your rep; he probably had conscientious scruples about bloodshed. Early trainin'," said Mr. Johnson admiringly, "is a wonderful thing! And, after they found you wouldn't fall for the husks and things, they went out to put a crimp in your bank roll. Now, who is to gain by putting you on the blink, huh?"

"No one at all," said Stan. "You're seein' things at night! What happened on the Cobre Trail to stir up your superstitions?"

"Two gay young lads—punchers of Zurich's—tried to catch me with my gun unloaded. That's what! And if herdin' with them blasted baa-sheep hadn't just about ruined your intellect, you'd know why, without asking," said Pete. "Look now! I was so sure that you was bein' systematically hornswoggled that, when two rank strangers made that sort of a ranikiboo play at me, I talked it out with myself, like this—not out loud—just me and Pete colloguing:

"'These gentlemen are pickin' on you, Pete. What's that for?' 'Why,' says Pete, 'that's because you're Stan's pardner, of course. These two laddie-bucks are some small part of the gang, bunch, or congregation that's been preyin' on Stan.' 'What they tryin' to put over on Stan now?' I asks, curiosity getting the better of my good manners. 'Not to pry into private matters any,' says I, 'but this thing is getting personal. I can feel malicious animal magnetism coursin' through every vein and leapin' from crag to crag,' says I. 'A joke's a joke, and I can take a joke as well as any man; but when I'm sick in my bed, and the undertaker comes to my house and looks into my window and says, "Darlin'! I am waitin' for thee!"—that's no joke. And if Stanley Mitchell's facetious friends begin any hilarity with me I'll transact negotiations with 'em—sure! So I put it up to you, Petey—square and aboveboard—what are they tryin' to work on Stan now?'

"'To get his mine, you idjit!' says Pete. 'Now be reasonable,' says I. 'How'd they know we got any mine?' 'Didn't you tote a sample out of that blisterin' old desert?' says Pete. 'We did,' I admits, 'just one little chunk the size of a red apple—and it weighed near a couple of ton whilst we was perishin' for water. But we stuck to it closer than a rich brother-in-law,' says I. 'You been had!' jeers Pete. 'What kind of talk is this? You caught that off o' Thorpe, over on the Malibu—you been had! Talk United States! Do you mean I've been bunked?' I spoke up sharp; but I was feelin' pretty sick, for I just remembered that we didn't register that sample when we mailed it to the assayer.

"'Your nugget's been seen, and sawed, and smeltered. Got that? As part of the skulduggery they been slippin' to young Stan, your package has been opened,' says Petey, leerin' at me. 'Great Scott! Then they know we got just about the richest mine in Arizona!' I says, with my teeth chatterin' so that I stammers. 'Gosh, no! Else the coyotes would be pickin' your bones,' says Pete. 'They know you've got some rich ore, but they figure it to be some narrow, pinchin', piddlin' little vein somewheres. How can they guess you found a solid mountain of the stuff?'

"'Sufferin' cats!' says I. 'Then is every play I make—henceforth and forever, amen—to be gaumed up by a mess of hirelin' bandogs? Persecutin' Stan was all very well—but if they take to molesting me any, it's going to make my blood fairly boil! Is some one going to draw down wages for makin' me mizzable all the rest of my whole life?' 'No such luck,' says Petey. 'Your little ore package was taken from the mail as part of the system of pesterin' Stanley—but, once the big boss-devil glued his bug-eyes on that freeworkin' copper stuff, he throwed up his employer and his per diem, and is now operating roundabout on his own. They take it you might have papers about you showing where your claim is—location papers, likely. That's all! These ducks, here, want to go through you. Nobody wants to kill you—not now. Not yet—any more than usual. But, if you ask me,' said Petey, 'if they ever come to know as much about that copper claim as you know, they'll do you up. Yes, sir! From ambush, likely. So long as they are dependin' on you to lead them to it, you're safe from that much, maybe. After they find out where it is—cuidado!'

"'But who took that package out of the mail, Petey? It might have been any one of several or more—old Zurich, here at Cobre; or the postmaster at Silverbell; or the postal clerks on the railroad; or the post-office people at El Paso.'

"'You're an old pig-headed fool,' says Pete to me; 'and you lie like a thief. You know who it was, same as I do—old C. Mayer Zurich, grand champion lightweight collar-and-elbow grafter and liar, cowman, grubstaker, general storekeeper, postmaster, and all-round crook, right here in Cobre—right here where young Stanley's been gettin' 'em dealt from the bottom for three years. Them other post-office fellows never had no truck with Stanley—never so much as heard of him. Zurich's here. He had the disposition, the motive, the opportunity, and the habit. Besides, he sold you a shoddy coat once. Forgotten that?'"

Pete paused to glower over that coat; and young Mitchell, big-eyed and gasping, seized the chance to put in a word:

"You're an ingenious old nightmare, pardner—you almost make it convincing. But Great Scott, man! Can't you see that your fine, plausible theory is all built on surmise and wild conjecture? You haven't got a leg to stand on—not one single fact!"

"Whilst I was first a-constructing this ingenious theory your objection might have carried force; for I didn't have a fact to stand on, as you observe. I conjectured round pretty spry, too. Reckon it took me all of half a second—while them two warriors was giving me the evil eye. I'll tell you how it was." He related the story of the shooting match and the lost bet. "And to this unprovoked design against an inoffensive stranger I fitted the only possible meaning and shape that would make a lick of sense, dovetailin' in with the real honest-to-goodness facts I already knew."

"But don't you see, old thing, you're still up in the air? Your theory doesn't touch ground anywhere."

"Stanley—my poor deluded boy!—when I got to the railroad I wired that assayer right off. Our samples never reached El Paso. So I wrote out my fake location and filed it. See what followed that filing—over yonder? I come this way on purpose, expecting to see those fires, Stanley. If they hadn't been there we'd have gone on to our mine. Now we'll go anywhere else."

"Well, I'll just be teetotally damned!" Stanley remarked with great fervor.

"Trickling into your thick skull, is it? Son, get a piece of charcoal. Now you make black marks on that white rock as I tell you, to hold down my statements so they don't flutter away with the wind. Ready? Number One: Our copper samples didn't reach the assayer—make a long black mark … Therefore—make a short black mark … Number Two: Either Old Pete's crazy theory is correct in every particular—a long black mark … Or—now a short black mark … Number Three: The assayer has thrown us down—a long black mark … Number Four: Which would be just as bad—make a long black mark."