crumpled down suddenly, silently, and Wishful had stood over him, gazing
down speculatively and swinging his gun back and forth before he
returned it to the holster. "They move quick, in this country," thought
Bartley. "And speaking of material for a story--" Then he smiled.

Somewhere out on the mesa Cheyenne had spread his bed-roll and was no
doubt sleeping peacefully. Bartley shook his head. He had been in
Antelope but two days and yet it seemed that months had passed since he
had stepped from the westbound train to telegraph to his friend in
California. Incidentally, he decided to purchase an automatic pistol.






CHAPTER VI

A HORSE-TRADE


When Bartley came down to breakfast next morning he noticed two horses
tied at the hitch-rail in front of the hotel. One of the horses, a
rather stocky gray, bore a pack. The other, a short-coupled, sturdy
buckskin, was saddled. Evidently Cheyenne was trying to catch up with
his dinner schedule, for as Bartley entered the dining-room he saw him,
sitting face to face with a high stack of flapjacks, at the base of
which reposed two fried eggs among some curled slivers of bacon.

Two railroad men, a red-eyed Eastern tourist who looked as though he had