay until after the noon hour, but Bartley declined. He would eat a sandwich or two on the way.

"And ole Dobe knows the trail to Steve's ranch," said Wishful, as he walked around horse and rider, giving them a final inspection. "And you don't have to cinch ole Dobe extra tight," he advised. "He carries a saddle good. 'Course that new leather will stretch some."

"How old is Dobe?" queried Bartley. "You keep calling him 'old.'"

"I seen you mouthin' him, after you had saddled him. How old would you say?"

"Seven, going on eight."

"Git along! And if anybody gits the best of you in a hoss-trade, wire me collect. It'll sure be news!"

Bartley settled himself in the saddle and touched Dobe with the spurs.

"Give my regards to Senator Steve--and Cheyenne," called Wishful.

Wishful stood gazing after his recent guest until he had disappeared around a corner.

Then Wishful strode into the hotel office and marked a blue cross on the big wall calendar. A humorous smile played about his mouth. It was a mark to indicate the day and date that an Eastern tenderfoot had got the best of him in a horse-deal.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE WATER-HOLE

Before Bartley had been riding an hour he knew that he had a good horse under him. Dobe "followed his head" and did not flirt with his shadow, although he was grain-fed and ready to go. When Dobe trotted--an easy, swinging trot that ate into the miles--Bartley tried to post, English style. But Dobe did not understand that style of riding a trot. Each time Bartley raised in the stirrups, Dobe took it for a signal to lope. Finally Bartley caught the knack of leaning forward and riding a trot with a straight leg, and to his surprise he found it was a mighty satisfactory method and much easier than posting.

The mesa trail was wide--in reality a cross-country road, so Bartley had opportunity to try Dobe's different gaits. The running walk was a joy to experience, the trot was easy, and the lope as regular and smooth as the swing of a pendulum. Finally Bartley settled to the best long-distance gait of all, the running walk, and began to enjoy the vista; the wide-sweeping, southern reaches dotted with buttes, the line of the far hills crowded against the sky, and the intense light in which there was no faintest trace of blur or moisture. Everything within normal range of vision stood out clean-edged and definite.

Unaccustomed to riding a horse that neck-reined at the merest touch, and one that stopped at the slightest tightening of the rein, Bartley had to learn through experience that a spade bit requires delicate handling. He was jogging along easily when he turned to glance back at the town--now a far, huddled group of tiny buildings. Inadvertently he tightened rein. Dobe stopped short. Bartley promptly went over the fork and slid to the ground.

Dobe gazed down at his rider curiously, ears cocked forward, as though trying to understand just what his rider meant to do next. Bartley expected to see the horse whirl and leave for home. But Dobe stood patiently until his rider had mounted. Bartley glanced round covertly, wondering if any one had witnessed his impromptu descent. Then he laughed, realizing that it was a long way to Central Park, flat saddles and snaffles.

A little later he ate two of the sandwiches Wishful had thoughtfully provided, and drank from the canteen. Gradually the shadows of the buttes lengthened. The afternoon heat ebbed away in little, infrequent puffs of wind. The western reaches of the great mesa seemed to expand, while the southern horizon drew nearer.

Presently Bartley noticed pony tracks on the road, and either side of the tracks the mark of wheels. Here the wagon had swung aside to avoid a bit of bad going, yet the tracks of two horses still kept the middle of the road. "Senator Brown--and Cheyenne," thought Bartley, studying the tracks. He became interested in them. Here, again, Cheyenne had dismounted, possibly to tighten a cinch. There was the stub of a cigarette. Farther along the tracks were lost in the rocky ground of the petrified forest. He had made twenty miles without realizing it.

Winding in and out among the shattered and fallen trunks of those prehistoric trees, Bartley forgot where he was until he passed the bluish-gray sweep of burned earth edging the forest. Presently a few dwarf junipers appeared. He was getting higher, although the mesa seemed level. Again he discovered the tracks of the horses in the powdered red clay of the road.

He crossed a shallow arroyo, sandy and wide. Later he came suddenly upon a red clay cutbank, and a hint of water where the bank shadowed the mud-smeared rocks. He rode slowly, preoccupied in studying the country. The sun showed close to the rim of the world when he finally realized that, if he meant to get anywhere, he had better be about it. Dobe promptly caught the change of his rider's mental attitude and stepped out briskly. Bartley patted the horse's neck.

It was a pleasure to ride an animal that seemed to want to work with a man and not against him. The horse had cost one hundred dollars--a fair price for such a horse in those days. Yet Bartley thought it a very reasonable price. And he knew he had a bargain. He felt clearly confident that the big cow-pony would serve him in any circumstance or hazard.

As a long, undulating stretch of road appeared, softly brown in the shadows, Bartley began to look about for the water-hole which Wishful had spoken about. The sun slipped from sight. The dim, gray road reached on and on, shortening in perspective as the quick night swept down.

Beyond and about was a dusky wall through which loomed queer shapes that seemed to move and change until, approached, they became junipers. Bartley's gaze became fixed upon the road. That, at least, was a reality. He reached back and untied his coat and swung into it. An early star flared over the southern hills. He wondered if he had passed the water-hole. He had a canteen, but Dobe would need water. But Dobe was thoroughly familiar with the trail from Antelope to the White Hills. And Dobe smelled the presence of his kind, even while Bartley, peering ahead in the dusk, rode on, not aware that some one was camped within calling distance of the trail. A cluster of junipers hid the faint glow of the camp-fire.

Dobe stopped suddenly. Bartley urged him on. For the first time the big horse showed an inclination to ignore the rein. Bartley gazed round, saw nothing in particular, and spoke to the horse, urging him forward. Dobe turned and marched deliberately away from the road, heading toward the west, and nickered. From behind the screen of junipers came an answering nicker. Bartley hallooed. No one answered him. Yet Dobe seemed to know what he was about. He plodded on, down a slight grade. Suddenly the soft glow of a camp-fire illumined the hollow.

A blanket-roll, a saddle, a coil of rope, and a battered canteen and the fire--but no habitant of the camp.

"Hello!" shouted Bartley.

Dobe shied and snorted as a figure loomed in the dusk, and Cheyenne was peering up at him.

"Is this the water-hole?" Bartley asked inanely.

"This is her. I'm sure glad to see you! I feel like a plumb fool for standin' you up that way--but I didn't quite get you till I seen your face. I thought I knowed your voice, but I never did see you in jeans, and ridin' a hoss before. And that hat ain't like the one you wore in Antelope."

"Then you didn't know just what to expect?"

"I wa'n't sure. But say, I got some coffee goin'--and some bacon. Light down and give your saddle a rest."

"I'll just water my horse and stake him out and--"

"I'll show you where. I see you're ridin' Dobe. Wishful rent him to you?"

"No. I bought him."

"If you don't mind tellin' me--how much?"

"A hundred."

"Was Wishful drunk?"

"No."

"Well, you got a real hoss, there. The water is right close. Old Dobe knows where it is. Just lift off your saddle and turn him loose--or mebby you better hobble him the first night. He ain't used to travelin' with you, yet."

"I have a stake-rope," said Bartley.

"A hoss would starve on a stake-rope out here. I'll make you a pair of hobbles, pronto. Then he'll stick with my hosses."

"Where are they?"

"Runnin' around out there somewhere. They never stray far from camp."

Bartley watched Cheyenne untwist a piece of soft rope and make a pair of serviceable hobbles.

"Now he'll travel easy and git enough grass to keep him in shape. And them hobbles won't burn him. Any time you're shy of hobbles, that's how to make 'em."

Later, as Bartley sat by the fire and ate, Cheyenne asked him if Panhandle had been seen in town since the night of the crap game. Bartley told him that he had seen nothing of Panhandle.

"He's ridin' this country, somewhere," said Cheyenne. "You're headed for Steve's ranch?"

"Yes."

"Well, Steve'll sure give you the time of your life."

"I think I'll stay there a few days, if the Senator can make room for me."

"Room! Wait till you see Steve's place. And say, if you want to get wise to how they run a cattle outfit, just throw in with the boys, tell 'em you're a plumb tenderfoot and can't ride a bronc, nohow, and that you never took down a rope in your life, and that all you know about cattle is what you've et, and then the boys will use you white. There's nothin' puts a fella in wrong with the boys quicker than for him to let on he is a hand when he ain't. 'Course the boys won't mind seem' you top a bronc and get throwed, just to see if you got sand."

Meanwhile Cheyenne manipulated the coffee-pot and skillet most effectively. And while Bartley ate his supper, Cheyenne talked, seemingly glad to have a companion to talk to.

"You see," he began, apropos of nothing in particular, "entertainin' folks with the latest news is my long suit. I'm kind of a travelin' show, singin' and packin' the news around to everybody. 'Course folks read the paper and hear about somebody gettin' married, or gettin' shot or leavin' the country, and then they ask me the how of it. I been ramblin' so long that I know the pedigrees of 'most everybody down this way.

"Newspapers is all right, but folks get plumb hungry to git their news with human trimmin's. I recollec' I come mighty near gettin' in trouble, onct. Steve had some folks visitin' down to his ranch. They was new to the country, and seems they locked horns with a outfit runnin' sheep just south of Springerville. Now, I hadn't been down that way for about six months, but I had heard of that ruckus. So after Steve lets me sing a couple of songs, and I got to feelin' comfortable with them new folks, I set to and tells 'em about the ruckus down near Springerville. I guess the fella that told me must 'a' got his reins crossed, for pretty soon Steve starts to laugh and turns to them visitors and says: 'How about it, Mr. Smith?'

