n't want our brand
served here."

The last bill was paid. Proprietor Ashby stiffened, his backbone, trying
to look game.

"Gentlemen," he inquired, "where are you going from here? Won't you let
me call the 'bus to take you?"

"Never mind the 'bus, Ash," smilingly replied the leader of the
drummers, a man named Pritchard. "If you'll send the 'bus over to the
Cactus House with our trunks we'll be greatly obliged."

"Certainly, gentlemen, it's a pleasure to oblige you," murmured Ashby,
with a ghastly effort to look pleasant. He watched the eight men step
outside. Duff and his crowd had vanished. It would never do to try
any mob tricks on so many strangers who had done nothing. The most
easy-going citizens of an Arizona town would turn out to punish such a
mob.

The three railroad men had their horses brought around, but they rode
slowly, chatting with the salesmen on the sidewalk.

In this order they reached the Cactus House, which, thirty years ago,
had been famous in and around the old Paloma of the frontier days. The
proprietor, a young man named Carter, had succeeded his father in the
ownership of the property. It was a neat hotel, but a small one. The
elder Carter had lost a good deal of money before his death, and the son
was now trying to build up the property with hardly any reserve capital.

At the Cactus there was a great flurry when five such important guests
arrived and the young railroad engineers were also most heartily
welcomed.

"Our meal time is nearly over, but I'll have something special cooked
for you right away, gentlemen," cried young Carter, bustling about, his
eyes aglow.

"Before you get that meal ready," said Pritchard, drawing young Carter
aside, "I want to ask you whether any man can ever be driven from this
hotel, just for being decent?"

"He certainly cannot," replied Proprietor Carter with emphasis.

"Live up to that, son," advised the drummer, "and I half suspect that
you'll prosper."

The meal finished, the three men from the railroad camp took leave of
their new salesmen friends, mounted and rode back to camp.

"The snakes are not all dead yet," mused Tom quizzically, as, in riding
through the "tough" street again they heard hisses from open windows at
which no heads appeared.

"There's a letter here for you, Mr. Reade," announced Foreman Payson,
who was sitting alone in the office.

"Who brought it?"

"I don't know his name. Never saw him before. He rode out here on