m to hurry up, as he was telling the story about a
fellow that was so tanked up he could not say "sasaparilla."

Dick halted. "There must be some sort of a party going on here," he
thought to himself. "It won't do to take Echo too much by surprise.
If Jack got my letter and told her, it's all right, but if it
miscarried--the shock might kill her. I'll see Jack first."

Dick had ridden first to Sweetwater Ranch, but found the place
deserted. The party, he mused, accounted for this. While he was
planning a way to attract the attention of some one in the house, and
to get Payson to the garden without letting Echo know of his presence,
Sage-brush Charley, who had espied the stranger through the window,
sauntered out on the porch to investigate. Every visitor to the
Territory needed looking over, especially after the trouble with Buck
McKee.

Sage-brush was bound that there should be no hitch at the wedding of
his boss.

"Howdy," greeted Lane pleasantly. "I'm looking for Jack Payson."

"That so?" answered Sage-brush. "Who may you be?"

"I'm a friend of his."

The foreman could see no danger to come from this weak, sickly man.
"Then walk right in," he invited; "he's inside."

Sage-brush was about to reenter the house, when Dick halted him with
the request: "I want to see him out here--privately."

"What's the name," asked Sage-brush, his suspicions returning.

"Tell him an old friend from Mexico."

Sage-brush did not like the actions of the stranger and his secrecy.
He was there to fight his boss's battles, if he had any. This was not
in the contract, but it was a part read into the paper by Sage-brush.

"Say, my name's Sage-brush Charley," he cried, with a show of
importance. "I'm ranch-boss for Payson. If you want to settle any old
claim agin' Jack, I'm actin' as his substitoot for him this evenin'."

"On the contrary," said Lane, with a smile at Sage-brush's outbreak,
"he has a claim against me."

It was such a pleasant, kindly look he gave Sage-brush, that the
foreman was disarmed completely.

"I'll tell him," he said over his shoulder.

Dick mused over the changes that had occurred since he had left the
region. Two years' absence from a growing country means new faces, new
ranches, and the wiping out of old landmarks with the advance of
population and the invasion of the railroad. He wondered if Jack would
know him with his beard. He knew--his mirror told him--that his
appearance had chan