're bully-puss
kind o' men, if you know what I mean."

"I don't. I'm from the East."

"They'll run it over you, bluff you off the map, take any advantage they
can."

"Will they fight?"

"They'll burn powder quick if they get the drop on you."

"What are they like?"

The Texan considered. "One is a tall, red-headed guy; the other's a
sawed-off, hammered-down little runt--but gunmen, both of 'em, or I'm a
liar."

"They would probably follow me," said the messenger, worried.

"You better believe they will, soon as they hear you've gone."

Arthur kicked a little hole in the ground with the toe of his shoe. What
had he better do? He could stay at the fort, of course, and appeal to
Major Ponsford for help. But if he did, he would probably be late for
his appointment with Wadley. It happened that the cattleman and the army
officer had had a sharp difference of opinion about the merits of the
herd that had been delivered, and it was not at all likely that Ponsford
would give him a military guard to Tascosa. Moreover, he had a feeling
that the owner of the A T O would resent any call to the soldiers for
assistance. Clint Wadley usually played his own hand, and he expected
the same of his men.

But the habit of young Ridley's life had not made for fitness to cope
with a frontier emergency. Nor was he of stiff enough clay to fight free
of his difficulty without help.

"What about you?" he asked the other man. "Can I hire you to ride with
me to Tascosa?"

"As a tenderfoot-wrangler?" sneered the Texan.

Arthur flushed. "I've never been there. I don't know the way."

"You follow a gun-barrel road from the fort. But I'll ride with you--if
the pay is right."

"What do you say to twenty dollars for the trip?"

"You've hired me."

"And if we're attacked?"

"I pack a six-shooter."

The troubled young man looked into the hard, reckless face of this
stranger who had gone out of his way to warn him of the impending
attack. No certificate was necessary to tell him that this man would
fight.

"I don't know your name," said Ridley, still hesitating.

"Any more than I know yours," returned the other. "Call me Bill Moore,
an' I'll be on hand to eat my share of the chuck."

"We'd better leave at once, don't you think?"

"You're the doc. Meet you here in an hour ready for the trail."

The man who called himself Bill Moore went his uncertain way down the
street. To the casual eye he was far gone in drink. Young Ridle