a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The
polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as
he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a
thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.

"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at
the slim form of Jig.

"I reckon so."

"He done it almighty sudden. Thought I seen him up and walking around
when I come over the hill."

"You got good eyes," said Sinclair, but he was instantly put on the
defensive. He was heartily tired of Cold Feet Gaspar, his
peculiarities, his whims, his weaknesses. But Cold Feet was his riding
companion, and this was a stranger. He was thrown suddenly in the
position of a defender of the helpless. "That's the way with these
kids," he confided carelessly to the stranger. "They get out and ride
fast for a couple of hours. Full of ambition, they are. But just when a
growed man gets warmed up to his work; they're through. The kid's tired
out."

"Come far?" asked the stranger.

"Tolerable long ways."

Sinclair disliked questions, and for each interrogation his opinion of
the newcomer descended lower and lower. His own father had raised him
on a stern pattern. "What you mean by questions, Riley? What you can't
figure out with your own eyes and ears and good common hoss sense, most
likely the other gent don't want you to know." Thereafter he had
schooled himself in this particular point. He could suppress all
curiosity and go six months without knowing more than the nickname of a
boon companion.

"You come from Sour Creek, maybe?" went on the other.

"Sort of," replied Sinclair dryly.

His companion proceeded to dispense information on his own part so as
to break the ice.

"I'm Jude Cartwright."

He paused significantly, but Sinclair's face was a blank.

"Glad to know you, Mr. Cartwright. Mostly they call me Long Riley."

"How are you, Riley?"

They shook hands heartily. Cartwright took a place on the ground,
cross-legged and not far from Sinclair.

"I guess you don't know me?" he asked pointedly.

"I guess not."

"I'm of the Jesse Cartwright family."

Sinclair smiled blankly.

"Lucky Cartwright was my dad's name."

"That so?"

"I guess you ain't ever been up Montana way," said the stranger in
disgust which he hardly veiled.

"Not much," said Sinclair blandly.

"I wished that I was back up there. This is a hole of a cou