iend of mine has come to town and wants to see me," he explained.

To help out his bluff, Curly sprang the feeble-minded jest on him. "Blonde
or brunette?"

"I'm no lady's man," Sam protested, content to let the other follow a
wrong scent.

"Sure not. It never is a lady," Flandrau called after him as he departed.

But Sam had no more than turned the corner before Curly was out of a side
door and cutting through an alley toward Chalkeye's place. Reaching the
back door of the saloon, he opened it a few inches and peered in. A minute
later Sam opened the front screen and asked a question of the man in the
apron. The bartender gave a jerk of his thumb. Sam walked toward the rear
and turned in at the second private booth.

Curly slipped forward quietly, and passed unobserved into the third stall.
The wall which divided one room from another was of pine boarding and did
not reach the ceiling. As the eavesdropper slid to a seat a phonograph in
front began the Merry Widow waltz. Noiselessly Flandrau stood on the
cushioned bench with his ear close to the top of the dividing wall. He
could hear a murmur of voices but could not make out a word. The record on
the instrument wheezed to silence, but immediately a rag-time tune
followed.

Presently the music died away. Flattened against the wall, his attention
strained to the utmost, Curly began to catch words and phrases of the
low-voiced speakers in the next compartment. His position was perilous in
the extreme, but he would not leave now until he had found out what he
wanted to know.

CHAPTER IX

EAVESDROPPING

Out of the murmur of voices came one that Curly recognized as that of
Soapy Stone, alias You Know Who.

" ... then you'll take the 9:57, Sam...."

After more whispering, "Yep, soon as you hear the first shot ... cover the
passengers...."

The listener lost what followed. Once he thought he heard the name Tin
Cup, but he could not be sure. Presently another fragment drifted to him.
"...make our getaway and cache the plunder...."

The phonograph lifted up its voice again. This time it was "I love a
lassie." Before the song was finished there came the sound of shuffling
feet. One of the men in the next stall was leaving. Curly could not tell
which one, nor did he dare look over the top of the partition to find out.
He was playing safe. This adventure had caught him so unexpectedly that he
had not found time to run back to his room for his six-gun. What w