You see," he went on, "I don't make no extry charge for whiskey or
conversation to my patients. Far's I know, I'm the only railroad that
don't. I got a box of aigs back there in the wagon, too. Ever see ary
railroad back in the States that throwed in ham and aigs? I reckon
not."

"Twenty dollars extra!" remarked Ellsworth, "You've made the girl
laugh."

"Man, hush!" said Tom Osby. "Go on to sleep, and don't offer me money,
or I'll make you get out and walk." This with a twinkle which robbed
his threat of terror, though Ellsworth took the advice presently and
lay down under the wagon cover.

"Don't mind him, Miss Constance," apologized Tom Osby. "He's only your
father, anyhow, if it comes to the worst. But now tell me, what ails
_you_? Say, now, you ain't sick, are you?" He caught the plaintive
droop of the girl's mouth; but, receiving no answer, he himself evaded
the question, and began to point out antelope and wolves, difficult for
the uneducated eye to distinguish upon the gray plains that now swept
about them. It was an hour before he returned to the subject really
upon his mind.

"I was hearin' a little about Ben Stillson, the sherf, goin' out with a
feller or so of ours after a boy that's broke jail down below," he
began tentatively. "You folks hustled me out of town so soon, I didn't
have more'n half time enough to git the news." From the corner of his
eye he watched the face of his passenger.

"A great way to do, wasn't it!" exclaimed Constance, in sudden
indignation. "I asked them why they didn't hire men to do such work."

"Ma'am," said Tom Osby; "I used to think you had some sense. You
ain't."

"Why?"

"You can't think of no way but States ways, can you? I s'pose you
think the _po_lice ought to catch a bad man, don't you?"

"Well, it's officer's work, going after a dangerous man. Wasn't this
man dangerous?"

He noted her eagerness, and hastened to qualify. "Him? The Kid? No,
I don't mean him. _He's_ plumb gentle. I mean a _real_ bad man--if
there was any out here, you know. Now, not havin' any _po_lice, out
here, the fellers that believes in law and order, why, onct in a while,
they kind of help go after the fellers that don't. It works out all
right. Now I don't seem to just remember which ones it was of our
fellers that Stillson took with him the other day, along of your
hurrying me out of town so soon after I got in."

"It was Mr. Tomlinson, and Mr. McKinney from the