o' here!" he said, quietly. "I don't
set in no game with you, see? I don't want none o' your chips. Of all
the God-damned low-lived----"

"If I was you," broke in the cowpuncher with a meaning look, "I'd choke
off 'fore I'd got in too fer to back out." Something in the glint of
the black eyes caused the bartender to pause. Purdy laughed, tossed
the butt of his cigarette to the floor, and began irrelevantly: "It's
hell--jest hell with the knots an' bark left on--that Nevada wild horse
range is." The cowpuncher noted that Cinnabar Joe ceased suddenly to
puff his cigar. "It's about seven year, mebbe it's eight," he
continued, "that an outfit got the idee that mebbe Pete Barnum had the
wild horse business to hisself long enough. Four of 'em was pretty
rough hands, an' the Kid was headed that way.

"Them that was there knows a heap more'n what I do about what they went
through 'fore they got out o' the desert where water-holes was about as
common as good Injuns. Anyways, this outfit didn't git no wild horses.
They was good an' damn glad to git out with what horses they'd took in,
an' a whole hide. They'd blow'd in all they had on their projec' an'
they was broke when they headed fer Idaho." The bartender's cigar had
gone out and the cowpuncher saw that his face was a shade paler. "Then
a train stopped sudden one evenin' where they wasn't no station, an'
after that the outfit busted up. But they wasn't broke no more, all
but the Kid. They left him shift fer hisself. Couple o' years later
two of the outfit drifted together in Cinnabar an' there they found the
Kid drivin' a dude-wagon. Drivin' a dude-wagon through the park is a
damn sight easier than huntin' wild horses, an' a damn sight safer than
railroadin' with a Colt, so when the two hard hands stops the Kid's
dude-wagon in the park, thinkin' they'd have a cinch goin' through the
Kid's passengers, they got fooled good an' proper when the Kid pumps
'em full of .45 pills. After that the Kid come to be know'd as
Cinnabar Joe, an' when the last of the dude-wagons was throw'd out fer
automobiles the Kid drifted up into the cow country. But they's a
certain express company that's still huntin' fer the gang--not knowin'
o' course that the Cinnabar Joe that got notorious fer defendin' his
dudes was one of 'em.'"

The cowpuncher ceased speaking and produced his "makings" while the
other stood gazing straight before him, the dead cigar still gripped in
the corne