our heart," he yelled, raising his pistol in the air
as if about to throw the muzzle against his breast and fire.
"What--in--hell--do you mean?"

Baffled and evaded in every play the evil-eyed barkeeper suddenly
sensed a conspiracy to show him up, and instantly the realization of
his humiliation made him dangerous.

"Perhaps you figure on makin' a monkey out of me!" he suggested,
hissing snakelike through his teeth; but Hardy made no answer
whatever.

"Well, _say_ something, can't you?" snapped the badman, his
overwrought nerves jangled by the delay. "What d'ye mean by
interferin' with my cat?"

For a minute the stranger regarded him intently, his sad, far-seeing
eyes absolutely devoid of evil intent, yet baffling in their
inscrutable reserve--then he closed his lips again resolutely, as if
denying expression to some secret that lay close to his heart, turning
it with undue vehemence to the cause of those who suffer and cannot
escape.

"Well, f'r Gawd's sake," exclaimed Black Tex at last, lowering his gun
in a pet, "don't I git _no_ satisfaction--what's your _i_-dee?"

"There's too much of this cat-and-mouse business going on," answered
the little man quietly, "and I don't like it."

"Oh, you don't, eh?" echoed the barkeeper sarcastically; "well, excuse
_me_! I didn't know that." And with a bow of exaggerated politeness he
retired to his place.

"The drinks are on the house," he announced, jauntily strewing the
glasses along the bar. "Won't drink, eh? All right. But lemme tell
you, pardner," he added, wagging his head impressively, "you're goin'
to git hurt some day."

CHAPTER II

THE MAN FROM CHERRYCOW

After lashing the desert to a frazzle and finding the leaks in the
Hotel Bender, the wind from Papagueria went howling out over the mesa,
still big with rain for the Four Peaks country, and the sun came out
gloriously from behind the clouds. Already the thirsty sands had
sucked up the muddy pools of water, and the board walk which extended
the length of the street, connecting saloon with saloon and ending
with the New York Store, smoked with the steam of drying. Along the
edge of the walk, drying out their boots in the sun, the casual
residents of the town--many of them held up there by the storm--sat in
pairs and groups, talking or smoking in friendly silence. A little
apart from the rest, for such as he are a long time making friends in
Arizona, Rufus Hardy sat leaning against a post, gazing gl