for the day, was lying on his cot in
the back room of the general office, blowing idle puffs of
cigarette-smoke at the lamp-chimney, watching the smoke as the hot
draft from the flame sent it ceilingward. He was thinking of the talk
he had had with Conniston, how Conniston had gone to Argyl's father.

"After all," he grunted to himself, as he pinched out his cigarette
and lighted another, "they were made for each other. And I lose my one
chief bet this incarnation. Hello! Come in!" For there had come a
sudden sharp knocking at the outer door.

The door was pushed open and a big man, dusty from riding, came slowly
into the front room, cast a quick glance about him, and came on into
Garton's room. Garton started as he saw who the man was.

"Hello, Wallace!" he said, sitting up and putting out his hand. "What
in the world brings you here?"

Wallace laughed, returned the greeting, and sat down upon the cot
across the room. And as he came into the circle of light thrown out by
the lamp a nickeled star shone for a moment from under his coat, which
was carelessly flung back.

"Jest rampsin' around, Tommy," he answered, quietly, making himself a
cigarette. "Jest seein' what I could see. You fellers keepin' pretty
busy, ain't you?"

"Yes. Too busy to get into trouble, Bill." He lay back and sent a new
cloud of smoke to soar aloft over the lamp-chimney. "We haven't had a
visit from a sheriff for six months."

"Oh, I know you been bein' good, all right. If everybody was like you
fellers I'd have one lovely, smooth job. Goin' to make a go of this
thing, ain't you, Tommy?"

"You bet we are!" cried Garton, enthusiastically. "There's nothing can
stop us now. I expect," with a sharp look at the sheriff, "Swinnerton
is feeling a bit shaky of late?"

"Couldn't say," replied Wallace, slowly. "Ain't seen Oliver for a
coon's age."

They talked casually of many things, and Tommy Garton, to whom the
sheriff's explanation of the reason for his visit to the Valley was no
explanation whatever, sat back against the wall, his head lost in the
shadow cast by a coat hanging at the side of the window and between
him and the lamp, a frown in his eyes.

"Any time big Bill Wallace drifts this far from his stamping-ground
just to look at a ditch I'm dreaming the whole thing," he told
himself, as his eyes never left the sheriff's face. "And as for not
having seen Swinnerton, that's a lie."

Tommy Garton was already scenting something very