"I suppose you stand with your townsmen on that, don't you?" he
ventured.

"Now you're shouting: that's me."

"Then if that is the case, we won't take this little holiday of ours
any harder than we can help. When the court business is settled--it
won't take very long--you are to consider yourself my guest. We stop
at the Buckingham."

"Oh, we do, do we? Say, pardner, that's white--mighty white. If I'd
'a' been an inch or so more'n half awake this morning when that old
b'iler-buster's hired man routed me out, I'd 'a' told him to go to
blazes with his warrant. Nex' time I will."

Winton shook his head. "There isn't going to be any 'next time,'
Peter, my son," he prophesied. "When Mr. Darrah gets fairly down to
business he'll throw bigger chunks than the Argentine town-marshal at
us."

By this time the train was slowing into Carbonate, and a few minutes
after the stop at the crowded platform they were making their way up
the single bustling street of the town to the court-house.

"Ever see so many tin-horns and bunco people bunched in all your
round-ups?" said Biggin, as they elbowed through the uneasy shifting
groups in front of the hotel.

"Not often," Winton admitted. "But it's the luck of the big camps:
they are the dumping-grounds of the world while the high pressure is