"Now, Smith was the fella that had the ruckus, and I'd been tellin' how that sheep outfit had run him out of the country. He was a young, long, spindlin' hombre from Texas--a reg'lar Whicker-bill, with that drawlin' kind of a voice that hosses and folks listen to. I knowed he was from Texas the minute I seen him, but I sure didn't know he was the man I was talkin' about.

"Everybody laughed but him and his wife. I reckon she was feelin' her oats, visitin' at the Senator's house. I don't know what she said to her husband, but, anyhow, afore I left for the bunk-house that evenin', he says, slow and easy, that if I was around there next mornin', he would explain all about that ruckus to me, when the ladies weren't present, so I wouldn't get it wrong, next time. I seen I had made a mistake for myself, and I didn't aim to make another, so I just kind of eased off and faded away, bushin' down that night a far piece from Senator Steve's ranch. I know them Whicker-bills and I didn't want to tangle with any of 'em."

"Afraid you'd get shot?" queried Bartley, laughing.

"Shot? Me? No, pardner. I was afraid that Texas gent would get shot. You see, he was married--and I--ain't."

Bartley lay back on his saddle and gazed up at the stars. The little fire had died down to a dot of red. A coyote yelped in the far dusk. Another coyote replied. Cheyenne rose and threw some wood on the fire. Then he stepped down to the water-hole and washed the plates and cups. Bartley could hear the peculiar thumping sound of hobbled horses moving about on the mesa. Cheyenne returned to the fire, picked up his bed-roll, and marched off into the bushes. Bartley wondered why he should take the trouble to move his bed-roll such a distance from the water-hole.

"Pack your saddle and blanket over, when you feel like turnin' in," said Cheyenne. "And you might throw some dirt on that fire. I ain't lookin' for visitors down this way, but you can't tell."

Bartley carried his saddle out to the distant clump of junipers.

"Just shed your coat and boots and turn in," invited Cheyenne.

Bartley was not sleepy, and for a long time he lay gazing up at the stars. Presently he heard Cheyenne snore. The Big Dipper grew dim. Then a coyote yelped--a shrill cadence of mocking laughter. "I wonder what the joke is?" Bartley thought drowsily.

Sometime during the night he was awakened by the tramping of horses, a sound that ran along the ground and diminished in the distance.

Cheyenne was sitting up. He touched Bartley. "Five or six of 'em," whispered Cheyenne.

"Our horses?"

"Too many. Mebby some strays."

"Or cowboys," suggested Bartley.

"Night-ridin' ain't so popular out here."

Bartley turned over and fell asleep. It seemed but a moment later that he was wide awake and Cheyenne was standing over him. It was daylight.

"They got our hosses," said Cheyenne.

"Who?"

"I dunno."

"What? Our horses? Great Scott, how far is it to Senator Brown's ranch?"

"About twenty-five miles, by road. I know a short cut."

Bartley jumped up and pulled on his boots. From the far hills came the faint yelp of a coyote, shrill and derisive.

"The joke is on us," said Bartley.

"This here ain't no joke," stated Cheyenne.

CHAPTER VIII

HIGH HEELS AND MOCCASINS

Bartley suggested that, perhaps, the horses had strayed.

Cheyenne shook his head. "My hosses ain't leavin' good feed, or leavin' me. They know this here country."

"Perhaps Dobe left for home and the rest followed him," said Bartley.

"Nope. Our hosses was roped and led south."

Bartley stared at Cheyenne, whose usually placid countenance expressed indecision and worry. Cheyenne seemed positive about the missing horses. Then Bartley saw an expression in Cheyenne's eyes that indicated more sternness of spirit than he had given Cheyenne credit for.

"Roped and led south," reiterated Cheyenne.

"How do you know it?"

"I been scoutin' around. The bunch that rode by last night was leadin' hosses. I could tell by the way the hosses was travelin'. They was goin' steady. If they'd been drivin' our hosses ahead, they would 'a' gone faster, tryin' to keep 'em from turnin' back. I don't see nothin' around camp to show who's been here."

"I'll make a fire," said Bartley.

"You got the right idea. We can eat. Then I aim to look around."

Cheyenne was over in the bushes rolling his bed when Bartley called to him, and he found Bartley pointing at a pair of dice on a flat rock beside the fire.

Cheyenne stooped and picked up the dice. "Was you rattlin' the bones to see if you could beat yourself?"

"I found them here. Are they yours?"

"Nope. And they weren't here last evenin'."

Cheyenne turned and strode out to the road while Bartley made breakfast. Cheyenne was gone a long time, examining the tracks of horses. When he returned he squatted down and ate.

Presently he rose. "First off, I thought they might 'a' been some stray Apaches or Cholas. But they don't pack dice. And the bunch that rode by last night was ridin' shod bosses."

Bartley turned slowly toward his companion. "Panhandle?" he queried.

"And these here dice? Looks like it. It's like him to leave them dice for us to play with while he trails south with our stack. I reckon it was that Dobe hoss he was after. But he must 'a' knowed who was campin' around here. You see, when Wishful kind of hinted to Panhandle to leave town, Panhandle figured that meant to stay out of Antelope quite a spell. First off he steals some hosses. Next thing, he'll sell 'em or trade 'em, down south of here. He'll travel nights, mostly."

"I can't see why he should especially pick us out as his victims," said Bartley.

"I don't say he did. But it would make no difference to him. He'd steal any man's stock. Only, I figure some of his friends must 'a' told him about you--that seen you ridin' down this way. He would know our camp would be somewhere near this water-hole. What kind of matches you got with you?"

"Why--this kind." And Bartley produced a few blue-top matches.

"This here is a old-timer sulphur match, cut square. It was right here, by the rock. Somebody lit a match and laid them dice there--sixes up. No reg'lar hoss-thief would take that much trouble to advertise himself. Panhandle done it--and he wanted me to know he done it."

"You've had trouble with him before, haven't you?"

"Yes--and no man can say I ever trailed him. But I never stepped out of his way."

"Then that crap game in Antelope meant more than an ordinary crap game?" said Bartley.

"He had his chance," stated Cheyenne.

"Well, we're in a fix," asserted Bartley.

"Yes; we're afoot. But we'll make it. And right here I'm tellin' you that I aim to shoot a game of craps with Panhandle, usin' these here dice, that'll be fast and won't last long."

"How about the law?"

"The law is all right, in spots. But they's a whole lot of country between them spots."

Cheyenne cached the bed-roll, saddles, and cooking-outfit back in the brush, taking only a canteen and a little food. He proffered a pair of moccasins, parfleche-soled and comfortable, to Bartley.

"You wear these. Them new ridin'-boots'll sure kill you dead, walkin'. You can pack 'em along with you."

"How about your feet?"

"Say, you wouldn't call me a tenderfoot, would you?"

"Not exactly."

"Then slip on them moccasins. But first I aim to make a circle and see just where they caught up our stock."

Bartley drew on the moccasins and, tying his boots together, rolled them in his blanket. Meanwhile, Cheyenne circled the camp far out, examining the scattered tracks of horses. When he returned the morning sun was beginning to make itself felt.

"I'll toss up to see who wears the moccasins," said Bartley. "I'm more used to hiking than you are."

"Spin her!"

As Bartley tossed the coin, Cheyenne called. The half-dollar dropped and stuck edge-up in the sand.

"You wear 'em the first fifteen miles and then we'll swap," said Cheyenne.

Bartley filled the canteen and scraped dirt over the fire. Cheyenne took a last look around, and turned toward the south.

"You didn't say nothin' about headin' back to Antelope," said Cheyenne.

"Why, no. I started out to visit Senator Brown's ranch."

Cheyenne laughed. "Well, you're out to see the country, anyhow. We'll see lots, to-day."

Once more upon the road Cheyenne's manner changed. He seemed to ignore the fact that he was afoot, in country where there was little prospect of getting a lift from a passing rancher or freighter. And he said nothing about his horses, Filaree and Joshua, although Bartley knew that their loss must have hit him hard.

A mile down the road, and Cheyenne was singing his trail song, bow-legging ahead as though he were entirely alone and indifferent to the journey:

Seems like I don't git anywhere:
Git along, cayuse, git along!
But I'm leavin' here and I'm goin' there,
Git along, cayuse, git along--

He stopped suddenly, pulled his faded black Stetson over one eye, and then stepped out again, singing on:

They ain't no water and they ain't no shade:
They ain't no beer or lemonade,
But I reckon most like we'll make the grade
Git along, cayuse, git along.

"That's the stuff!" laughed Bartley. "A stanza or two of that every few miles, and we'll make the grade all right. That last was improvised, wasn't it?"

"Nope. Just naturalized. I make 'em up when I'm ridin' along, to kind of fit into the scenery. Impervisin' gets my wind."

"Well, if you are singing when we finish, you're a wonder," stated Bartley.

"Oh, I'm a wonder, all right! And mebby I don't feel like a plumb fool, footin' it into Steve's ranch with no hosses and no bed-roll and no reputation. And I sure lose mine this trip. Why, folks all over the country will josh me to death when they hear Panhandle Sears set me afoot on the big mesa. I reckon I'll have to kind of change my route till somethin' happens to make folks forget this here bobble."

