gesturing toward the bar.

His gesture included both Wishful and Bartley. Bartley, a bit shaken,
accepted the invitation. Wishful, not at all shaken, but rather a bit
more silent and melancholy than heretofore, also accepted.

Alone in his room at the hotel, Bartley wondered what would have
happened if Wishful had not rapped Panhandle on the head. Bartley
recalled the fact that he had drawn back his arm, intending to take one
good punch at Panhandle, even if it were his last. But Panhandle had
crumpled down suddenly, silently, and Wishful had stood over him, gazing
down speculatively and swinging his gun back and forth before he
returned it to the holster. "They move quick, in this country," thought
Bartley. "And speaking of material for a story--" Then he smiled.

Somewhere out on the mesa Cheyenne had spread his bed-roll and was no
doubt sleeping peacefully. Bartley shook his head. He had been in
Antelope but two days and yet it seemed that months had passed since he
had stepped from the westbound train to telegraph to his friend in
California. Incidentally, he decided to purchase an automatic pistol.

CHAPTER VI

A HORSE-TRADE

When Bartley came down to breakfast next morning he noticed two horses
tied at the hitch-rail in front of the hotel. One of the horses, a
rather stocky gray, bore a pack. The other, a short-coupled, sturdy
buckskin, was saddled. Evidently Cheyenne was trying to catch up with
his dinner schedule, for as Bartley entered the dining-room he saw him,
sitting face to face with a high stack of flapjacks, at the base of
which reposed two fried eggs among some curled slivers of bacon.

Two railroad men, a red-eyed Eastern tourist who looked as though he had
not slept for a week, a saturnine cattleman in from the mesas, and two
visiting ladies from an adjacent town comprised the tale of guests that
morning. As Bartley came in the guests glanced at him curiously. They
had heard of the misunderstanding at the Blue Front.

Cheyenne immediately rose and offered Bartley a chair at his table. The
two women, alone at their table, immediately became subdued and
watchful. They were gazing their first upon an author. Wishful had made
the fact known, with some pride. The ladies, whom Cheyenne designated as
"cow-bunnies,"---or wives of ranchers,--were dressed in their "best
clothes," and were trying to live up to them. They had about finished
breakfast, and shortly after Bartley was seated they