there, apparently unarmed.

"Good morning, Jim," said Stranleigh cordially.

"I wish to enjoy a few minutes' conversation with the company before
leaving for Bleachers."

"None of the company are out of their bunks yet, except myself, but I
guess they're wide enough awake to hear what you say. Won't you come
inside?"

"Thank you," said Stranleigh, stepping across the threshold; then, to
the sleeping beauties--"The top of the morning to you! Early to bed and
late to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Has wisdom come to
you since I left? Do you still intend to shoot up Bleachers on auction
day?"

"You bet we do," said Dean.

Stranleigh seated himself upon the chair he had formerly occupied.

"How did you propose to get out?"

"By the same way you escaped," responded Dean with determination.

"What an inconvenient exit! I speak from sooty experience. Why not have
gone by the doorway?"

"We didn't want to get shot," said Jim.

"There was no danger of that. I have been spending my days in fishing,
and my nights in sound sleep."

"Do you mean to say," cried Jim, "that there's been nobody on guard?"

"No; you've been as free as air to go where you pleased."

Dean laughed heartily, and the others joined him. The joke was on them,
but they seemed to enjoy rather than resent it.

"You were right about brain and muscle," observed Jim at last.

Stranleigh ignored the compliment.

"I've got a proposal to make to you men," he went on. "I'm off to
Bleachers to do some telegraphing, trying to learn the whereabouts of
Mr. Armstrong, who has not yet put in an appearance. The sale takes
place day after to-morrow."

[Illustration: "'Put down your hands and approach as a Christian
should.'"]

Stranleigh paused in his recital. He noticed a stealthy movement among
the bunkers. He had observed that the first to sit up cast a longing
glance at the rifles stacked in the corner, and it seemed to him that
a simultaneous rush towards them was going to take place.

"As you know, gentlemen," he went on, "I have an objection to shooting
as a settlement of any legal question, but if shooting has to be done, I
am quite prepared for it, and the inhabitants of Bleachers will regret
provoking me to a fusilade."

He took from his pocket the neat little automatic pistol.

"I don't suppose," he went on, "that you ever saw anything exactly like
this. It will simply rain bullets, and I can re-load before any of those
Bl