Another five miles of hot and monotonous plodding, and Cheyenne stopped and sat down. He pulled off his boots.

Bartley offered the moccasins, but Cheyenne waved the offer aside.

"Just coolin' my feet," he explained. "It ain't so much the kind of boots, because these fit. It's scaldin' your feet that throws you."

They smoked and drank from the canteen. Five minutes' rest, and they were on the road again. The big mesa reached on and on toward the south, seemingly limitless, without sign of fence or civilization save for the narrow road that swung over each slight, rounded rise and ran away into the distance, narrowing to a gray line that disappeared in space.

Occasionally singing, Cheyenne strode along, Bartley striding beside him.

"You got a stride like a unbroke yearlin'," said; Cheyenne, as Bartley unconsciously drew ahead.

Bartley stopped and turned into step as Cheyenne caught up. He held himself to a slower pace, realizing that, while his companion could have outridden him by days and miles, the other was not used to walking.

As they topped a low rise a coyote sprang up and floated away. Bartley flinched as Cheyenne whipped up his gun and fired. The coyote jack-knifed and lay still. Cheyenne punched the empty shell from his gun, slipped in a cartridge, and strode on.

"Pretty fast work," remarked Bartley.

"Huh! I just throwed down on him to see if I was gettin' slow."

"It seems to me that if I could shoot like that, I wouldn't let any man back me down," said Bartley.

"Mebby so. But you're wrong, old-timer. Bein' fast with a gun is just like advertisin' for the coroner. Me, I'm plumb peaceful."

A few miles farther along they nooned in the shade of a piñion. When they started down the road again, Bartley noticed that Cheyenne limped slightly. But Cheyenne still refused to put on the moccasins. Bartley argued that his own feet were getting tender. He was unaccustomed to moccasins. Cheyenne turned this argument aside by singing a stanza of his trail song.

Also, incidentally, Cheyenne had been keeping his eye on the horse-tracks; and just before they left the main road taking a short cut, he pointed to them. "There's Filaree's tracks, and there's Joshua's. Your hoss has been travelin' over here, on the edge. Them hoss-thieves figure to hit into the White Hills and cut down through the Apache forest, most like."

"Will they sell the horses?"

"Yes. Or trade 'em for whiskey. Panhandle's got friends up in them hills."

"How far is it to the ranch?" queried Bartley.

"We done reached her. We're on Steve's ranch, right now. It's about five miles from that first fence over there to his house, by trail. It's fifteen by road."

"Then here is where you take the moccasins."

"Nope. My feet are so swelled you couldn't start my boots with a fence stretcher. They's no use both of us gettin' cripped up."

Bartley's own feet ached from the constant bruising of pebbles.

Presently Cheyenne dropped back and asked Bartley to set the pace.

"I'll just tie to your shadow," said Cheyenne. "Keeps me interested. When I'm drillin' along ahead I can't think of nothin' but my feet."

Because there was now no road and scarcely a trail, Bartley began to choose his footing, dodging the rougher places. The muscles of his calves ached under the unaccustomed strain of walking without heels. Cheyenne dogged along behind, suffering keenly from blistered feet, but centering his attention on Bartley's bobbing shadow. They had made about two miles across country when the faint trail ran round a butte and dipped into a shallow arroyo.

The arroyo deepened to a gulch, narrow and rocky. Up the gulch a few hundred yards they came suddenly upon a bunch of Hereford cattle headed by a magnificent bull. The trail ran in the bottom of the gulch. On either side the walls were steep and rocky. Angling junipers stuck out from the walls in occasional dots of green.

"That ole white-face sure looks hostile," Cheyenne remarked. "Git along, you ole Mormon; curl your tail and drift."

Cheyenne heaved a stone which took the bull fairly between the eyes. The bull shook his head and snapped his tail, but did not move. The cattle behind the bull stared blandly at the invaders of their domain. The bull, being an aristocrat, gave warning of his intent to charge by shaking his head and bellowing. Then he charged.

Cheyenne stooped for another stone, but Bartley had no intention of playing ping-pong with a roaring red avalanche. Bartley made for the side of the gulch and, catching hold of the bole of a juniper, drew himself up. Cheyenne stood to his guns, shied a third stone, scored a bull's-eye, and then decided to evacuate in favor of the enemy. His feet were sore, but he managed to keep a good three jumps ahead of the bull, up the precipitous bank of the gulch. There was no time to swing into the tree where Bartley had taken refuge, so Cheyenne backed into a shallow depression beneath the roots of the juniper.

The bull shook his head and butted at Cheyenne. Cheyenne slapped the bull's nose with his hat. The bull backed part-way down the grade, snapped his tail, and bellowed. Up the grade he charged again. He could not quite reach Cheyenne, who slapped at the bull with his hat and spake eloquently.

Bartley, clinging to his precarious perch, gazed down upon the scene, wondering if he had not better take a shot at the bull. "Shall I let him have it?" he queried.

"Have what?" came the muffled voice of Cheyenne. "He's 'most got what he's after, right now."

"Shall I shoot him?"

"Hell, no! No use beefin' twelve hundred dollars' worth of meat. We don't need that much."

"Look out! He's coming again!" called Bartley.

Cheyenne had suddenly poked his head out of the shallow cave. The bull charged, backed down, and amused himself by tossing dirt over his shoulders and grumbling like distant thunder.

"Perhaps if you stay in that cave and don't show yourself, he'll leave," suggested Bartley.

"Stay nothin'!" answered Cheyenne. "There's a rattler in this here cave. I can hear him singin'. I'm comin' out, right now!"

Bartley leaned forward and glanced down. The branch on which he was straddled snapped.

"Look out below!" he shouted as he felt himself going.

Bartley's surprising evolution was too much for his majesty the bull, who whirled and galloped clumsily down the slope. Bartley rolled to the bottom, still holding to a broken branch of the tree. Cheyenne was also at the bottom of the gulch. The bull was trotting heavily toward his herd.

"Is there anything hooked to the back of my jeans?" queried Cheyenne.

"No. They're torn; that's all."

"Huh! I thought mebby that ole snake had hooked on to my jeans. He sounded right mad, singin' lively, back in there. My laigs feel kind of limp, right now."

Cheyenne felt of his torn overalls, shook his head, and then a slow smile illumined his face. "How do you like this here country, anyhow?"

"Great!" said Bartley.

CHAPTER IX

AT THE BOX-S

When they emerged from the western end of the gulch, they paused to rest. Not over a half-mile south stood the ranch-house, just back of a row of giant cottonwoods.

Cheyenne pointed out the stables, corrals, and bunk-house. "A mighty neat little outfit," he remarked, as they started on again.

"Little?"

"Senator Steve's only got about sixty thousand acres under fence."

"Then I'd like to see a big ranch," laughed Bartley.

"You can't. They ain't nothin' to see more'n you see right now. Why, I know a outfit down in Texas that would call this here ranch their north pasture--and they got three more about the same size, besides the regular range. But standin' in any one place you can't see any more than you do right now. Steve just keeps up this here ranch so he can have elbow-room. Yonder comes one of his boys. Reckon he seen us."

A rider had just reined his horse round and was loping toward them.

"He seen we was afoot," said Cheyenne.

"Mighty decent of him--" began Bartley, but Cheyenne waved the suggestion aside. "Decent nothin'! A man afoot looks as queer to a waddie as we did to that ole bull."

The puncher loped up, recognized Cheyenne, nodded to Bartley, and seemed to hesitate. Cheyenne made no explanation of their plight, so the puncher simply turned back and loped toward the ranch-house.

"Just steppin' over to tell Steve we're here," said Cheyenne, as Bartley's face expressed astonishment.

They plodded on, came to a gate, limped down a long lane, came to another gate, and there Senator Steve met them.

"I'd 'a' sent a man with a buckboard if I had known you planned to walk over from Antelope," he asserted, and his eyes twinkled.

Cheyenne frowned prodigiously. "Steve," he said slowly, "you can lovin'ly and trustfully go plumb to hell!"

Cheyenne turned and limped slowly toward the bunk-house.

Mrs. Brown welcomed Bartley as the Senator ushered him into the living-room. The Senator half-filled a tumbler from a cold, dark bottle and handed it to Bartley.

"'Green River,'" he said.

"Mrs. Brown," said Bartley as he bowed.

Then the Senator escorted Bartley to the bathroom. The tub was already filled with steaming water. A row of snow-white towels hung on the rack. The Senator waved his hand and, stepping out, closed the door.

A few minutes later he knocked at the bathroom door. "There's a spare razor in the cabinet, and all the fixings. And when you're ready there's a pair of clean socks on the doorknob."

Bartley heard the Senator's heavy, deliberate step as he passed down the hallway.

"A little 'Green River,' a hot bath, and clean socks," murmured Bartley. "Things might be worse."

His tired muscles relaxed under the beneficent warmth of the bath. He shaved, dressed, and stepped out into the hall. He sniffed. "Chicken!" he murmured soulfully.

Mrs. Senator Brown was supervising the cooking of a dinner that Bartley never forgot. Boiled chicken, dumplings, rich gravy, mashed potatoes, creamed carrots, sliced tomatoes--to begin with. And then the pie! Bartley furnished the appetite.

