s asleep now, apparently more dead than alive, but had given
instructions to be awakened at the end of two hours, and not a minute
later. Together they had a look at him.

He was a small, ruddy-faced man with carroty blond hair and a peculiarly
boyish appearance as he lay doubled up like a jack-knife, profoundly
asleep. Tatpan looked at his big, silver watch and in a low voice
described how the stranger had stumbled into camp, so tired he could
scarcely put one foot ahead of the other; and that he had dropped down
where he now lay when he learned Alan was with one of the other herds.

"He must have come a long distance," said Tatpan, "and he has traveled
fast."

Something familiar about the man grew upon Alan. Yet he could not place
him. He wore a gun, which he had unbelted and placed within reach of
his hand on the grass. His chin was pugnaciously prominent, and in sleep
the mysterious stranger had crooked a forefinger and thumb about his
revolver in a way that spoke of caution and experience.

"If he is in such a hurry to see me, you might awaken him," said Alan.

He turned a little aside and knelt to drink at a tiny stream of water
that ran down from the snowy summits, and he could hear Tatpan rousing
the stranger. By the time he had finished drinking and faced about, the
little man with the carroty-blond hair was on his feet. Alan stared, and
the little man grinned. His ruddy cheeks grew pinker. His blue eyes
twinkled, and in what seemed to be a moment of embarrassment he gave his
gun a sudden snap that drew an exclamation of amazement from Alan. Only
one man in the world had he ever seen throw a gun into its holster like
that. A sickly grin began to spread over his own countenance, and all at
once Tatpan's eyes began to bulge.

"Stampede!" he cried.

Stampede rubbed a hand over his smooth, prominent chin and nodded
apologetically.

"It's me," he conceded. "I had to do it. It was give one or t'other
up--my whiskers _or her_. They went hard, too. I flipped dice, an' the
whiskers won. I cut cards, an' the whiskers won. I played Klondike
ag'in' 'em, an' the whiskers busted the bank. Then I got mad an' shaved
'em. Do I look so bad, Alan?"

"You look twenty years younger," declared Alan, stifling his desire to
laugh when he saw the other's seriousness.

Stampede was thoughtfully stroking his chin. "Then why the devil did
they laugh!" he demanded. "Mary Standish didn't laugh. She cried. Just
stood an' cried, a