es.

"Sure! Now this ain't no frame-up. No, I'll set where I can watch
Sweeney. He's like to steal his own cash-register if you don't watch
him." And Winthrop noticed that his companion faced the door. He also
noticed, as the man's coat brushed against a chair as he sat down, that
that same coat covered a shiny black shoulder holster in which gleamed
the worn butt of an automatic pistol.

"My real name is Jack Summers," began Overland Red. "Some folks took to
callin' me 'Overland Red,' seein' as I been some towerist in my time."

"Great!" murmured the Easterner. "'Overland Red!' That name has me
hypnotized."

"You was sayin'?" queried Overland.

"Beg your pardon. Nothing worth while. I haven't been so happy for a
year. Let me explain. I have a little money, pretty well invested. I
also have lungs, I believe. The doctors don't quite agree about that,
however. The last one gave me six months to live. That was a year ago. I
owe him an apology and six months. I'm not afraid, exactly, and I'm
certainly not glad. But I want to forget it. That's all. Go ahead about
that desert and the gold. I'm listening."

CHAPTER X

"PERFECTLY HARMLESS LITTLE OLE TENDERFOOT"

William Stanley Winthrop woke next morning with a vague impression of
having lost something. He gazed indolently at the sunlight filtering
through the curtains of his sleeping-room. Beyond the archway to the
adjoining room of his suite, a ray of sunshine lay like living gold upon
the soft, rich-hued fabric of the carpet.

"Gold!" he murmured. "Mojave Desert! Overland Red! Lost gold! No, it
isn't the two hundred dollars I invested in the rascal's story, for it
was worth the money. I never spent four happier hours in my life, at
fifty dollars an hour. The best of it is he actually made me believe
him. I think he believed himself."

Winthrop sat up in bed, yawning. "I think black coffee will be about
all, this morning," he murmured, as he dressed leisurely.

He was tying a fastidiously correct bow on his tan oxford when he
happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too
early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel.
Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of
imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden
burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and
shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy,
shaggy burros followed a little, lea