ted.

The man confronting him was the big cattleman who had entered the Silver
Dollar in time to see O'Connor's victory over the showman. Now he stood
serenely under Bucky's gun and laughed.

"Put up your .45, my friend. It's a peaceable conference I want with
you."

The level eyes of the young man fastened on those of the cattleman, and,
before he spoke again, were satisfied. For both of these men belonged to
the old West whose word is as good as its bond, that West which will go
the limit for a cause once under taken without any thought of retreat,
regardless of the odds or the letter of the law. Though they had never
met before, each knew at a glance the manner of man the other was.

"All right, seh. If you want me I reckon I'm here large as life," the
ranger said,

"We'll adjourn to the poker room upstairs then, Mr. O'Connor."

Bucky laid a hand on the shoulder of the boy. "This kid goes with me.
I'm keeping an eye on him for the present."

"My business is private, but I expect that can be arranged. We'll take
the inner room and let him have the outer."

"Good enough. Break trail, seh. Come along, Frank."

Having reached the poker room upstairs, that same private room which had
seen many a big game in its day between the big cattle kings and
mining men of the Southwest, Bucky's host ordered refreshments and then
unfolded his business.

"You don't know me, lieutenant, do you?"

"I haven't that pleasure, seh."

"I am Major Mackenzie's brother."

"Webb Mackenzie, who came from Texas last year and bought the Rocking
Chair Ranch?"

"The same."

"I'm right glad to meet you, seh."

"And I can say the same."

Webb Mackenzie was so distinctively a product of the West that no other
segment of the globe could have produced him. Big, raw-boned, tanned
to a leathery brick-brown, he was as much of the frontier as the ten
thousand cows he owned that ran the range on half as many hills and
draws. He stood six feet two and tipped the beam at two hundred twelve
pounds, not an ounce of which was superfluous flesh. Temperamentally,
he was frank, imperious, free-hearted, what men call a prince. He wore
a loose tailor-made suit of brown stuff and a broad-brimmed light-gray
Stetson. For the rest, you may see a hundred like him at the yearly
stock convention held in Denver, but you will never meet a man even
among them with a sounder heart or better disposition.

"I've got a story to tell you, Lieutenant O'Connor,"