customer of nearly fifty. From out of his leathery
sun-and-wind beaten face, hard eyes looked without expression. "Bad Bill"
Cranston he was called, and the man looked as if he had earned his
sobriquet.

"And what if he ain't here?" snarled the fourth. "Are you aiming to sit
down and wait for him?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Bad Bill answered. "Curly,
want to ride up to the hotel and ask if Mr. Dave Warren is there? Bring
him right down if he is."

"And say, young fellow, don't shout all over the place what your business
is with him," ordered the previous speaker sulkily. Lute Blackwell, a
squat heavily muscled man of forty, had the manner of a bully. Unless his
shifty eyes lied he was both cruel and vindictive.

Curly's gaze traveled over him leisurely. Not a muscle in the boyish face
moved, but in the voice one might have guessed an amused contempt. "All
right. I won't, since you mention it, Lute."

The young man cantered up the dusty street toward the hotel. Blackwell
trailed toward the windmill pump.

"Thought you'd fixed it with this Warren to be right on the spot so's we
could unload on him prompt," he grumbled at Cranston without looking
toward the latter.

"I didn't promise he'd be hanging round your neck soon as you hit town,"
Cranston retorted coolly. "Keep your shirt on, Lute. No use getting in a
sweat."

The owner of the corral sauntered from the stable and glanced over the
bunch of horses milling around.

"Been traveling some," he suggested to Bad Bill.

"A few. Seen anything of a man named Warren about town to-day?"

"He's been down here se-ve-re-al times. Said he was looking for a party
with stock to sell. Might you be the outfit he's expecting?"

"We might." Bad Bill took the drinking cup from Blackwell and drained it.
"I reckon the dust was caked in my throat an inch deep."

"Drive all the way from the Bar Double M?" asked the keeper of the corral,
his eyes on the brand stamped on the flank of a pony circling past.

"Yep."

Bad Bill turned away and began to unsaddle. He did not intend to volunteer
any information, though on the other hand he did not want to stir
suspicion by making a mystery for gossips to chew on.

"Looks like you been hitting the road at a right lively gait."

Mac cut in. "Shoulder of my bronc's chafed from the saddle. Got anything
that'll heal it?"

"You bet I have." The man hurried into the stable and the redheaded
cowpuncher winked across