m 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"--