But that was not until after the Senator had returned from the bunk-house. He had seen to it that Cheyenne had had a bucket of hot water, soap, and towels and grease for his sore feet. In direct and effectual kindliness, without obviously expressed sympathy, the Westerner is peculiarly supreme.

Back in the living-room Bartley made himself comfortable, admiring the generous proportions of the house, the choice Indian blankets, the wide fireplace, and the general solidity of everything, which reflected the personality of his hosts.

Presently the Senator came in. "Cheyenne tells me that somebody set you afoot, down at the water-hole."

"Did he also tell you about your bull?"

"No! Is that how he came to tear his jeans?"

Bartley nodded. And he told the Senator of their recent experience in the gulch.

The Senator chuckled. "Don't say a word to Mrs. Brown about it. I'll have Cheyenne in, after dinner, and sweat it out of him. You see, Cheyenne won't eat with us. He always eats with the boys. No use asking him to eat in here. And, say, Bartley, we've got a little surprise for you. One of my boys caught up your horse, old Dobe. Dobe was dragging a rope. Looks like he broke away from some one. I had him turned into the corral. Dobe was raised on this range."

"Broke loose and came back!" exclaimed Bartley. "That's good news, Senator. I like that horse."

"But Cheyenne is out of luck," said the Senator. "He thought more of those horses, Filaree and Joshua, than he did of anything on earth. I'll send one of the boys back to the water-hole to-morrow, for your saddles and outfit. But now you're here, how do you like the country?"

"Almost as much as I like some of the people living in it," stated Bartley.

"Not including Panhandle Sears, eh?"

"I'm pretty well fed up on walking," and Bartley smiled.

"Sears is a worthless hombre," stated the Senator. "He's one of a gang that steal stock, and generally live by their wits and never seem to get caught. But he made a big mistake when he lifted Cheyenne's horses. Cheyenne already has a grievance against Sears. Some day Cheyenne will open up--and that will be the last of Mr. Sears."

"I had an idea there was something like that in the wind," said Bartley. "Cheyenne hasn't said much about Sears, but I was present at that crap game."

The Senator chuckled. "I heard about it. Heard you offered to take on Sears if he would put his gun on the table."

Bartley flushed. "I must have been excited."

The Senator leaned forward in his big, easy-chair. "Cheyenne wants me to let him take a couple of horses to trail Panhandle. And, judging from what Cheyenne said, he thinks you are going along with him. There's lots of country right round here to see, without taking any unnecessary risks."

"I understand," said Bartley.

"And this is your headquarters, as long as you want to stay," continued the Senator.

"Thank you. It's a big temptation to stay, Senator."

"How?"

"Well, it was rather understood, without anything being said, that I would help Cheyenne find his horses and mine. Dobe came back; but that hardly excuses me from going with Cheyenne."

"But your horse is here; and you seem to be in pretty fair health, right now."

"I appreciate the hint, Senator."

"But you don't agree with me a whole lot."

"Well, not quite. Chance rather chucked us together, Cheyenne and me, and I think I'll travel with him for a while. I like to hear him sing."

"He likes to hear him sing!" scoffed the Senator, frowning. He sat back in his chair, blew smoke-rings, puffed out his cheeks, and presently rose. "Bartley, I see that you're set on chousin' around the country with that warbling waddie--just to hear him sing, as you say. I say you're a dam' fool.

"But you're the kind of a dam' fool I want to shake hands with. You aren't excited and you don't play to the gallery; so if there's anything you want on this ranch, from a posse to a pack-outfit, it's yours. And if either of you get Sears, I'll sure chip in my share to buy his headstone."

"I wouldn't have it inscribed until we get back," laughed Bartley.

"No; I don't think I will. Trailin' horse-thieves on their own stamping ground ain't what an insurance company would call a good risk."

CHAPTER X

TO TRY HIM OUT

Two days later Cheyenne was able to get his feet into his boots, but even then he walked as though he did not care to let his left foot know what his right foot was doing. Lon Pelly, just in from a ride out to the line shack, remarked to the boys in the bunk-house that Cheyenne walked as though his brains were in his feet and he didn't want to get stone bruises stepping on them.

Cheyenne made no immediate retort, but later he delivered himself of a new stanza of his trail song, wherein the first line ended with "Pelly" followed by the rhymed assertion that the gentleman who bore that peculiar name had slivers in his anatomy due to a fondness for leaning against the bar of the Blue Front Saloon.

The boys were mightily pleased with the stanza, and they also improvised until, according to their versions, Long Lon bore a marked resemblance to a porcupine. Lon, being a real person, felt that Cheyenne's retaliation was just. Moreover, Lon, who never did anything hastily, let it be known casually that he had seen three riders west of the line shack some two days past, and that the riders were leading two horses, a buckskin and a gray. They were too far away to be distinguished absolutely, but he could tell the color of the horses.

"Panhandle?" queried a puncher.

"And two riders with him," said Long Lon.

"Goin' to trail him, Cheyenne?" came presently.

"That's me."

"Then let's pass the hat," suggested the first speaker.

"Wait!" said Cheyenne, drawing a pair of dice from his pocket. "Somehow, and sometime, I aim to shoot Panhandle a little game. Then you guys can pass the hat for the loser. Panhandle left them dice on the flat rock, by the water-hole. My pardner, Bartley, found them."

"Kind of sign talk that Pan pulled one on you," said Lon Pelly.

"He sure left his brains behind him when he left them dice," asserted Cheyenne. "I suspicioned that it was him--but the dice told me, plain."

"So you figure to walk up to Pan and invite him to shoot a little game, when you meet up with him?" queried a puncher.

"That's me."

"The tenderfoot"--he referred to Bartley--"is he goin' along with you?"

"He ain't so tender as you might think," said Cheyenne. "He's green, but not so dam' tender."

"Well, it's right sad. He looks like a pretty decent hombre."

"What's sad?" queried Cheyenne belligerently.

"Why, gettin' that tenderfoot all shot up, trailin' a couple of twenty-dollar cayuses. They ain't worth it."

"They ain't, eh?"

"Course, they make a right good audience, when you're singin'. They do all the listenin'," said another puncher.

"Huh! They ain't one of you got a hoss that can listen to you, without blushin'. You fellas think you're a hard-ridin'--"

"Ridin' beats walkin'," suggested Long Lon.

"Keep a-joshin'. I like it. Shows how much you don't know. I--hello, Mr. Bartley! Shake hands with Lon Pelly--but I guess you met him, over to Antelope. You needn't to mind the rest of these guys. They're harmless."

"I don't want to interrupt--" began Bartley.

"Set right in!" they invited in chorus. "We're just listenin' to Cheyenne preachin' his own funeral sermon."

Bartley seated himself in the doorway of the bunk-house. The joshing ceased. Cheyenne, who could never keep his hands still, toyed with the dice. Presently one of the boys suggested that Cheyenne show them some fancy work with a six-gun--"just to keep your wrist limber," he concluded.

Cheyenne shook his head. But, when Bartley intimated that he would like to see Cheyenne shoot, Cheyenne rose.

"All right. I'll shoot any fella here for ten bucks--him to name the target."

"No, you don't," said a puncher. "We ain't givin' our dough away, just to git rid of it."

"And right recent they was talkin' big," said Cheyenne. "I'll shoot the spot of a playin'-card, if you'll hold it," he asserted, indicating Bartley.

The boys glanced at Bartley and then lowered their eyes, wondering what the Easterner would do. Bartley felt that this was a test of his nerve, and, while he didn't like the idea of engaging in a William Tell performance he realized that Cheyenne must have had a reason for choosing him, out of the men present, and that Cheyenne knew his business.

"Cheyenne wants to git out of shootin'," suggested a puncher.

That settled it with Bartley. "He won't disappoint you," he stated quietly. "Give me the card."

One of the boys got up and fetched an old deck of cards. Bartley chose the ace of spades. Back of the corrals, with nothing but mesa in sight, he took up his position, while Cheyenne stepped off fifteen paces. Bartley's hand trembled a little. Cheyenne noticed it and turned to the group, saying something that made them laugh. Bartley's fingers tensed. He forgot his nervousness. Cheyenne whirled and shot, apparently without aim. Bartley drew a deep breath, and glanced at the card. The black pip was cut clean from the center.

"That's easy," asserted Cheyenne. Then he took a silver dollar from his pocket, laid it in the palm of his right hand, hung the gun, by its trigger guard on his right forefinger, lowered his hand and tossed the coin up. As the coin went up the gun whirled over. Then came the whiz of the coin as it cut through space.

"About seventy-five shots like that and I'm broke," laughed Cheyenne. "Anybody's hat need ventilatin'?"

"Not this child's," asserted Lon Pelly. "I sailed my hat for him onct. It was a twenty-dollar J.B., when I sailed it. When it hit it sure wouldn't hold water. Six holes in her--and three shots."

"Six?" exclaimed Bartley.

"The three shots went clean through both sides," said Lon.

Cheyenne reloaded his gun and dropped it into the holster.

Later, Bartley had a talk with Cheyenne about the proposed trailing of the stolen horses. Panhandle's name was mentioned. And the name of another man--Sneed. Cheyenne seemed to know just where he would look, and whom he might expect to meet.

