ake a little easy money. Back Bill Howland to be right
here in seventy-two hours, right side up and smiling, and you'll win. You
just bet you'll----"

"Well, you won't get here in a year unless you starts, you pest! For
God's sake get a-going and give the sheriff a rest!" came explosively
from the office, accompanied by a sound as if a chair had dropped to its
four legs. A tall, angular man stood in the doorway and shook his fist at
the huge cloud of dust which rolled down the street, muttering savagely.
Bill Howland had started on his eighty-mile trip to Sagetown.

"Damnedest talker on two laigs," asserted the clerk. "He'll drive me loco
some day with his eternal jabber, jabber. Why do you waste time with
him? Tell him to close his yap and go to h--l. Beat him over the head,
anything to shut him up!"

Shields smiled: "Oh, he can't help it. He don't do anybody any harm."

The clerk shook his head in doubt and started to return to his chair, and
then stopped.

"I hear you expect some women out purty soon," he suggested.

"Yes. Sisters and a friend," Shields replied shortly.

"Ain't you a little leary about letting 'em come out here while the
Apaches are out?"

"Not very much--I'll be on hand when they arrive," the sheriff assured him.

"How soon are they due to land?"

"Next trip if nothing hinders them."

"Jim Hawes is comin' out next trip," volunteered the clerk.

"Good," responded the sheriff, turning to go. "Every gun counts, and Jim
is a good man."

"Say," the agent was lonesome, "I heard down at the Oasis last night that
The Orphant was seen out near the Cross Bar-8 yesterday. He ought to get
shot, d----n him! But that's a purty big contract, I reckon. They say he
can shoot like the very devil."

"They're right, he can," Shields replied. "Everybody knows that."

"Charley seems to be in a hurry," remarked the agent, looking down the
street at a cowboy, a friend of the sheriff, who was coming at a dead
gallop. The sheriff looked and Charley waved his arm. As he came within
hailing distance he shouted:

"The Orphan killed Jimmy Ford this morning on Twenty Mile Trail! His
pardner got away by shootin' The Orphan's horse and taking to the trail
through Little Arroyo. But he's shot, just the same, 'though not bad. The
rest of the Cross Bar-8 outfit are going out for him; they've been out,
but they can't follow his trail."

"Hell!" cried the sheriff, running toward his corral. "Wait!" he shouted
over h