ling in pace with Hapgood's
dawning discomfiture.

"I told you I had made a bet. I have laid a wager with the Fates. And
right now, my dear Roger, while we sit comfortably and smoke and wait,
the Fates are deciding things for us!"

Roger paused, regarding him. "Yes, you're drunk. If you are not, is it
asking too much to suggest that you explain?"

"No. I'll explain. At the sign of the local Whisky Barrel there is a
game of faro now in progress. Two very charming young gentlemen, named
Jimmie and Bart, punchers of cattle, whatever that may be, are
deciding things for Roger Hapgood and William Conniston, Junior, of
New York. Each of the amateur gamblers--and they actually do play very
badly, Roger!--has before him a hundred dollars of my money. If they
win to-night I get back two hundred dollars plus half their winnings,
and you and I take the train for San Francisco!"

"If they win. And if they lose?"

"We'll take it as a sign that the Fates have decreed that we're not to
go on to the city by the Golden Gate, but tarry here! Both Jimmie and
Bart are provided with saddle-horses, with chaps--chaps, my dear
Roger, are wide, baggy, shaggy, ill-fitting riding-breeches, made, I
believe, out of goat's hide with the hairy side out!--spurs and
quirts--in short, all the necessary paraphernalia and accoutrements of
a couple of knights of the cattle country. If they lose the two
hundred dollars we win the two outfits! And to-morrow, instead of
riding in a Pullman toward San Francisco, we straddle what they call
a hay-burner for the blue rim of mountains in the south!"

Hapgood stared incredulously, a sort of horror dawning in his pale
little eyes.

"I suppose this is another of your purposeless jokes," he said,
stiffly, after a moment.

"Nothing of the kind! Don't you see we win either way? Frankly, I am
persuaded that the two hundred dollars are now winging their way into
the pockets of an apparently awkward dealer with slow fingers, and
into the pockets of our friend the hotel man. But we will get the
horses, and think of the lark--"

"Lark!" shrilled Hapgood. "A lark--to go wandering off into the
desert--"

"Not wandering! _Pirutin'_ is the word you want, the real vernacular
of the West. Or _skallyhutin'_! I'm strong for the sound of the latter
myself--"

"Oh, rot!" broke in Hapgood. "I was a fool to come out here with a
fool like you."

He turned his back squarely upon Conniston and stood staring out the
little