Bartley and Cheyenne were in the living-room that evening talking with the Senator and his wife. Out in the bunk-house those of the boys who had not left for the line shack were discussing horse-thieves in general and Panhandle and Sneed in particular. Bill Smalley, a saturnine member of the outfit, who seldom said anything, and who was a good hand but a surly one, made a remark.

"That there Cheyenne is the fastest gun artist--and the biggest coward that ever come out of Wyoming. Ain't that right, Lon?"

"I never worked in Wyoming," said Long Lon.

CHAPTER XI

PONY TRACKS

Mrs. Senator Brown did not at all approve of Bartley's determination to accompany Cheyenne in search of the stolen horses. Late that night, long after Cheyenne had ceased to sing for the boys in the bunk-house, and while Bartley was peacefully slumbering in a comfortable bed, Mrs. Brown took the Senator to task for not having discouraged the young Easterner from attempting such a wild-goose chase. The Senator, whose diameter made the task of removing his boots rather difficult, puffed, and tugged at a tight riding-boot, but said nothing.

"Steve!"

"Yes'm. I 'most got it off. Wild-goose chase? Madam, the wild goose is a child that shuns this element. You mean wild-horse chase."

"That sort of talk may amuse your constituents, but you are talking to me."

Off came the stubborn boot. The Senator puffed, and tugged at the other boot.

"No, ma'am. You're talking to me. There! Now go ahead and I'll listen."

"Why didn't you discourage Mr. Bartley's idea of making such a journey?'

"I did, Nelly. I told him he was a dam' fool."

Mrs. Senator Brown, who knew her husband's capabilities in dodging issues when he was cornered,--both at home and abroad,--peered at him over her glasses. "What else did you tell him?"

"Well, your honor," chuckled the Senator, "I also told him he was the kind of dam' fool I liked to shake hands with."

"I knew it! And what else?"

"I challenge the right of the attorney for the plaintiff to introduce any evidence that may--"

"The attorney for the defense may proceed," said Mrs. Brown, smiling.

"Why, shucks, Nelly! When you smile like that--why, I told Bartley he could have anything on this ranch that would help him get a rope on Sears."

"I knew it!"

"Then why did you ask me?"

Mrs. Brown ignored the question. "Very well, Stephen. Mr. Bartley gave me his sister's address, in case anything happened. She is his only living relative and I'm going to write to her at once and tell her what her brother is up to."

"And most like she'll head right for this ranch."

"Well, suppose she does? If she is anything like her brother she will be welcome."

"You bet! Just leave that to me!"

"It's a shame!" asserted Mrs. Brown.

"It is! With her good looks and inexperience she'll sure need somebody to look after her."

"How do you know she is good-looking?"

"I don't. I was just hoping."

"I shall write, just the same."

"I reckon you will. I'm going to bed."

Just as the sun rounded above the mesa next morning, Bartley stepped out to the veranda. He was surprised to find the Senator up and about, inspecting the details of Cheyenne's outfit, for Cheyenne had the horses saddled and packed. Bartley was still more surprised to find that Mrs. Brown had breakfast ready. Evidently the good Senator and his wife had a decided interest in the welfare of the expedition.

After breakfast the Senator's wife came out to the bunk-house with a mysterious parcel which she gave to Bartley. He sniffed at it.

"Cold chicken sandwiches!" he said, smiling broadly.

"And some doughnuts. It will save you boys fussing with a lunch."

Long Lon Pelly was also up and ready to start. The air was still cool and the horses were a bit snuffy. Lon mounted and rode toward the west gate where he waited for Cheyenne and Bartley.

"Now don't forget where you live," said the Senator as Bartley mounted.

With a cheery farewell to their hosts, Cheyenne and Bartley rode away. The first warmth of the sun touched them as they headed into the western spaces. Long Lon closed the big gate, stepped up on his horse, and jogged along beside them.

Bartley felt as though he had suddenly left the world of reality and was riding in a sort of morning dream. He could feel the pleasant warmth of the sun on his back. He sniffed the thin dust cast up by the horses. On either side of him the big mesa spread to the sky-line. Cattle were scattered in the brush, some of them lying down, some of them grazing indolently.

Presently Cheyenne began to sing, and his singing seemed to fit into the mood of the morning. He ceased, and nothing but the faint jingle of rein chains and the steady plod of hoofs disturbed the vast silence. A flicker of smoke drifted back as Cheyenne lighted a cigarette. Long Lon drilled on, wrapped in his reflections. Their moving shadows shortened. Occasionally a staring-eyed cow strayed directly in their way and stood until Long Lon struck his chaps with his quirt, when the cow, swinging its head, would whirl and bounce off to one side, stiff-legged and ridiculous.

Bartley unbuttoned his shirt-collar and pushed back his hat. Far across the mesa a dust devil spun up and writhed away toward the distant hills. As the horses slowed to cross a sandy draw, Bartley turned and glanced back. The ranch buildings--a dot of white in a clump of green--shimmered vaguely in the morning sunlight.

Thus far, Bartley felt that he had been leaving the ranch and the cheerful companionship of the Senator and his wife. But as Lon Pelly reined up--it was something like two hours since they had started--and pointed to a cross-trail leading south, Bartley's mental attitude changed instantly. Hitherto he had been leaving a pleasant habitation. Now he was going somewhere. He felt the distinction keenly. Cheyenne's verse came back to him.

Seems like I don't git anywhere,
Git along, cayuse, git along;
But we're leavin' here and we're goin' there,
Git along, cayuse, git along--

"Just drop a line when you get there," said Long Lon as he reined round and set off toward the far western sky-line. That was his casual farewell.

Cheyenne now turned directly toward the south and a range of hills that marked the boundary of the mesa level. Occasionally he got off his horse and stooped to examine tracks. Once he made a wide circle, leaving Bartley to haze the pack-horse along. Slowly they drew nearer to the hills. During the remainder of that forenoon, Cheyenne said nothing, but rode, slouched forward, his hand on the horn, his gaze on the ground.

They nooned in the foothills. The horses grazed along the edge of a tiny stream while Cheyenne and Bartley ate the cold chicken sandwiches. In half an hour they were riding again, skirting the foothills, and, it seemed to Bartley, simply meandering about the country, for now they were headed west again.

Presently Cheyenne spoke. "I been makin' a plan."

"I didn't say a word," laughed Bartley.

"You didn't need to. I kind of got what you were thinkin'. This here is big country. When you're ridin' this kind of country with some fella, you can read his mind almost as good as a horse can. You was thinkin' I was kind of twisted and didn't know which way to head. Now take that there hoss, Joshua. Plenty times I've rode him up to a fork in the trail, and kep' sayin' to myself, 'We'll take the right-hand fork.' And Joshua always took the fork I was thinkin' about. You try it with Dobe, sometime."

"I have read of such things," said Bartley.

"Well, I know 'em. What would you say if I was to tell you that Joshua knowed once they was a fella ridin' behind me, five miles back, and out of sight--and told me, plain?"

"I wouldn't say anything."

"There's where you're wise. I can talk to you about such things. But when I try to talk to the boys like that, they just josh, till I git mad and quit. They ain't takin' me serious."

"What is your plan?" queried Bartley.

Cheyenne reined up and dismounted. "Step down, and take a look," he suggested.

Bartley dismounted. Cheyenne pointed out horse-tracks on the trail along the edge of the hills.

"Five hosses," he asserted. "Two of 'em is mine. That leaves three that are carryin' weight. But we're makin' a mistake for ourselves, trailin' Panhandle direct. He figures mebby I'd do that. I got to outfigure him. I don't want to git blowed out of my saddle by somebody in the brush, just waitin' for me to ride up and git shot. I got the way he's headed, and by to-morrow mornin' I'll know for sure.

"If he'd been goin' to swing back, to fool me, he'd 'a' done it before he hit the timber, up yonder. Once he gits in them hills he'll head straight south, for they ain't no other trail to ride on them ridges. But mebby he cut along the foothills, first. I got to make sure."

Late that afternoon and close to the edge of the foothills, Cheyenne lost the tracks. He spent over an hour finding them again. Bartley could discern nothing definite, even when Cheyenne pointed to a queer, blurred patch in some loose earth.

"It looks like the imprint of some coarse cloth," said Bartley.

"Gunnysack. They pulled the shoes off my hosses and sacked their feet."

"How about their own horses?"

"They been ridin' hard ground, and the tracks don't show, plain. Panhandle figured, when I seen that only the tracks of three horses showed, I'd think he had turned my hosses loose on the big mesa. He stops, pulls their shoes, sacks their feet, and leads 'em over there. Whoever done it was afoot, and steppin' careful. Hell, I could learn that yella-bellied hoss-thief how to steal hosses right, if I was in the business."

"Looks like a pretty stiff drill up those hills," remarked Bartley.

"That's why he turned, right here. 'Tain't just the stealin' of my hosses that's interestin' him. He's takin' trouble to run a whizzer on me--get me guessin'. Here is where we quit trailin' him. I got my plan workin' like a hen draggin' fence rails. We ain't goin' to trail Panhandle. We're goin' to ride 'round and meet him."

"Not a bad idea," said Bartley.

"It won't be--if I see him first."

CHAPTER XII

JIMMY AND THE LUGER GUN

Two days of riding toward the west, along the edge of the hills, and Bartley and Cheyenne found themselves approaching the high country. The trail ran up a wide valley, on either side of which were occasional ranches reaching back toward the slopes. In reality they were gradually climbing the range on an easy grade and making good time.

