-believe seat almost over the traces. This
youthful driver had been minding his own business so assiduously
during the past three hours that Harry had voted him a sullen
fellow. This however, the driver was not.

"Where did that party ahead come from, driver?" murmured Tom,
leaning forward. "Boston or Binghamton?"

"You mean the party ahead at the bend of the trail?" asked the
driver.

"Yes; he's the only stranger in sight."

"I guess he's a westerner, all right," answered the driver, after
a moment or two spent in thought.

"There! You see?" crowed Harry Hazelton triumphantly.

"If that fellow's a westerner, driver," Tom persisted, "have you
any idea how many days he has been west?"

"He doesn't belong to this state," the youthful driver answered.
"I think he comes from Montana. His name is Bad Pete."

"Pete?" mused Tom Reade aloud. "That's short for Peter, I suppose;
not a very interesting or romantic name. What's the hind-leg
of his name?"

"Meaning his surnames" drawled the driver.

"Yes; to be sure."

"I don't know that he has any surname, friend," the Colorado boy
rejoined.

"Why do they call him 'Bad'?" asked Harry, with a thrill of pleasurable
expectation.

As the driver was slow in finding an answer, Tom Reade, after
another look at the picturesque stranger, replied quizzically:

"I reckon they call him bad because he's counterfeit."

"There you go again," remonstrated Harry Hazelton. "You'd better
be careful, or Bad Pete will hear you."

"I hope he doesn't," smiled Tom. "I don't want to change Bad
Pete into Worse Pete."

There was little danger, however, that the picturesque-looking
stranger would hear them. The axles and springs of the springboard
wagon were making noise enough to keep their voices from reaching
the ears of any human being more than a dozen feet away.

Bad Pete was still about two hundred and fifty feet ahead, nor
did he, as yet, give any sign whatever of having noted the vehicle.
Instead, he was leaning against a boulder at the turn in the
road. In his left hand he held a hand-rolled cigarette from which
he took an occasional reflective puff as he looked straight ahead
of him as though he were enjoying the scenery. The road---trail---ran
close along the edge of a sloping precipice. Fully nine hundred
feet below ran a thin line of silver, or so it appeared. In reality
it was what was left of the Snake River now, in July, nearly dried
out.

Over beyond