from our house at four times the market price. We wouldn't want our
brand served here."

The last bill was paid. Proprietor Ashby stiffened, his backbone,
trying to look game.

"Gentlemen," he inquired, "where are you going from here? Won't you let
me call the 'bus to take you?"

"Never mind the, 'bus, Ash," smilingly replied the leader of the
drummers, a man named Pritchard. "If you'll send the 'bus over to the
Cactus House with our trunks we'll be greatly obliged."

"Certainly, gentlemen, it's a pleasure to oblige you," murmured Ashby,
with a ghastly effort to look pleasant. He watched the eight men step
outside. Duff and his crowd had vanished. It would never do to try any
mob tricks on so many strangers who had done nothing. The most easy-
going citizens of an Arizona town would turn out to punish such a mob.

The three railroad men had their horses brought around, but they rode
slowly, chatting with the salesmen on the sidewalk.

In this order they reached the Cactus House, which, thirty years ago,
had been famous in and around the old Paloma of the frontier days. The
proprietor, a young man named Carter, had succeeded his father in the
ownership of the property. It was a neat hotel, but a small one. The
elder Carter had lost a good deal of money before his death, and the son
was now trying to build up the property with hardly any reserve capital.

At the Cactus there was a great flurry when five such important guests