s," said Bill gravely; "I ondertook to take charge
o' your traps. I didn't--at least that d----d wall-eyed--Thar's a
portmantle! I don't know who's it is. Take it."

Half amused, half embarrassed, yet still protesting, Thatcher took the
bag in his hands.

"Ye might open it in my presence," suggested Yuba Bill gravely.

Thatcher, half laughingly, did so. It was full of papers and
semi-legal-looking documents. Thatcher's own name on one of them caught
his eye; he opened the paper hastily and perused it. The smile faded
from his lips.

"Well," said Yuba Bill, "suppose we call it a fair exchange at present."

Thatcher was still examining the papers. Suddenly this cautious,
strong-minded man looked up into Yuba Bill's waiting face, and said
quietly, in the despicable slang of the epoch and region:

"It's a go! Suppose we do."

CHAPTER XIII

HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS

Yuba Bill was right in believing that Wiles would lose no time at
Rawlings. He left there on a fleet horse before Bill had returned with
the broken-down coach to the last station, and distanced the telegram
sent to detain him two hours. Leaving the stage road and its dangerous
telegraphic stations, he pushed southward to Denver over the army
trail, in company with a half-breed packer, crossing the Missouri before
Thatcher had reached Julesburg. When Thatcher was at Omaha, Wiles was
already in St. Louis; and as the Pullman car containing the hero of
the "Blue Mass" mine rolled into Chicago, Wiles was already walking the
streets of the national capital. Nevertheless, he had time en route
to sink in the waters of the North Platte, with many expressions of
disgust, the little black portmanteau belonging to Thatcher, containing
his dressing case, a few unimportant letters, and an extra shirt, to
wonder why simple men did not travel with their important documents
and valuables, and to set on foot some prudent and cautious inquiries
regarding his own lost carpet bag and its important contents.

But for these trifles he had every reason to be satisfied with the
progress of his plans. "It's all right," said Mrs. Hopkinson merrily;
"while you and Gashwiler have been working with your 'stock,' and
treating the whole world as if it could be bribed, I've done more with
that earnest, self-believing, self-deceiving, and perfectly pathetic
Roscommon than all you fellows put together. Why, I've told his pitiful
story, and drawn tears from the eyes of Senators and Cabi