ed up his rifle and strode across to a shed. Cheyenne pulled off his
boots, stretched out on the blanket-roll, and sighed comfortably.
Bartley could see the big miner busily twisting something in his hands,
something that looked like a leather bag from which occasional tiny
spurts of silver gleamed and trickled. Bartley wondered what Scott was
doing. He asked Cheyenne.

"He's squeezin' 'quick.'" And Cheyenne explained the process of
squeezing quicksilver through a chamois skin. "And I'm glad it ain't my
neck," added Cheyenne. "Joe killed a man, with his bare hands, onct.
That's why he never gets in a fight, nowadays. He dassn't. 'Course, he
had to kill that man, or get killed."

"I noticed he picked up his rifle," said Bartley.

"Nobody'll disturb our sleep," said Cheyenne drowsily.

* * * * *

The afternoon shadows were long when Bartley awakened. Through the
doorway he could see Cheyenne out in the shed, talking with Joe Scott.

"Hello!" called Bartley, sitting up. "Lost any horses, Cheyenne?"

Presently Scott and Cheyenne came over to the cabin.

"I'm cook, this trip," stated Cheyenne as he bustled about the kitchen.
"I reckon Joe needs a rest. He ain't lookin' right strong."

An early supper, and the three men forgathered outside the cabin and
smoked and talked until long after dark. Cheyenne had told Scott of the
happenings since leaving Antelope, and jokingly he referred to San
Andreas and Bartley's original plan of staying there awhile.

Bartley nodded. "And now that the smoke has blown away, I think I'll go
back and finish my visit," he said.

Cheyenne's face expressed surprise and disappointment. "Honest?" he
queried.

"Why not?" asked Bartley, and it was a hard question to answer.

After all, Bartley had stuck to him when trouble seemed inevitable,
reasoned Cheyenne.

Now the Easterner felt free to do as he pleased. And why shouldn't he?
There had been no definite or even tentative agreement as to when they
would dissolve partnership. And Bartley's evident determination to carry
out his original plan struck Cheyenne as indicative of considerable
spirit. It was plain that Sneed's unexpected presence in San Andreas had
not affected Bartley very much. With a tinge of malice, born of
disappointment, Cheyenne suggested to Bartley that the man he had
knocked out, back of the livery barn, would no doubt be glad to see him
again.

Bartley turned to Joe Scott. "He's tryi