eld thus, like a child, until the engine
had taken water, and until the train had moved, with accelerating
speed, out of sight. Then he was released, and rose to his feet to
face Bill Longley.

"The case never needed to be fixed up this way, Tom," said Longley. "I
saw Cooper this evening, and he told me what you and him talked about.
Then I went down to your house to-night and saw you come out with your
guns on, and I followed you. Let's go back, Tom."

They walked away together, side by side.

"'Twas the only chance I saw," said Merwin presently. "You called your
loan, and I tried to answer you. Now, what'll you do, Bill, if they
sock it to you?"

"What would you have done if they'd socked it to you?" was the answer
Longley made.

"I never thought I'd lay in a bush to stick up a train," remarked
Merwin; "but a call loan's different. A call's a call with me. We've
got twelve hours yet, Bill, before this spy jumps onto you. We've got
to raise them spondulicks somehow. Maybe we can--Great Sam Houston! do
you hear that?"

Merwin broke into a run, and Longley kept with him, hearing only a
rather pleasing whistle somewhere in the night rendering the
lugubrious air of "The Cowboy's Lament."

"It's the only tune he knows," shouted Merwin, as he ran. "I'll bet--"

They were at the door of Merwin's house. He kicked it open and fell
over an old valise lying in the middle of the floor. A sunburned,
firm-jawed youth, stained by travel, lay upon the bed puffing at a
brown cigarette.

"What's the word, Ed?" gasped Merwin.

"So, so," drawled that capable youngster. "Just got in on the 9:30.
Sold the bunch for fifteen, straight. Now, buddy, you want to quit
kickin' a valise around that's got $29,000 in greenbacks in its
in'ards."

XV

THE PRINCESS AND THE PUMA

There had to be a king and queen, of course. The king was a terrible
old man who wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a
tremendous voice that the rattlers on the prairie would run into their
holes under the prickly pear. Before there was a royal family they
called the man "Whispering Ben." When he came to own 50,000 acres of
land and more cattle than he could count, they called him O'Donnell
"the Cattle King."

The queen had been a Mexican girl from Laredo. She made a good, mild,
Colorado-claro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his
voice sufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being
broken. When Ben got to be