at were fed, to come out as grain.

Injun and Whitey's jobs were to hold the sacks into which the grain
fell. And there they worked, from sunup to sundown, in the heat, and the
dust from the chaff, with never a murmur. They were happy because it
_wasn't_ work, it was an adventure, with expectancy and danger in it.
And Gil Steele was happy, because he was practically getting the work of
two men for the pay of two boys.

The sleeping quarters in the Hanley Ranch were altogether taken up by
the extra help required to feed the threshers. So the threshers
themselves occupied tents, and it was in one of these that Whitey and
Injun were bedded, much to their joy. It fitted in with their plans to
watch Dorgan, and see if they could learn something that would confirm
their suspicions of him.

So far Dorgan had been an utter disappointment. Not only had he
refrained from beating it, but he had greeted the boys pleasantly when
they met. As far as outward appearances went, Dorgan might have been a
Sunday school superintendent. Had he been one at heart, there would be
no more story for me to tell.

But there were times when Dorgan could be forgotten. With a crowd like
that gathered on the Hanley Ranch, you can imagine the yarns there were
to spin in the long evenings, with nothing to do but spin them. Perhaps
some of the tales those men didn't dare to tell--the secrets hidden
behind their hardened faces, the faults, the crimes, the horrors that
could have been revealed--these might have proved more thrilling than
the stories that came forth; but that is something that neither you, nor
Whitey, nor I will ever know.

The tales that were told there had the proper setting, and if you have
thought much about stories you know what that means. You tell a ghost
story late at night, seated before a fireplace in an old country house.
The only light comes from the flames of the dying fire logs that flicker
as the wind howls down the chimney; the only sounds, the beating of the
rain on the walls and roof, and--during the creepy pauses in the
yarn--the creakings that a lonely house gives out in the night hours.
Tell that same story on a sun-lighted June morning, in the orchard,
when the trees are all in blossom. Oh, boy! you know the difference.

One night when Whitey had been to the ranch house on an errand, he
returned to the tent to find a disturbance going on. Dorgan, who slept
in another tent, was a visitor. Somewhere he had obtained