heavy brown fist.

"I'm sure enough glad to see you, Mr. Champeen-of-the-World," Kirby
answered, falling into the easy vernacular of the outdoor country.
"Come to the big town to spend that thousand dollars you won the other
day?"

"Y'betcha; it's burnin' a hole in my pocket. Say, you blamed ol'
horntoad, howcome you not to stay for the finals? Folks was plumb
disappointed we didn't ride it off."

"Tell you about that later. How long you figurin' to stay in Denver,
Cole?"

"I dunno. A week, mebbe. Fellow at the Empress wants me to go on that
circuit an' do stunts, but I don't reckon I will. Claims he's got a
trained bronc I can show on."

"Me, I'm gonna be busy as a dog with fleas," said Kirby. "I got to
find out who killed my uncle. Suspicion rests on me, on a man named
Hull, on the Jap servant, an' on Wild Rose."

"On Wild Rose!" exclaimed Cole, in surprise. "Have they gone crazy?"

"The police haven't got to her yet, old-timer. But their suspicions
will be headed that way right soon if I don't get busy. She thinks her
evidence will clear me. It won't. It'll add a motive for me to have
killed him. The detectives will figure out we did it together, Rose
an' me."

"Hell's bells! Ain't they got no sense a-tall?"

Kirby looked at his watch. "I'm headed right now for the apartment
where my uncle was killed. Gonna look the ground over. Wanta come
along?"

"Surest thing you know. I'm in this to a fare-you-well. Go ahead.
I'll take yore dust."

The lithe, long-bodied man from Basin, Wyoming, clumped along in his
high-heeled boots beside his friend. Both of them were splendid
examples of physical manhood. The sun tan was on their faces, the
ripple of health in their blood. But there was this difference between
them, that while it was written on every inch of Sanborn that he lived
astride a cow-pony, Kirby might have been an irrigation engineer or a
mining man from the hills. He had neither the bow legs nor the
ungraceful roll of the man who rides most of his waking hours. His
clothes were well made and he knew how to carry them.

As they walked across to Fourteenth Street, Kirby told as much of the
story as he could without betraying Esther McLean's part in it. He
trusted Sanborn implicitly, but the girl's secret was not his to tell.

From James Cunningham Kirby had got the key of his uncle's apartment.
His cousin had given it to him a little reluctantly.

"The police don't want th