"I
saw a man once I thought had sense and I found out afterwards he ran
sheep. Now, if you'll see my bet I'll travel."

Templeton's desk shears were already busy. He jerked the packet open
flat on the table. There were many twenty dollar pieces, some fives and
tens and a little bundle of bank notes. He counted swiftly.

"It's all right. Five thousand dollars," he said crisply. "In full for
second payment due, as you say, in three days. I'll note it on the two
agreements. And I'll give you a receipt."

The tall man's deep chest rose and fell to a sigh as of relief at having
done his errand; he placed his spurs in his hat and his hat upon a
chair and began to roll a cigarette. The banker wrote quickly with
sputtering pen in a book of receipt blanks, tore out the leaf and passed
it across the table.

"There you are, Buck Thornton of the Poison Hole," he said with an
increase of irritability in his curt tones. "And now you listen to me;
you're a fool! Or else you're so far out of the world over on your ranch
that you don't know what's going on. Which is it?"

"I hear a good deal of what's happening," returned Thornton drily.

"Then I suppose you realize that a man who rides day and night, through
that country, carrying five thousand dollars with him, and when
everybody in the country knows that according to contract he is about
due to make a five thousand dollar payment, is acting like a fool with a
suicidal mania?"

For a moment Thornton did not answer. He seemed so engrossed in his
cigarette building that one might almost suppose that he had not heard.
And then, lifting his head suddenly, his eyes keen and hard upon
Templeton's, he said casually,

"I dropped in three days ahead of time, didn't I?"

"And the wonder is," snapped Templeton, "that you haven't dropped clean
out of the world! If you do a fool thing like this, Buck Thornton, when
your last payment is due, you can do it. But I won't go near your
funeral!"

Thornton laughed easily, tucked the receipt into his vest pocket, and
reached for his hat and spurs.

"I'm obliged, Mr. Templeton," he acknowledged lightly. "But we've got to
admit that I got across all right this time. And, as you've heard, I
suppose, right under Mr. Bad Man's nose, since I was carrying that
little wad last night when Hap Smith got cleaned at Poke Drury's. Well,
I'll be going. Just give that rattlesnake Pollard the five thousand and
an invitation from me to keep off my ranch, re