annel shirt awaiting
him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West
troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions
became certainty.

"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the passenger had told his
destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked
the rancher fair in the eye.

"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pass to the show, will you?"

For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood, and his hand
sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen
to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a
half-dollar.

The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level
of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell--straight ahead, and turn
to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly.

Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do
my stunt."

With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long
free stride--a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a
cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved
streets.

"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen
ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!"

At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come
in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the
hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the
table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to
open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside.
Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium.
The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the
bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not
one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue
eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene--the luxurious
furnishings, the condition of the two men--with the rapidity and
minuteness of a sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an
unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under
the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event,
he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary
dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The
observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face.

"In response to your invitation," he sai