d.

Then his brown fist shot out and up. It moved scarcely six inches,
straight for the college boxer's chin. Jack's knees sagged. He went
down, rolled over, and lay still.

Kirby found water and brought it back. Jack was sitting up, his back
propped against the wall. He swallowed a gulp or two and splashed the
rest on his face.

"I'll say you can hit like the kick of a mule," he said. "If you'd
been a reasonable human, I ought to have got you, at that. Don't you
ever stay down?"

Kirby could not repress a little smile. In spite of himself he felt a
sneaking admiration for this insouciant youth who could take a beating
like a sportsman.

"You're some little mixer yourself," he said.

"Thought I was, before I bumped into you. Say, gimme a hand up. I'm a
bit groggy yet."

Kirby helped him to his feet. The immaculate shirt and trousers were
spattered with blood, mostly Kirby's. The young dandy looked at
himself, and a humorous quirk twitched at the corner of his mouth.

"Some scrap. Let's go into the lavatory and do some reconstruction
work," he said.

Side by side at adjoining washbowls, perfectly amicably, they repaired
as far as possible the damages of war. Not till they had put on again
their coats did Kirby hark back to the purpose of the meeting.

"You haven't told me yet what I want to know."

Out of a damaged eye Jack looked at him evenly. "And that's only part
of it. I'm not going to, either."

He had said the last word. Kirby could not begin all over again to
thrash him. It was not reasonable. And if he did, he knew quite well
he would get nothing out of the man. If he would not talk, he would
not.

The bronco buster walked back to his hotel. A special-delivery letter
was in his box. It was postmarked Golden. As he handed it to him the
clerk looked him over curiously. It had been some time since he had
seen a face so badly cut up and swollen.

"You ought to see the other fellow," Kirby told him with a lopsided
grin as he ripped open the envelope.

Before his eyes had traveled halfway down the sheet the cowman gave a
modulated whoop of joy.

"Good news?" asked the clerk.

Kirby did not answer. His eyes were staring in blank astonishment at
one sentence in the letter. The note was from Cole Sanborn. This is
what Kirby read in it:

Well, old-timer, there aint no trail so blamed long but what its got a
turn in it somewheres. I done found Esther up Platte Canon an