oking for?" asked Riley.
"Happen to know Ollie Quade--Oliver Quade?"

"Sort of know him, yep."

Riley went on explaining blandly "You see, I'm carrying him a sort of a
death message."

"H'm," said the big man, and he watched Riley, his eyes grown suddenly
alert, his glance shifting from hand to face with catlike uncertainty.

"Yep," resumed Sinclair in a rambling vein. "I come from a gent that
used to be a pal of his. Name is Sam Lowrie."

"Sam Lowrie!" exclaimed the other. "You a friend of Sam's?"

"I was the only gent with him when he died," said Sinclair simply.

"Dead!" said the other heavily. "Sam dead!"

"You must of been pretty thick with him," declared Riley.

"Man, I'm Quade. Lowrie was my bunkie!"

He came close to Sinclair, raising an eager face. "How'd Lowrie go
out?"

"Pretty peaceful--boots off--everything comfortable."

"He give you a message for me?"

"Yep, about a gent called Sinclair--Hal Sinclair, I think it was."
Immediately he turned his eyes away, as if he were striving to
recollect accurately. Covertly he sent a side glance at Quade and found
him scowling suspiciously. When he turned his head again, his eye was
as clear as the eye of a child. "Yep," he said, "that was the name--Hal
Sinclair."

"What about Hal Sinclair?" asked Quade gruffly.

"Seems like Sinclair was on Lowrie's conscience," said Riley in the
same unperturbed voice.

"You don't say so!"

"I'll tell you what he told me. Maybe he was just raving, for he had a
sort of fever before he went out. He said that you and him and Hal
Sinclair and Bill Sandersen all went out prospecting. You got stuck
clean out in the desert, Lowrie said, and you hit for water. Then
Sinclair's hoss busted his leg in a hole. The fall smashed up
Sinclair's foot. The four of you went on, Sinclair riding one hoss, and
the rest of you taking turns with the third one. Without water the
hosses got weak, and you gents got pretty badly scared, Lowrie said.
Finally you and Sandersen figured that Sinclair had got to get off, but
Sinclair couldn't walk. So the three of you made up your minds to leave
him and make a dash for water. You got to water, all right, and in
three hours you went back for Sinclair. But he'd given up hope and shot
himself, sooner'n die of thirst, Lowrie said."

The horrible story came slowly from the lips of Riley Sinclair. There
was not the slightest emotion in his face until Quade rubbed his
knuckles across his wet forehead