* * * *

For three days Bartley had tried to find where Cheyenne was staying, but
without success, chiefly because Cheyenne kept close to his room during
the daytime, watching the entrance to the Hole-in-the-Wall, waiting for
Panhandle to step out into the daylight, when there would be folk on the
street who could witness that Panhandle had drawn his gun first.
Cheyenne determined to give his enemy that chance, and then kill him.
But thus far Panhandle had not appeared on the street in the daytime, so
far as Cheyenne knew.

Incidentally, Senator Steve had warned Bartley to keep away from the
Hole-in-the-Wall district after dark, intimating that there was more in
the wind than Cheyenne's feud with Panhandle Sears. So Bartley contented
himself with acting as a sort of private secretary for the Senator, a
duty that was a pleasure. The hardest thing Bartley did was to refuse
bottled entertainment, at least once out of every three times it was
offered.

On the evening of the fourth day after Pelly had wired the Senator that
Sneed and his men had ridden north from Tucson, Posmo, hanging about the
eastern outskirts of Phoenix, saw a small band of horsemen against the
southern sky-line. Knowing the trail they would take, north, Posmo had
timed their arrival almost to the hour. They would pass to the east of
Phoenix, and take the old Apache Trail, North. Posmo had his horse
saddled and hidden in a draw. He mounted and rode directly toward the
oncoming horsemen.

He sang as he rode. It was safer to do that, when it was growing dark.
The riders would know he was a Mexican, and that he did not wish to
conceal his identity on the road. He did not care to be mistaken for an
enemy, especially so near Phoenix.

Sneed, a giant in the dusk, reined in as Posmo hailed the group. Sneed
asked his name. Posmo replied, and was told to ride up. Sneed,
separating himself from his men, rode a little ahead and met Posmo.

"Panhandle is give the deal away," stated Posmo.

"How?"

"He drunk and spend all the money. He do not give me anything for that I
make the deal--over there," and Posmo gestured toward the south.

"Double-crossed you, eh? And now you're sore and want his scalp."

"He talk too much of the Box-S horses in that cantina," stated Posmo
deliberately. "He say that you owe him money." This was an afterthought,
and an invention.

"Who did he say that to?" queried Sneed.

"He tell everybody in that pl