Their course now paralleled the theoretical course of Panhandle and his fellows. Dodging the rugged land to the south, Cheyenne had swung round in a half-circle, hoping to head off Panhandle on the desert side of the range. Since abandoning the tracks of the stolen horses, Cheyenne had resumed his old habit of singing as he rode. He seemed to know the name of every ranch, and of every person they met.

Once or twice some acquaintance expressed surprise that Cheyenne did not stop and spend the night with him. But Cheyenne jokingly declined all invitations, explaining to Bartley that in stopping to visit they would necessarily waste hours in observing the formalities of arrival and departure, although Cheyenne did not put it just that way.

They found water and plenty of feed, made their camps early, broke camp early, and rode steadily. With no visible incentive to keep going, Bartley lost his first keen interest in the hunt, and contented himself with listening to Cheyenne's yarns about the country and its folk, or occasionally chatting with some wayfarer. But never once did Cheyenne hint, to those they met, just why he was riding south.

There were hours at a stretch, when the going was level, when Cheyenne did nothing but roll his gun, throw down on different objects, toss up his gun, and catch it by the handle; and once he startled Bartley by making a quick fall from the saddle and shooting from the ground. Cheyenne explained to Bartley that often, when riding alone, he had spent hour after hour figuring out the possibilities of gun-play, till it became evident to the Easterner that, aside from being naturally quick, there was a very good reason for Cheyenne's proficiency with the six-gun. He practiced continually. And yet, thought Bartley, one of the Box-S punchers had said that Cheyenne had never killed anything bigger than a coyote, and never would--intimating that he was too good-natured ever to take advantage of his own proficiency with a gun.

Bartley wondered just how things would break if they did happen to meet Panhandle unexpectedly. Panhandle would no doubt dispose of the stolen horses as soon as he could. What excuse would Cheyenne have to call Panhandle to account? And when it came to a show-down, would Cheyenne call him to account?

Bartley was thinking of this when they made an early camp, the afternoon of the third day out. After the horses were hobbled and the packs arranged, Bartley decided to experiment a little with his new Luger automatic. Cheyenne declined to experiment with the gun.

"It's a mean gat," he asserted, "and it's fast. But I'll bet you a new hat I can empty my old smoke-wagon quicker than you can that pocket machine gun."

For the fun of the thing, Bartley took him up. He selected as target a juniper stump, and blazed away.

"I'm leavin' the decision to you," said Cheyenne, as he braced his right arm against his body and fanned the Colt, emptying it before Bartley could realize that he had fired three shots--and Cheyenne had fired five.

"I'll buy you that hat when we get to town," laughed Bartley. "You beat me, hands down."

"Hands down is right, old-timer. Fannin' a gun is show stuff, but it's wicked, at close range."

Meanwhile, Bartley had been experimenting further with the Luger. When he got through he had a hat full of pieces and Cheyenne was staring at what seemed to be the wreck of a once potent weapon.

"Why, you done pulled that little lead sprinkler all to bits!" exclaimed Cheyenne, "and you didn't have no tools to do it with."

"You can take down and assemble this gun without tools," stated Bartley. "All you need is your fingers."

"But what in Sam Hill did you pull her apart for?"

"Just to see if I could put her together again."

Cheyenne scratched his head, and stepped over to inspect the juniper stump. He stooped, whistled, and turned to Bartley. "Man, you like to sawed that stub in two. Why didn't you say you could shoot?"

"I can't, in your class. But tell me why you Westerners always seem to think it strange that an Easterner can sit a horse or shoot fairly well? Is it because you consider that the average tourist represents the entire East?"

"I dunno. But, then, I've met up with Easterners that weren't just like you."

Bartley was busy, assembling the Luger, and Cheyenne was watching him, when they glanced up simultaneously. A shadow drifted between them.

Cheyenne hesitated and then stepped forward. "I'll be dinged if it ain't Jimmy! What you doin' up here in the brush, anyhow?"

The boy, who rode a well-mannered gray pony, kicked one foot out of the stirrup and hooked his small leg over the horn. He nodded to Cheyenne, but his interest was centered on Bartley and the Luger.

"It's Jimmy--my boy," said Cheyenne. "His Aunt Jane lives over yonder, a piece."

"Why, hello!" exclaimed Bartley, laying the pistol aside. And he stepped up and shook hands with the boy, who grinned.

"How's the folks?" queried Cheyenne.

"All right. That there is a Luger gun, ain't it?"

"Yes," said Bartley. "Would you like to try it?"

The boy scrambled down from the saddle. "Honest?"

"Ain't you goin' to say hello to your dad?" queried Cheyenne.

"Sure! Only I was lookin' at that Luger gun--"

Jimmy shook hands perfunctorily with his father and turned to Bartley, expectancy in his gaze.

Bartley reloaded the gun and handed it to the boy, who straightaway selected the juniper stump and blazed away. Bartley watched him, a sturdy youngster, brown-fisted, blue-eyed, with sandy hair, and dressed in jeans and a rowdy--a miniature cow-puncher, even to his walk.

"Ever shoot one before?" queried Bartley as the boy gave back the pistol.

"Nope. There's one like it, over to the store in San Andreas. It's in the window. I never got to look at it right close."

"Try it again," said Bartley.

The boy grinned. "I reckon you're rich?"

"Why?"

"'Cause you got a heap of ca'tridges. They cost money."

"Never mind. Go ahead and shoot."

Jimmy blazed away again and ran to see where his bullets had hit the stump. "She's a pretty fair gun," he said as he handed it back. "But I reckon I'll have to stick to my ole twenty-two rifle. She's gettin' wore out, but I can hit things with her, yet. I git rabbits."

"Now, mebby you got time to tell us something about Aunt Jane and Uncle Frank and Dorry," suggested Cheyenne.

"Why, they're all right," said the boy. "Why didn't you stop by to our place instead of bushin' way up here?"

Cheyenne hesitated. "I reckon I'll be comin' over," he said finally.

Bartley put the Luger away. The boy turned to his father. Cheyenne's face expressed happiness, yet Bartley was puzzled. The boy was not what could be termed indifferent in any sense, yet he had taken his father's presence casually, showing no special interest in their meeting. And why had Cheyenne never mentioned the boy? Bartley surmised that there was some good reason for Cheyenne's silence on that subject--and because it was obvious that there was a good reason, Bartley accepted the youngster's presence in a matter-of-fact manner, as though he had known all along that Cheyenne had a son. In fact, Cheyenne had not stopped to think about it at all. If he had, he would have reasoned that Bartley had heard about it. Almost every one in Arizona knew that Cheyenne had been married and had separated from his wife.

"That would be a pretty good gun to git hoss-thieves with," asserted the boy, still thinking of the Luger.

"What do you know about hoss-thieves?" queried Cheyenne.

"You think I didn't see you was ridin' different hosses!" said Jimmy. "Mebby you think I don't know where Josh and Filaree are."

"You quit joshin' your dad," said Cheyenne.

"I ain't joshin' nobody. Ole 'Clubfoot' Sneed, over by the re'savation's got Josh and Filaree. I seen 'em in his corral, yesterday. I was up there, huntin'."

"Did you talk to him?" queried Cheyenne.

"Nope. He just come out of his cabin an' told me to fan it. I wasn't doin' nothin'. He said it was against the law to be huntin' up there. Mebby he don't hunt when he feels like it!"

"Did you tell Uncle Frank?"

"Yep. Wish I hadn't. He says for me to stay away from the high country--and not to ride by Sneed's place any more."

Cheyenne turned to Bartley. "I done made one guess right," he said.

"You goin' to kill Sneed?" queried young Jim enthusiastically.

"Nobody's goin' to get killed. But I aim to git my hosses."

Cheyenne turned to Jimmy. "You ride over and tell Uncle Frank and Aunt Jane that me and Mr. Bartley'll be over after we eat."

"Will you sing that 'Git Along' song for me, dad?"

"You bet!"

"But why don't you come over and eat to our place? You always stop by, every time you ride down this way," said Jimmy.

"You ride right along, like I told you, or you'll be late for your supper."

Little Jim climbed into the saddle, and, turning to cast a lingering and hopeful glance at Bartley,--a glance which suggested the possibilities of further practice with the Luger gun,--he rode away, a manful figure, despite his size.

"They're bringin' my kid up right," said Cheyenne, as though in explanation of something about which he did not care to talk.

CHAPTER XIII

AT AUNT JANE'S

Aunt Jane Lawrence was popular with the young folks of the district, not alone because she was a good cook, but because she was a sort of foster mother to the entire community. The young ladies of the community brought to Aunt Jane their old hats and dresses, along with their love affairs, petty quarrels, and youthful longings. A clever woman at needlework, she was often able to remodel the hats and "turn" the dresses so that they would serve a second season or maybe a third.

The love affairs, petty quarrels, and youthful longings were not always so easy to remodel, even when they needed it: but Aunt Jane managed well. She had much patience and sympathy. She knew the community, and so was often able to help her young friends without conflicting with paternal or maternal views. Hat-trimming and dressmaking were really only incidental to her real purpose in life, which was to help young folks realize their ideals, when such ideals did not lead too far from everyday responsibilities.

