ed men and
teams lying in that ditch over yonder," pointing with his quirt toward
the dynamited cutting. "Do you think I'm going to lie down and let these
cattle-punchers ride rough-shod over me and the company I represent? Not
to-day, or any other day, I assure you."

"Then you entirely disregard the little type-written note?"

"In justice to my employers, I am bound to call Colonel Craigmiles's
bluff, whatever form it takes."

Bigelow rode in silence for the next hundred yards. Then he began again.

"It doesn't seem like the colonel: to go at you indirectly that way."

"He was in that automobile: I saw him. The notice could scarcely have
been posted without his knowledge."

"No," Bigelow agreed, slowly. But immediately afterward he added: "There
were others in the car."

"I know it--four or five of them. But that doesn't let the colonel out."

Again Bigelow relapsed into silence, and the camp-fires of Fitzpatrick's
headquarters were in sight when he said:

"You confessed to me a few hours ago that one of your weaknesses was the
inability to stay angry. Will you pardon me if I say that it seems to
have its compensation in the law of recurrences?"

Ballard's laugh was frankly apologetic. "You may go farther and say that
I am ill-mannered enough to quarrel with a good friend who cheerfully
gets himself shot up in my behalf. Overlook it, Mr. Bigelow; and I'll
try to remember that I am a partisan, while you are only a good-natured
non-combatant. This little affair is a fact accomplished, so far as we
are concerned. The colonel's cow-men dynamited our ditch; Sheriff
Beckwith will do his duty; and the company's attorney will see to it
that somebody pays the penalty. Let's drop it--as between us two."

Being thus estopped, Bigelow held his peace; and a little later they
were dismounting before the door of Fitzpatrick's commissary. When the
contractor had welcomed and fed them, Ballard rolled into the nearest
bunk and went to sleep to make up the arrearages, leaving his guest to
smoke alone. Bigelow took his desertion good-naturedly, and sat for an
hour or more on a bench in front of the storeroom, puffing quietly at
his pipe, and taking an onlooker's part in the ditch-diggers' games of
dice-throwing and card-playing going on around the great fire in the
plaza.

When the pipe went out after its second filling, he got up and strolled
a little way beyond the camp limits. The night was fine and mild for the
altitude