it that when it helps the Valley," corrected the handy
man.

"No, it's another sacred bovine; mustn't be touched for fear of the
axle grease. See? I've got a list of 'em--public lands, through
freights, water power, smelter, lumber deals," the telegraph man opened
his table drawer and held out a scrawled list. "If you call that
delivering the goods, I call it filling the barrel. What's the other
factor for success?"

"Not bucking into a buzz saw. The world is mostly made of barkers and
builders. You fellows spend all the time barking. Then you wonder
there's nothing to show in the way of a building."

The telegraph wires began to click and the girl operator came in with
some tissue sheets.

"Fight in Frisco--that goes," commented the telegraph editor dashing in
the "ands" and "buts" and the punctuation. He stuck the slip on the
printer's hook. "Wedding in Newport--"

"That goes," laughed the handy man, "There's no sacred cow about that."

The telegraph man wrote headings for the dispatches and stuck them on
the hook for the printer's boy.

"Speaking of sacred cows, it isn't exactly cows, but it's in the stock
line all right--what do you know about that business last night up on
Rim Rocks? Stage driver has been blazing it all round town--"

"Stage driver's a liar," emphatically declared Brydges.

"Been trying to get the news for an hour; the wires are cut. Can't get
'em by phone. Think I'll send a man up to-night with a photographer."

"Oh, I wouldn't," drawled Bat sleepily. "It isn't worth it. I've just
come down. Whole row's over. You can't get a dub in the Valley to
open his mouth. Same old gag we've used for the last ten years,
'heavily armed band of masked men,' 'scene like a butcher's shambles,'
and that guy of a sheriff 'scouring the hills for the miscreants.'
I'll bet he's under his bed scared blue."

"Who did it?"

"Same old gang of outside grazers, drovers who skipped the State line.
I succeeded in getting their names after a good deal of trouble."

"You did, did you? Then give us a stick about it, will you? Date it
special at the Rim Rocks! Trouble is, if I do send a man up, business
office will kick at the expense account; for there's nothing in it; and
that kind of news hurts the Valley."

So Mr. Bat Brydges wrote forty lines of two paragraphs in which he
warned the public that this sort of thing had to stop; the West would
not stand for interference from outside cattlem