Yet, with all her capabilities, her gentle wisdom, and her unobtrusive sympathy, she was unable to influence her Brother Jim--known by every one as "Cheyenne"--toward a settled habit of life. So it became her fondest desire to see that Cheyenne's boy, Little Jim, should be brought up in a home that he would always cherish and respect. Aunt Jane's husband Frank Lawrence, had no patience with Cheyenne's aimless meanderings. Frank Lawrence was a hard-working, silent nonentity. Aunt Jane was the real manager of the ranch, and incidentally of Little Jim, and her husband was more than content that it should be so.

Occasionally Aunt Jane gave a dance at her home. The young folks of the valley came, had a jolly time, and departed, some of them on horseback, some in buckboards, and one or two of the more well-to-do in that small but aggressive vehicle which has since become a universal odor in the nostrils of the world.

Little Jim detested these functions which entailed his best clothes and his best behavior. He did not like girls, and looked down with scorn upon young men who showed any preference for the sex feminine. He made but two exceptions to this hard-baked rule: his Aunt Jane, and her young friend who lived on the neighboring ranch, Dorothy. Little Jim called her Dorry because it sounded like a boy's name. And he liked Dorry because she could ride, and shoot with a twenty-two rifle almost as well as he could. Then, she didn't have a beau, which was the main thing. Once he told her frankly that if she ever got a beau, he--Jimmy--was going to quit.

"Quit what?" asked Dorothy, smiling.

Little Jim did not know just what he was going to quit, but he had imagination.

"Why, quit takin' you out huntin' and campin' and showin' you how to tell deer tracks from goat's tracks--and everything."

"But I have a beau," said Dorothy teasingly.

"Who is he?" demanded Little Jim.

"Promise you won't tell?"

Little Jim hesitated. He did not consider it quite the thing to promise a girl anything. But he was curious. "Uh-huh," he said.

"Jimmy Hastings!" said Dorothy, laughing at his expression.

"That ain't fair!" blurted Little Jim. "I ain't nobody's beau. Shucks! Now you gone and spoiled all the fun."

"I was only teasing you, Jimmy." And she patted Little Jim's tousled head. He wriggled away and smoothed down his hair.

"I can beat you shootin' at tin cans," he said suddenly, to change the subject.

Shooting at tin cans was much more interesting than talking about beaux.

"I have to help Aunt Jane get supper," said Dorothy, who had been invited to stay for supper that evening. In fact, she was often at the Hastings ranch, a more than welcome guest.

Jimmy scowled. Dorry was always helping Aunt Jane make dresses or trim hats, or get supper. A few minutes later Little Jim was out back of the barn, scowling over the sights of his twenty-two at a tomato can a few yards away. He fired and punctured the can.

"Plumb center!" he exclaimed. "You think you're her beau, do you? Well, that's what you get. And if I see you around this here ranch, just even lookin' at her, I'll plug you again." Jimmy was romancing, with the recently discussed subject of beaux in mind.

When Little Jim informed the household that his father and another man were coming over, that evening, Uncle Frank asked who the other man was. Little Jim described Bartley and told about the wonderful Luger gun.

"My dad is huntin' his hosses," he said. "And I know who's got 'em!"

"Was the other man a deputy?" queried Uncle Frank.

"He didn't have a badge on him. He kind of acted like everything was a joke--shootin' at that stump, and everything. He wasn't mad at nobody. And he looked kind of like a dude."

Little Jim meanwhile amused himself by trying to rope the family cat with a piece of clothesline. Uncle Frank, who took everything seriously, asked Little Jim if he had told his father where the horses were.

"Sure I told him. Wouldn't you? They're dad's hosses, Filaree and Josh. I guess he'll make ole Clubfoot Sneed give 'em back!"

"You want to be careful what you say about Mr. Sneed, Jimmy. And don't you go to ridin' over that way again. We aim to keep out of trouble."

Little Jim had succeeded in noosing the cat's neck. That sadly molested animal jumped, rolled over, and clawed at the rope, and left hurriedly with the bit of clothesline trailing in its wake.

"I got to git that cat afore he hangs himself," stated Little Jim, diving out of the house and heading for the barn. Thus he avoided acknowledging his uncle's command to stay away from Sneed's place.

Supper was over and the dishes were washed and put away when Cheyenne and Bartley appeared. Clean-shaven, his dark hair brushed smoothly, a small, dark-blue, silk muffler knotted loosely about his throat, and in a new flannel shirt and whipcord riding-breeches--which he wore under his jeans when on the trail--Bartley pretty well approximated Little Jim's description of him as a dude. And the word "dude" was commonly used rather to differentiate an outlander from a native than in an exactly scornful sense. Without a vestige of self-consciousness, Bartley made himself felt as a distinct entity, physically fit and mentally alert. Cheyenne, with his cow-puncher gait and his general happy-go-lucky attitude, furnished a strong contrast to the trim and well-poised Easterner. Dorothy was quick to appreciate this. She thought that she rather liked Bartley. He was different from the young men whom she knew. Bartley was pleased with her direct and natural manner of answering his many questions about Western life.

Presently he found himself talking about his old home in Kentucky, and the thorough-bred horses of the Blue Grass. The conversation drifted to books and plays, but never once did it approach the subject of guns--and Little Jim, who had hoped that the subject of horse-thieves might be broached, felt altogether out of the running.

He waited patiently, for a while. Then during a lull in the talk he mentioned Sneed's name.

"Jimmy!" reprimanded his Uncle Frank.

"Yes, sir?"

Uncle Frank merely gestured, significantly.

Little Jim subsided, frowning, and making a face at Dorothy, who was smiling at him. It seemed mighty queer that, when he "horned in," his Aunt Jane or his uncle always said "Jimmy!" in that particular tone. But when any of the grown-ups interrupted, no one said a word. However, Bartley was not blind to Little Jim's attitude of forced silence, and presently Bartley mentioned the subject of guns, much to Little Jim's joy. Little Jim worked round to the subject of twenty-two rifles, intimating that his own single-shot rifle was about worn out.

Uncle Frank heard and promptly changed the subject. Little Jim was disgusted. A boy just wouldn't talk when other folks were talking, and he couldn't talk when they were not. What was the use of living, anyhow, if you had to go around without talking at all, except when somebody asked you if you had forgotten to close the lane gate and had let the stock get into the alfalfa--and you had to say that you had?

However, Little Jim had his revenge. When Aunt Jane proffered apple pie, later in the evening, Jimmy prefixed his demand for a second piece with the statement that he knew there was another uncut pie in the kitchen, because Aunt Jane had said maybe his dad would eat half a one, and then ask for more.

This gentle insinuation brought forth a sharp reprimand from Uncle Frank. But Jimmy had looked before he leaped.

"Well, Aunt Jane said so. Didn't you, Aunt Jane?"

Whereat every one laughed, including the gentle Aunt Jane. And Jimmy got his second piece of pie.

After the company had found itself, Uncle Frank, Cheyenne, and Bartley forgathered out on the veranda and talked about the missing horses. Little Jim sat silently on the steps, hoping that the talk would swing round to where he could have his say. If he had not discovered the missing horses, how would his father know where they were? It did not seem exactly fair to Little Jim that he should be ignored in the matter.

"I'd just ride over and talk with Sneed," suggested Uncle Frank.

"Oh, I'll do that, all right," asserted Cheyenne.

"But I'd go slow. You might talk like your stock had strayed and you were looking for them. Sneed and Panhandle Sears are pretty thick. I'd start easy, if I was in your boots."

This from the cautious Uncle Frank.

"But you'd go get 'em, if they happened to be your hosses," said Cheyenne. "You're always tellin' me to step light and go slow. I reckon you expect me to sing and laugh and josh and take all the grief that's comin' and forget it."

"No," said Uncle Frank deliberately. "If they was my hosses, I'd ride over and get 'em. But I can't step into your tangle. If I did, Sneed would just nacherally burn us out, some night. There's only two ways to handle a man like Clubfoot Sneed: one is to kill him, and the other is to leave him alone. And it's got to be one or the other when you live as close to the hills as we do. I aim to leave him alone, unless he tries to ride me."

"Which means that you kind of think I ought to let the hosses go, for fear of gettin' you in bad."

Uncle Frank shook his head, but said nothing. Bartley smoked a cigar and listened to the conversation that followed. Called upon by Uncle Frank for his opinion, Bartley hesitated, and then said that, if the horses were his, he would be tempted to go and get them, regardless of consequences. Bartley's stock went up, with Little Jim, right there.

Cheyenne turned to Uncle Frank. "I'm ridin' over to Clubfoot's wikiup to-morrow mornin'. I'll git my hosses, or git him. And I'm ridin' alone."

Little Jim, meanwhile, had been raking his mind for an idea as to how he might attract attention. He disappeared. Presently he appeared in front of the veranda with the end of a long rope in his fist. He blinked and grinned.

"What's on the other end of that rope?" queried Uncle Frank, immediately suspicious.

"Nothin' but High-Tail."

"I thought I told you not to rope that calf," said Uncle Frank, rising.

"I didn't. I jest held my loop in front of some carrots and High-Tail shoves his head into it. Then I says, 'Whoosh!' and he jumps back--and I hung on."

"How in Sam Hill did you get him here?" queried Uncle Frank.

"Jest held a carrot to his nose--and he walked along tryin' to get it."

"Well you shake off that loop and haze him back into the corral."

