you goin' stake us?"

"I'll see you again in the morning, Fred," returned the other briefly.
"Go on back to sleep."

"Will when I git good an' ready--go sleep, stay wake, just as I
please--don't care damn what yer do--got new frien' now."

"A new friend? Who?" Hawley spoke with aroused interest.

"Oh, he's all right--he's mighty fine fellow--come in wisout
in--invitation--ol' friend my sister--called--called her Hope--you fool,
Bart Hawley, think my sister Christie--Christie--damfino the name--my
sister, Hope--don't want yer money--my--my new friend, he 'll stake
me--he knows my sister--Hope."

The gambler grasped the speaker, shaking him into some slight semblance
of sobriety.

"Now, look here, Willoughby, I want the truth, and mean to have it," he
insisted. "Has some one been in here while Scott was gone?"

"Sure--didn't I just tell yer?--friend o' Hope's."

"Who was he? Speak up! I want the name!"

There was a faint gurgling sound, as though the gambler's vise-like
fingers were at the boy's throat; a slight struggle, and then the choked
voice gasped out:

"Let up! damn yer! He called himself Jack Keith."

The dead silence which ensued was broken only by heavy breathing. Then
Scott swore, bringing his fist down with a crash on the washstand.

"That rather stumps yer, don't it, Bart? Well, it don't me. I tell yer
it's just as I said from the first. It was Keith an' that nigger what
jumped ye in the cabin. They was hidin' there when we rode in. He just
nat'rly pumped the gal, an' now he's up here trailin' you. Blame it all,
it makes me laugh."

"I don't see what you see to laugh at. This Keith isn't an easy man to
play with, let me tell you. He may have got on to our game."

"Oh, hell, Bart, don't lose your nerve. He can't do anything, because
we've got the under holt. He's a fugitive; all we got to do is
locate him, an' have him flung back inter jail--there's murder an'
hoss-stealing agin him."

Hawley seemed to be thinking swiftly, while his companion took another
drink.

"Well, pard, ain't that so?"

"No, that trick won't work, Scott. We could do it easily enough if we
were down in Carson, where the boys would help us out. The trouble up
here is that 'Wild Bill' Hickock is Marshal of Sheridan, and he and I
never did hitch. Besides, Keith was one of his deputies down at Dodge
two years ago--you remember when Dutch Charlie's place was cleaned out?
Well, Hickock and Keith did that job all alone, a