ne. Boy or girl?"

"It's a girl. I never saw her, as she was born after I left home. My
wife wasn't very well when she wrote last. She wants to come out here,
but I can't see that yet a while."

"Well, wish I could have brought you news. It must be tough to be
separated from your family. I'm not married, but I know what a little
girl means.... Say, Brown, did you ever run into a man out here named
Jim Blake?"

"No."

"Or a man named Hardman? Jard Hardman?"

"Hardman! Now you're talkin', Panhandle. I should smile I have,"
replied Brown, with a flash of quiet eyes that Pan had learned to
recognize as dangerous in men. His own pulse heightened. It was like
coming suddenly on a track for which he had long been searching. The
one word Hardman had struck fire from this young miner.

"What's Hardman doing?" asked Pan quietly.

"Everythin' an' between you an' me, he's doin' everybody. Jard Hardman
is in everythin'. Minin', ranchin', an' I've heard he's gone in for
this wild horse chasin'. That's the newest boom around Marco. But
Hardman has big interests here in town. It's rumored he's back of the
Yellow Mine, the biggest saloon an' gamblin' hell in town."

"Well, I'll be doggoned," ejaculated Pan thoughtfully. "Things turn
out funny. You can show me that place presently. Does Hardman hang
out here in Marco?"

"Part of the time. He travels to Frisco, Salt Lake, an' St. Louis
where he sells cattle an' horses. He has a big ranch out here in the
valley, an' stays there some. His son runs the outfit."

"His son?" queried Pan, suddenly hot with a flash of memory.

"Yes, his son," declared Brown eyeing Pan earnestly. "Reckon you must
know Dick Hardman?"

"I used to--long ago," replied Pan, pondering. How far in the past
that seemed! How vivid now in memory!

"Old Hardman makes the money an' Dick blows it in," went on Brown, with
something of contempt in his voice. "Dick plays, an' they say he's a
rotten gambler. He drinks like a fish, too. I don't run around much
in this burg, believe me, but I see Dick often. I heard he'd fetched a
girl here from Frisco."

"Ah-uh! Well, that's enough about my old schoolmate, thank you,"
rejoined Pan. "Tell me, Brown, what's this Marco town anyway?"

"Well, it's both old an' new," replied the other. "That's about all, I
reckon. Findin' gold an' silver out in the hills has made a boom this
last year or so. That's what fetched me. The town is twi