High-Tail, having eaten the carrot, decided to go elsewhere. He backed away and blatted. Little Jim took a quick dally round a veranda post. High-Tail plunged and fought the rope.

"Turn him loose!" cried Uncle Frank.

"What's the matter?" said Aunt Jane, appearing in the doorway.

Little Jim eased off the dally, but clung to the rope. High-Tail whirled and started for the corral. Little Jim set back on his heels, but Little Jim was a mere item in High-Tail's wild career toward freedom. A patter of hoofs in the dark, and Little Jim and the calf disappeared around the corner of the barn.

Cheyenne laughed and rose, following Uncle Frank to the corral. When they arrived, High-Tail had made his third round of the corral, with Jimmy still attached to the rope. Cheyenne managed to stop the calf and throw off the noose.

Little Jim rose and gazed wildly around. He was one color, from head to foot--and it was a decidedly local color. His jeans were torn and his cotton shirt was in rags, but his grit was unsifted.

"D-didn't I hang to him, dad?" he inquired enthusiastically.

"You sure did!" said Cheyenne.

With a pail of hot water, soap, and fresh raiment, Aunt Jane undertook to make Little Jim's return to the heart of the family as agreeable as possible to all concerned.

"Isn't he hurt?" queried Bartley.

"Not if he doesn't know it," stated Cheyenne.

CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER GAME

Cheyenne knew enough about Sneed, by reputation, to make him cautious. He decided to play ace for ace--and, if possible, steal the stolen horses from Sneed. The difficulty was to locate them without being seen. Little Jim had said the horses were in Sneed's corral, somewhere up in the mountain meadows. And because Cheyenne knew little about that particular section of the mountains, he rolled a blanket and packed some provisions to see him through. Bartley and he had returned to their camp after their visit to the ranch, and next morning, as Cheyenne made preparation to ride, Bartley offered to go with him.

Cheyenne dissuaded Bartley from accompanying him, arguing that he could travel faster and more cautiously alone. "One man ridin' in to Sneed's camp wouldn't look as suspicious as two," said Cheyenne. "And if I thought you could help any, I'd say to come along. That's on the square. Me and my little old carbine will make out, I guess."

So Bartley, somewhat against his inclination, stayed in camp, with the understanding that, if Cheyenne did not return in two days, he was to report the circumstance to the authorities in San Andreas, the principal town of the valley.

Meanwhile, the regular routine prevailed at the Lawrence ranch. Uncle Frank had the irrigation plant to look after; and Aunt Jane was immersed in the endless occupation of housekeeping. Little Jim had his regular light tasks to attend to, and that morning he made short work of them. It was not until noon that Aunt Jane missed him. He had disappeared completely, as had his saddle-pony.

At first, Jimmy had thought of riding over to his father's camp, but he was afraid his father would guess his intent and send him back home. So he tied his pony to a clump of junipers some distance from the camp, and, crawling to a rise, he lay and watched Cheyenne saddle up and take the trail that led into the high country. A half-hour later, Jimmy mounted his pony and, riding wide of the camp, he cut into the hill trail and followed it on up through the brush to the hillside timber. He planned to ride until he got so far into the mountains that when he did overtake his father and offer his assistance in locating the stolen horses, it would hardly seem worth while to send him back. Jimmy expected to be ordered back, but he had his own argument ready in that event.

Little Jim's pony carried him swiftly up the grade. Meanwhile, Cheyenne had traveled rather slowly, saving his horse. At a bend in the trail he drew rein to breathe the animal. On the lookout for any moving thing, he glanced back and down--and saw an old black hat bobbing along through the brush below. He leaned forward and peered down. "The little cuss!" he exclaimed, grinning. Then his expression changed. "Won't do, a-tall! His aunt will be havin' fits--and Miss Dorry'll be helpin' her to have 'em, if she hears of it. Dog-gone that boy!"

Nevertheless, Cheyenne was pleased. His boy had sand, and liked adventure. Little Jim might have stayed in camp, with Bartley, and spent a joyous day shooting at a mark, incidentally hinting to the Easterner that "his ole twenty-two was about worn out." But Little Jim had chosen to follow his father into the hills.

"Reckon he figures to see what'll happen," muttered Cheyenne as he led his horse off the trail and waited for Jimmy to come up.

Little Jim's black hat bobbed steadily up the switchbacks. Presently he was on the stretch of trail at the end of which his father waited, concealed in the brush.

As Little Jim's pony approached the bend it pricked its ears and snorted. "Git along, you!" said Jimmy.

"Where you goin'?" queried Cheyenne, stepping out on the trail.

Little Jim gazed blankly at his father. "I'm just a-ridin'. I wa'n't goin' no place."

"Well, you took the wrong trail to get there. You fan it back to the folks."

"Aunt Jane is my boss!" said Jimmy defiantly. "'Course she is," agreed Cheyenne. "You and me, we're just pardners. But, honest, Jimmy, you can't do no good, doggin' along after me. Your Aunt Jane would sure stretch my hide if she knowed I let you come along."

"I won't tell her."

"But she'd find out. You just ride back and wait down at my camp. I'll find them hosses, all right."

Little Jim hesitated, twisting his fingers in his pony's mane. "Suppose," he ventured, "that a bunch of Sneed's riders was to run on to you? You'd sure need help."

"That's just it! Supposin' they did? And supposin' they took a crack at us, they might git you--for you sure look man-size, a little piece off."

Jimmy grinned at the compliment, but compliments could not alter his purpose. "I got my ole twenty-two loaded," he asserted hopefully.

"Then you just ride back and help Mr. Bartley take care of the hosses. He ain't much of a hand with stock."

"Can't I go with you?"

"Not this trip, son. But I'll tell you somethin'. Mr. Bartley, down there, said to me this mornin' that he was goin' to buy you a brand-new twenty-two rifle, one of these days: mebby after we locate the hosses. You better have a talk with him about it."

This was a temptation to ride back: yet Jimmy had set his heart on going with his father. And his father had said that he was simply going to ride up to Sneed's place and have a talk with him. Jimmy wanted to hear that talk. He knew that his father meant business when he had told him to go back.

"All right for you!" said Jimmy finally. And he reined his pony round and rode back down the trail sullenly, his black hat pulled over his eyes, and his small back very straight and stiff.

Cheyenne watched him until the brush of the lower levels intervened. Then Cheyenne began the ascent, his eye alert, his mind upon the task ahead. When Little Jim realized that his father was so far into the timber that the trail below was shut from view, he reined his pony round again and began to climb the grade, slowly, this time, for fear that he might overtake his father too soon.

Riding the soundless upland trail that meandered among the spruce and pine, skirting the edges of the mountain meadows and keeping within the timber, Cheyenne finally reached the main ridge of the range. Occasionally he dismounted and examined the tracks of horses.

It was evident that Sneed had quite a bunch of horses running in the meadows. Presently Cheyenne came to a narrow trail which crossed a meadow. At the far end of the trail, close to the timber, was a spring, fenced with poles. The spring itself was boxed, and roundabout were the marks of high-heeled boots. Cheyenne realized that he must be close to Sneed's cabin. He wondered if he had been seen.

If he had, the only thing to do was to act natural. He was now too close to a habitation--although he could see none--to do otherwise. So he dismounted and, tying his horse to the spring fence, he stepped through the gate and picked up the rusted tin cup and dipped it in the cold mountain water. He had the cup halfway to his lips when his horse nickered. From somewhere in the brush came an answering nicker. Cheyenne, kneeling, threw the water from the cup as though he had discovered dirt in it, and dipped the cup again.

Behind him he heard his horse moving restlessly. As Cheyenne raised the cup to drink, he half closed his eyes, and glancing sideways, caught a glimpse of a figure standing near the upper end of the spring fence. Cheyenne drank, set down the cup, and, rising, turned his back on the figure, and, stretching his arms, yawned heartily. He strode to his horse, untied the reins, mounted, and began to sing:

Seems like I don't get anywhere
Git along, cayuse, git along!
But we're leavin' here and--

"What's your hurry?" came from behind him.

Cheyenne turned and glanced back. "Hello, neighbor! Now, if I'd 'a' knowed you was around, I'd 'a' asked you to have a drink with me."

A tall, heavy-set mountain man, bearded, and limping noticeably, stepped round the end of the spring fence and strode toward him. From Uncle Frank's description, Cheyenne at once recognized the stranger as Sneed. Across Sneed's left arm lay a rifle. Cheyenne saw him let down the hammer as he drew near.

"Where you headed?" queried Sneed.

"Me, I'm lookin' for Bill Sneed's cabin. You ain't Sneed, are you?"

"Yes, I'm Sneed."

"Well, I'm in luck. I'm Cheyenne Hastings."

"That don't buy you nothin' around here. What do you want to see me about?"

"Why, I done lost a couple of hosses the other night. I reckon somethin' stampeded 'em, for they never strayed far from camp before. I trailed 'em up to the hills and then lost their tracks on the rocks. Thought I'd ride up and see if you had seen 'em--a little ole buckskin and a gray."

Partners of Chance

PARTNERS OF CHANCE

BY

HENRY HERBERT KNIBBS

AUTHOR OF

THE RIDIN' KID FROM POWDER RIVER,

SUNDOWN SLIM, OVERLAND RED, ETC.

GROSSET & DUNLAPPUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

1921

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

LITTLE JIM