mounted and rolled it aside.

"You forget right now that you have seen me or you'll have heart disease
some day in this place," warned the horseman, moving aside. Bill swore
earnestly that at times his memory was too short to even remember his own
name, and he enthusiastically lashed his cayuse sextet. As he swung out
on the plain again he glanced furtively over his shoulder and breathed a
deep breath of relief when he found that the outlaw was not in sight.
He then tied a knot in his handkerchief so as to be sure to remember to
get a half-pound package of tobacco. A new responsibility, and one which
he had never borne before, weighed upon him. He must keep silent--and what
a rich subject for endless conversations! Talking material which would
last him for years must be sealed tightly within his memory on penalty
of death if he failed to keep it secret.

After an uneventful trip across the open plain, which passed so rapidly
because of his intent thoughts that he hardly realized it, he ripped
into Sagetown with a burst of speed and flung the mail bag at the station
agent, after which he hastened to float the dust down his throat.

When he met his Sagetown friends he had fairly to choke down his secret,
and his aching desire to create a sensation pained and worried him.

"You made her faster than usual, Bill," remarked the bartender casually.
"Yore half-an-hour ahead of time," he added in a congratulatory tone as
he placed a bottle and glass before the new arrival.

"Yes, and I had to stop, too," Bill replied, and then hastily gulped down
his liquor to save himself.

"That so?" asked old Pop Westley, an habitue of the saloon. Pop Westley
had fought through the Civil War and never forgot to tell of his
experiences, which must have been unusually numerous, even for four years
of hard campaigning, if one may judge from the fact that he never had to
repeat, and yet used them as his _coup d'etat_ in many conversational
bouts. "What was it, Injuns?" he asked, winking at the bartender as if
in prophecy as to what the driver would choose for his next lie.

"Oh, no," replied Bill, groping for an idea to get him out of trouble.
"Nope, just had to lose twenty minutes rollin' rocks out of the
canyon--they must have been a little landslide since I went through her
the last time. Some of 'em was purty big, too."

"I thought you might a had to kill some Injuns, like you did when they
broke out four years ago," responded the bart