! Say!" He stared at the Virginian. "Did I
meet yu' at the palace?"

"Not exackly meet," replied the Southerner. "I was present one mawnin'
las' month when this gentleman awdehed frawgs' laigs."

"Sakes and saints, but that was a mean position!" burst out Scipio. "I
had to tell all comers anything all day. Stand up and jump language hot
off my brain at 'em. And the pay don't near compensate for the drain on
the system. I don't care how good a man is, you let him keep a-tappin'
his presence of mind right along, without takin' a lay-off, and you'll
have him sick. Yes, sir. You'll hit his nerves. So I told them they
could hire some fresh man, for I was goin' back to punch cattle or fight
Indians, or take a rest somehow, for I didn't propose to get jaded,
and me only twenty-five years old. There ain't no regular Colonel
Cyrus Jones any more, yu' know. He met a Cheyenne telegraph pole in
seventy-four, and was buried. But his palace was doin' big business, and
he had been a kind of attraction, and so they always keep a live bear
outside, and some poor fello', fixed up like the Colonel used to be,
inside. And it's a turruble mean position. Course I'll cook for yu'.
Yu've a dandy memory for faces!"

"I wasn't right convinced till I kicked him off and you gave that shut
to your eyes again," said the Virginian.

Once more the door opened. A man with slim black eyebrows, slim black
mustache, and a black shirt tied with a white handkerchief was looking
steadily from one to the other of us.

"Good day!" he remarked generally and without enthusiasm; and to the
Virginian, "Where's Schoffner?"

"I expaict he'll have got his bottle by now, Trampas."

Trampas looked from one to the other of us again. "Didn't he say he was
coming back?"

"He reminded me he was going for a bottle, and afteh that he didn't wait
to say a thing."

Trampas looked at the platform and the railing and the steps. "He told
me he was coming back," he insisted.

"I don't reckon he has come, not without he clumb up ahaid somewhere.
An' I mus' say, when he got off he didn't look like a man does when he
has the intention o' returnin'."

At this Scipio coughed, and pared his nails attentively. We had already
been avoiding each other's eye. Shorty did not count. Since he got
aboard, his meek seat had been the bottom step.

The thoughts of Trampas seemed to be in difficulty. "How long's this
train been started?" he demanded.

"This hyeh train?" The Virgini