"How did you happen to pick out this?" he asked, curiously.

"I knowed the jasper as wrote it."

Conniston gasped. Lonesome Pete evidently taking the gasp as prompted
by a deep awe that he should know a man who wrote books, smiled
broadly and went on:

"Yes, suh. I'm real sure I knowed him. You see, I was workin' a couple
er years ago for the Triangle Bar outfit. Young Jeff Comstock, the ol'
man's son, he used to hang out in the East. An' he had a feller
visitin' him. That feller's name was Bill, an' he was out here to git
the dope so's he could write books about the cattle country. I reckon
his las' name was the same as the Bill as wrote this. I don't know no
other Bills as writes books, do you, stranger?"

Conniston evaded. "Are you sure it's about the cattle country?"

"It sorta sounds like it, an' then it don't. You see it begins in a
desert place. That goes all right. But I ain't sure I git jest what
this here firs' page is drivin' at. It's about three witches, an' they
don't say much as a man can tie to. I jest got to where there's
something about a fight, an' I guess he jest throwed the witches in,
extry. Here it says as they wear chaps. That oughta settle it, huh?"

There was the line, half hidden by Lonesome Pete's horny forefinger.
"_He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps!_" That certainly settled
it as far as Lonesome Pete was concerned. Macbeth was a cattle-king,
and Bill Shakespeare was the young fellow who had visited the Triangle