rt of mild enthusiasm.
"I'm going to ranch," he went on simply, while the police officer
surveyed him as he might some big, boisterous child. "My brother's got
a ranch at Rocky Springs. He's done pretty well, I guess--for an
artist fellow. He's making money--oh, yes, he's making good money, and
seems to like the life.

"The fact is," he went on eagerly, "Charlie was a bit of a bad
boy--he's a dandy good fellow, really he is; but I guess he got gay
when he was an art student, and the old man got rattled over it and
sent him along out here to raise cattle and wheat. Well, when dad died
he left me most of his dollars. There were plenty, and it's made me
feel sick he forgot Charlie's existence. So I took a big think over
things. You see it makes a fellow think, when he finds himself with a
lot of dollars that ought to be shared with another fellow.

"Well, I don't often think hard," he went on ingenuously. "But I did
that time, and it's queer how easy it is to think right when you
really try--hard. Guess you don't need to think much in your work--but
maybe sometimes you'll have to, and then you'll find how easy it
comes."

He turned abruptly in the saddle and looked straight into the
officer's interested face. His eyes were alight, and he emitted a
deep-throated guffaw.

"Say," he went on, "it came to me all of a sudden. It was in the
middle of the night. I woke up thinking it. I was saying it to myself.
Why not go out West? Join Charlie. Put all your money into his ranch.
Turn it into a swell affair, and run it together. That way it'll seem
as if you were doing it for yourself. That way Charlie'll never know
you're handing him a fortune. Can you beat it?" he finished up
triumphantly.

Stanley Fyles had not often met men in the course of his sordid work
with whom he really wanted to shake hands. But somehow this great,
soft-hearted, simple giant made him feel as he had never felt before.
He abruptly thrust out a hand, forgetful of the previous handshakes he
had endured, and, in a moment, it was seized in a second vice-like
grip.

"It's fine," he said. Then as an afterthought: "No, you can't beat
it."

The unconscious Bill beamed his satisfaction.

"That's how I thought," he said enthusiastically. "And I'll be mighty
useful to him, myself, too--in a way. Don't guess I know much about
wheat or cattle, but I can ride anything with hair on it, and I've
never seen the feller I couldn't pound to a mush with the gloves