ands and turned his
flushed face to the doctor, smiling foolishly.

"Thank you, old man," he said. "Oh, yes! I know you now," he added,
offering his hand with great warmth. "You were with her people at the
dance."

"Of course," smiled the doctor. "How much did you lose?"

"Say, I ought to have a nurse!" said the young man abjectly. "If you
hadn't heaved that table into the old devil's ribs just then he'd 'a'
skinned me right! Oh, about six hundred, I guess; but in ten minutes
more he'd 'a' cleaned me out. Walker's my name," he confided; "Joe
Walker. I'm from Cheyenne."

Dr. Slavens introduced himself.

"And I'm from Missouri," said he.

Joe Walker chuckled a little.

"Yes; the old man's from there, too," said he, with the warmth of one
relative claiming kinship with another from far-away parts; "from a
place called Saint Joe. Did you ever hear of it?"

"I've heard of it," the doctor admitted, smiling to himself over the
ingenuous unfolding of the victim whom he had snatched from the
sacrifice.

"They don't only have to show you fellers from Missouri," pursued
Walker; "but you show _them_! That's the old man's way, from the
boot-heels up."

They were walking away from the gambling-tent, taking the middle of the
road, as was the custom in Comanche after dark, sinking instep deep in
dust at every step.

"What are you doing with all that money in a place like this?" the
doctor questioned.

"Well, it's this way," explained Walker with boyish confidence. "The old
man's going to set me up in a sheep-ranch between here and Casper. We've
got a ranch bargained for with six miles of river-front, he sent me over
here with five thousand dollars to cinch the business before the feller
changed his mind."

"Why didn't you bring a draft?" the doctor wondered.

"Some of these sheepmen wouldn't take government bonds. Nothing but
plain cash goes with them."

"Oh, I didn't think you had any particular use for even that, the way
you're slinging it around!" said the doctor, with no attempt to hide the
feeling he held for any such recklessness.

"Looked that way," admitted Walker thoughtfully. "But I've got to meet
that sheepman here at the bank in the morning, where he can have
somebody that he's got confidence in feel of the money and tell him it's
genuine, and I'll have to put up some kind of a stall to cover the money
I lost. Guess I can get away with it, somehow. Cripes! I sweat needles
every time I think of what'd