in New York, never been east of Denver in my life. What was it you
ordered?"

"Well, mebbe I'm wrong," growled the sergeant.

But a month later, when a coyote howled down near the Indian village,
the sergeant said insinuatingly, "Sounds just like the cry of the
Whyos, don't it?" And Cahill, who was listening to the wolf,
unthinkingly nodded his head.

The sergeant snorted in triumph. "Yah, I told you so!" he cried, "a
man that's never been on the Bowery, and knows the call of the Whyo
gang! The drinks are on you, Cahill."

The post-trader did not raise his eyes, but drew a damp cloth up and
down the counter, slowly and heavily, as a man sharpens a knife on a
whetstone.

That night, as the sergeant went up the path to the post, a bullet
passed through his hat. Clancey was a forceful man, and forceful men,
unknown to themselves, make enemies, so he was uncertain as to
whether this came from a trooper he had borne upon too harshly, or
whether, In the darkness, he had been picked off for someone else.
The next night, as he passed in the full light of the post-trader's
windows, a shot came from among the dark shadows of the corral, and
when he immediately sought safety in numbers among the Indians,
cowboys, and troopers in the exchange, he was in time to see Cahill
enter it from the other store, wrapping up a bottle of pain-killer
for Mrs. Stickney's cook. But Clancey was not deceived. He observed
with satisfaction that the soles and the heels of Cahill's boots were