come back?"

"You jest go to studyin' bugs or rattlesnakes or tarantulas or
somethin'. Make a bluff at it. If they ask you anything, answer 'em nice
and polite, _and so I can hear_. A whole pile depends on my keepin' up
with the talk. I'll figure from what they say, or don't say."

"They seem to be turning. They've stopped. One of them is down on the
ground looking at something. Now he's up again. They're riding back,"
said Winthrop.

"They cut my back trail," said Overland, snuggling down behind the
brush. "You go and set down by the water-hole and find a bug to study."

"Are you going to fight?"

"Not if it can be helped. Otherwise--till me wires are down and me lamps
are out. She's desert law out here. They seems to be some chance for a
argument about who's goin' to be judge. I'm out for the job myself. I
reckon to throw about fifteen votes--they's six in your gun and nine in
the automatic. The election is like to be interestin' and close."

"I wish I could help," said the Easterner.

"You can--by keepin' your nerve," replied Overland. Then he rolled a
cigarette and lay smoking and gazing at the sky. Winthrop watched the
approaching horsemen. Presently he got up and sauntered to the
water-hole.

The tramp lay curled like a snake behind the mound. He drew Winthrop's
gun from its holster and inspected it, shaking his head as he slid it
back again. "She's new and will pull stiff. That means she'll throw to
the right. Well, I got the little Gat. to open up the show with."

William Stanley Winthrop, despite his resolution, found that his hands
trembled and that his heart beat chokingly. He wanted to shout, to run
out toward the horsemen, to do anything rather than sit stupidly silent
by the water-hole.

The two riders loped up. The constable dismounted. "Nothin' doin'," he
said, stooping to drink.

"No. Nothing doing," echoed the man on horseback.

"That," muttered Overland Red, squirming a little higher behind the
bushes, "was intended for me. I know that tone. It means there's a hell
of a lot doin'. Well, I'm good and ready." And he lifted both of his
red, hairy hands to the edge of the hole and both his hands were
"filled."

About then the man on the pony began to ride out from the water-hole in
a wide circle. The constable came from the spring. Overland noticed that
he kept Winthrop between himself and the sage on the ridge. "That
settles it," Overland swiftly concluded. "They're on. I'm right sad to