you think--"

"I think he's some bear-cat, that young fellow. When you 're looking
for something easy to mix with, go pick a grizzly or a wild cat, but
don't you monkey with friend Beaudry. He's liable to interfere with
your interior geography. . . . Say, Dingwell. Do I get to cull this
bunch of longhorn skeletons you're misnaming cattle?"

"You do not."

The Denver man burlesqued a sigh. "Oh, well! I'll go broke dealing
with you unsophisticated Shylocks of the range. The sooner the
quicker. Send 'em down to the siding. I'll take the bunch."

Roy rode up on a pinto.

"Help! Help!" pleaded the Coloradoan of the young man.

"He means that I've unloaded this corral full of Texas dinosaurs on him
at nineteen a throw." explained Dave.

"You've made a good bargain," Beaudry told the buyer.

"'Course he has, and he knows it." Dingwell opened on Roy his gay
smile. "I hear you've had a run-in with the bad man of Chicito Canon,
son."

Roy looked at the Denver man reproachfully. Ever since the affair on
the station platform he had been flogging himself because he had driven
away and left Meldrum in possession of the field. No doubt all Battle
Butte knew now how frightened he had been. The women were gossiping
about it over their tea, probably, and men were retailing the story in
saloons and on sidewalks.

"I didn't want any trouble," he said apologetically. "I--I just left
him."

"That's what I've been hearing," assented Dave dryly. "You merely
showed him up for a false alarm and kicked him into the discard.
That's good, and it's bad. We know now that Meldrum won't fight you in
the open. You've got him buffaloed. But he'll shoot you in the back
if he can do it safely. I know the cur. After this don't ride alone,
Roy, and don't ride that painted hoss at all. Get you a nice quiet
buckskin that melts into the atmosphere like a patch of bunch grass.
Them's my few well-chosen words of advice, as Manana Bill used to say."

Three days later Beaudry, who had been superintending the extension of
an irrigation ditch, rode up to the porch of the Lazy Double D ranch
house and found Hal Rutherford, senior, with his chair tilted back
against the wall. The smoke of his pipe mingled fraternally with that
of Dingwell's cigar. He nodded genially to Roy without offering to
shake hands.

"Mr. Rutherford dropped in to give us the latest about Meldrum,"
explained Dave. "Seems he had warned our friend the croo