Big stuff!
As for me, I think I'll go downstairs and interview the pensive
Wishful."

Wishful had the Navajo blankets and chairs piled up in the middle of the
hotel office and was thoughtfully sweeping out cigar ashes, cigarette
stubs, and burned matches. Wishful, besides being proprietor of the
Antelope House, was chambermaid, baggage-wrangler, clerk, advertising
manager, and, upon occasion, waiter in his own establishment. And he
kept a neat place.

Bartley walked over to the desk. Wishful kept on sweeping. Bartley
glanced at the signatures on the register. Near the bottom of the page
he found Cheyenne's name, and opposite it "Arizona."

"Where does Cheyenne belong, anyway?" queried Bartley.

Wishful stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. "Wherever he happens
to be." And Wishful sighed and began sweeping again.

"What sort of traveling companion would he make?"

Wishful stopped sweeping. His melancholy gaze was fixed on a defunct
cigar. "Never heard either of his hosses object to his company," he
replied.

Bartley grinned and glanced up and down the register. Wishful dug into a
corner with his broom. Something shot rattling across the floor. Wishful
laid down the broom and upon hands and knees began a search. Presently
he rose. A slow smile illumined his face. He had found a pair of dice in
the litter on the floor. He made a throw, shook his head, and picked up
the dice. His sweeping became more sprightly. Amused by the
preoccupation of the lank and cautiously humorous Wishful, Bartley
touched the bell on the desk. Wishful promptly stood his broom against
the wall, rolled down his sleeves, and stepped behind the counter.

"I think I'll pay my bill," said Bartley.

Wishful promptly named the amount. Bartley proffered a ten-dollar bill.

Wishful searched in the till for change. He shook his head. "You got two
dollars comin'," he stated.

"I'll shake you for that two dollars," said Bartley.

Wishful's tired eyes lighted up. "You said somethin'." And he produced
the dice.

Just then the distant "Zoom" of the westbound Overland shook the
silence. Wishful hesitated, then gestured magnificently toward space.
What was the arrival of a mere train, with possibly a guest or so for
the hotel, compared with a game of craps?

While they played, the train steamed in and was gone. Wishful won the
two dollars.

Bartley escaped to the veranda and his reflections. Presently he rose
and strolled round to the corra