slipping around behind the lumber-piles, rode back to the Headquarters
Saloon. The place was deserted and in a chair beside a card table,
with his head buried in his arms, sat Cinnabar Joe, asleep. The
cowpuncher crossed the room and shook him roughly by the shoulder:

"Hey, Joe--wake up!"

The man rolled uneasily and his eyelids drew heavily apart. He mumbled
incoherently.

"Wake up, Joe!" The Texan redoubled his efforts but the other relapsed
into a stupor from which it was impossible to rouse him.

A man hurrying past in the direction of the flats paused for a moment
to peer into the open door. Tex glanced up as he hurried on.

"Doc!" There was no response and the cowpuncher crossed to the door at
a bound. The street was deserted, and without an instant's hesitation
he dashed into the livery and feed barn next door whose wide aperture
yawned deserted save for the switching of tails and the stamping of
horses' feet in the stalls. The door of the harness room stood
slightly ajar and Tex jerked it open and entered. Harness and saddles
littered the floor and depended from long wooden pegs set into the wall
while upon racks hung sweatpads and saddle blankets of every known kind
and description. Between the floor and the lower edge of the blankets
that occupied a rack at the farther side of the room a pair of black
leather shoes showed.

"Come on, Doc, let's go get a drink." The shoes remained motionless.
"Gosh! There's a rat over in under them blankets!" A forty-five
hammer was drawn back with a sharp click. The shoes left the floor
simultaneously and the head and shoulders of a man appeared above the
rack.

"Eh! Was someone calling me?"

"Yeh, I was speakin' of rats----"

"My hearing's getting bad. I was fishing around for my saddle blanket.
Those barn dogs never put anything where it belongs."

"That's right. I said let's go get a drink. C'n you hear that?" Tex
noted that the man's face was white and that he was eyeing him
intently, as he approached through the litter.

"Just had one, thanks. Was on my way down to the flats to see the fun,
and thought I'd see if my blanket had dried out all right."

"Yes? Didn't you hear me when I hollered at you in the saloon a minute
ago?"

"No. Didn't know any one was in there."

"You're in a hell of a fix with your eyesight an' hearin' all shot to
pieces, ain't you? But I reckon they're goin' to be the best part of
you if you don't come alon