was worth only his
amusement.

At the store he bought some tobacco for his pipe and engaged the
storekeeper in trifling conversation. The talk was desultory and for
the most part led nowhere. But the little, brown, wizened old man,
contemplatively chewing his tobacco like a gentle cow ruminating over
her cud, answered what scattering questions Conniston put to him. The
young man learned that the town took its name from the stream which
crept rather than ran through it to spread out on the thirsty sands a
few miles to the north, where it was absorbed by them. That the creek
came from the hills to the south, and from the mountains beyond them.
When one crossed the brown hills he came to the Half Moon country and
into a land of many wide-reaching cattle-ranges.

"I saw a team drive out that way after the train came in," said
Conniston, carelessly. "Headed for one of the cattle-ranges, I
suppose?"

The old man spat and nodded, wiping his scanty gray beard with his
hand.

"That was Joe from the Half Moon. Took the ol' man's girl out."

"I did see a young lady with him. She lives out there?"

"Uh-uh." The old man got up to wait upon a customer, a cowboy, from the
loose, shaggy black "chaps," the knotted neck handkerchief, the
clanking spurs and heavy, black-handled Colt revolver at his hip. He
bought large quantities of smoking-tobacco and brown cigarette-papers,
"swapped the news" with the storekeeper, and clanked his way across to
the saloon. He did not appear to have seen Conniston.

"The girl's father run a cattle-range out there?"

"Uh-uh. The Half Moon an' three or four smaller ranges. He's old man
Crawford--p'r'aps you've heard on him?"

Conniston shook his head, suppressing a smile.

"I don't think I have. Far out to his place?"

"Oh, it ain't bad. Let's see. It's fifty mile to the hills, an' he's
about forty mile fu'ther on." He stopped for a brief mental
calculation. "That makes it about ninety mile, huh?"

"How does a man get out there? A narrow-gauge running from somewhere
along the main line?"

"Darn narrow, stranger. You can walk if you're strong for that kind of
exercise. Mos' folks rides. Goin' out?"

"It's rather a long walk," Conniston evaded. And shortly afterward,
hearing a clanging bell up the street in the direction of the hotel,
he strolled away to his dinner.

He found Hapgood scowling into his high-ball glass and dragged him
away to the little dining-room. Both the tables were set