ng by the stove. A lantern swinging from the beam which ran
across the middle of the room showed him that all the men were in
their bunks with the exception of two who were playing cribbage at the
table. They were Lonesome Pete and Rawhide Jones. When they saw him
leaning out from his bunk Lonesome Pete put down his cards and came to
him.

"How're they comin', stranger?" he asked, with no great expression in
either eyes or voice.

"Where's Brayley?" demanded Conniston, quickly.

"He ain't here none jest now. No, he ain't exac'ly ran away, nuther.
Brayley ain't the kind as runs away. He was sent for to come to the
Lone Dog, where there's some kind of trouble on. Seein' as that's
thirty mile or worse, the chances is he'll ride mos' all night an'
won't be back for a day or two."

Conniston sank back upon his straw pillow. "What I have to say to him
will keep," he said, quietly.

The red-headed man looked at him curiously. "Brayley's the boss on
this outfit, pardner. What he says goes as she lays. It's sure bad
business buckin' your foreman. If you can't hit it up agreeable like,
you better quit."

For a moment Conniston lay silent, plucking with nervous fingers at
the worn red quilt.

"What did he do to me?" he asked, presently. "Hit me over the head
with a revolver?"

Lonesome Pete nodded.

"That's what you call fair play out in the West?"

"What fooled me, Conniston, is that he didn't drill a couple er holes
through you! He ain't used to bein' so careful an' tender-hearted-like,
Brayley ain't."

"Just because I'm to work under him, does that mean that in the eye of
you men he had a right--"

An uplifted hand stopped him. "When two men has onpleasant words it
ain't up to anybody else to say who's right. Us fellers has jest got
to creep lively out'n the line of bullets an' let the two men most
interested settle that theirselves. Only I don't mind sayin', jest
frien'ly like, as it is considered powerful foolish for a man to
prance skallyhutin' into a mixup as is apt to smash things
considerable onless he's heeled."

"Heeled? You mean--"

Lonesome Pete whipped one of the guns from his sagging belt and laid
it close to Conniston's pillow.

"That when a man's got one of them where he can find it easy he ain't
got to take nothin' off'n nobody! An' one man's jest as good as
another, whether he's foreman or a thirty-dollar puncher! An' bein' as
we got to go to work early in the mornin', I reckon you better r