me my rap and she came
down on me with the force of a Goliah, and I went down--see? I'm down
yet."

"I don't understand," said the leader as he mopped the blood trickling
from the wound in his head with his handkerchief.

"I'll never explain it to you," said the humorist.

"Hang me, but I can't think."

"Neither can I. My thoughts are wool-gathering, and no wonder, eh? By
jiminy! what a settler I got, and I settled."

"They were playing us."

"Yes, they were playing us, and they had lots of fun rattling on my poor
conk."

"But who are they?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Giant, I reckon, and it came so quick that for a moment I
thought I was in a ship and a squall had blown the mast over on me. But
see here, pards, we'd better get up and git, or mebbe some of our
misdeeds may rise up in judgment against us. Instead of our putting the
dude in jail he may jug us."

"Right you are; let's scatter."

"Where will we meet?"

"In the city, and we'd better lay low. There is more in this little
experience than a crack on the head. We're lucky if we get away."

The three men rose to their feet, held a few moments' talk and then
scattered. Each man determined to make his way to the city on his own
hook, and they considered it was possibly by hook or by crook that they
would get there.

Oscar and Cad had disappeared. Indeed, the rogues had hardly dared look
at each other or speak until the "singulars" had gotten out of sight.

Once well away Oscar said:

"All right, Cad, I must leave you now to shift for yourself awhile. I am
going to finish up this business. We know where to meet."

"Yes."

They were standing in a hollow between two sandbanks and it was dark.

"Change," said Oscar.

Immediately there followed a most wonderful transformation. Cad Metti
dropped her fine feathers as though by magic, and in her stead appeared
a plain-looking country girl, while the dude vanished, and in his stead
appeared a regular sporting appearing young fellow. No one would have
recognized in either the two who had sat on the piazza of the hotel
eating their dinner and cooing like two turtle-doves.

"Well done," said Oscar as he gazed at the wonderful girl, Cad Metti,
and an instant later he said:

"Now I will leave you. I must get on the track of those scoundrels."

Cad and Oscar did not stop to exchange farewells. The latter moved away
rapidly toward the point where he had had the encounter with the three
ruffians whom he and his fe