“Arizona Ames? Sounds still queerer. I’m good on faces, but pore on names. . . . Wal, set down, Ames, an’ pitch in. We got plenty of grub, an’ Amos sure can hash it up.”

  “Thanks. Will you let me tend to my horse?”

  “Wal, I’ll throw your saddle an’ turn the hoss loose. Plenty of grass an’ water below.”

  “He’ll shore be as glad as I am heah,” responded Ames, and espying a wash-basin and a bucket of water he gave his hands much needed attention. “Oh, my, but the Lord can be good to a fellow when he just aboot give up!”

  “What you ridin’ into Mormon country fer?” asked Heady, curiously. “Know any Mormons?”

  “Only Mormon I ever knew was a wild-horse wrangler,” replied Ames, as he bent his stiff, sore legs to sit down before the spread. “Finest chap in the world. But he stole a girl I was aboot to fall in love with.”

  “Haw! Haw! Sure Mormons are hell on stealin’ gurls, if nothin’ else,” averred Heady.

  Then Ames paid strict attention only to eating, though he was aware of Steele’s return. He ate prodigiously, to the delight of the big cook and the amusement of the loquacious Heady. Steele did not have a small appetite himself, and the ferret-faced Noggin munched his food, listened, and watched without comment.

  “Any smokin’?” asked Steele, at the end of the meal.

  “Got the makin’s,” replied Ames.

  Presently all save the cook had comfortable seats round the fire.

  “Arizona Ames?” Steele questioned himself again, with puzzled beady eyes on Ames. “Wal, I don’t reckon I ever seen you, because you’re the kind of a lookin’ fellar easy to remember.”

  “Shore I forked a horse everywhere, except in Utah,” replied Ames.

  “Thet’s a fine hoss of yours,” said Steele, with a zest of appreciation not lost upon Ames. “What you call him?”

  “Captain. Cappy for short. Named after an old friend, a trapper I used to know.”

  “Not sich a bad name. How long you had him?”

  “Aboot seven years. He’s mine.”

  “Would you sell him?”

  “Say, man, did you ever love a horse?” queried Ames.

  “Only weakness I ever had — lovin’ hosses,” rejoined Steele, and this sally fetched guffaws from Heady and Amos. Noggin watched the fire with half-lowered, ferret eyes.

  Ames casually dropped his own eyes, to hide the leap of his thought. He let the remark pass, and he decided to act and talk as best he could the part of a rider not too keen and of ordinary experience.

  “Lookin’ fer a job?” asked Heady, during a lull in Steele’s monopolization of the conversation.

  “Yes an’ no,” answered Ames, and he knew that was a clever remark.

  “Mormons need good riders, but they pay poor wages,” said Steele.

  “Reckon if you were a Mormon you’d shore not say that,” laughed Ames.

  “Me an’ Amos an’ Noggin hyar are genuine Christians. But Heady is a Mormon. So be careful how you sling your gab around. Haw! Haw!”

  Heady dropped his gaze. The remark did not go well with him. Ames, used to watching the play of men’s features and the light and shade in their eyes, saw that Heady betrayed regret or remorse for something that had passed.

  “I’m flat broke an’ I’ll have to take a job with a Mormon — or anybody who’s not too damn particular aboot references.”

  “You can sell your hoss. I’ll give you a hundred, an’ my hoss to boot,” said Steele, with the persuasiveness of the born horse-trader. Also it bore a note that jarred on Ames.

  “Thanks, Steele. I’ll consider it,” returned Ames, thoughtfully. He knew how to handle this situation, and he made a quick jump at conclusions.

  “We’re from Nevada,” vouchsafed Steele, confidentially. “Me an’ Noggin are pardners, an’ Amos is our cook. We lost a string of hosses over on the Virgin. They’ve been druv down in this canyon country. An’ we hired Heady to guide us around. But, Gawd! you might as well hunt fer a needle in a haystack.”

  “Wild stallion lead your horses off?” asked Ames, innocently, when he knew perfectly well that Steele was lying.

  “Hoss thieves,” replied Steele, shortly. “Are you one of them trackers thet can foller unshod hosses over rocks?”

  “Nope. Shore wish I was,” lied Ames, coolly. “My horses are always fat.”

  “Haw! Haw! Which means you spend most your time trackin’ an’ you’d rather see their ribs?”

  “You shore hit it on the haid,” replied Ames, stretching and yawning. “Steele, I’m so tired an’ sleepy I cain’t stay awake. Will you mind if I turn in heah?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Where’d you throw my saddle an’ blankets?”

  “Right thar,” returned Steele, pointing. “I can spare you a blanket. You won’t need none over you in this hole. Hotter’n hell.”

  Ames made his bed just out of ordinary earshot and he lay down with a loud groan. As a matter of fact, he was weary and heavy-eyed, but not so much so as he desired it to appear. Presently he gave a capital imitation of an exhausted man snoring. But really he was listening with all the power of remarkably sensitive and trained ears.

  “Arizona Ames? Where’n hell did I ever hear thet name?” Steele muttered, in a considerably lower tone.

  “Wal, you must have heard it somewheres onusual or you wouldn’t put sich store on it,” replied Amos.

  “I’d say in Salt Lake City jail — if this fellow wasn’t an honest cowboy,” said Noggin, in a voice suited to his face.

  “Honest? Why, Noggin, thet puncher is as crooked as your nose,” averred Steele.

  “Fine judge of men you are!” ejaculated the other, loud in contempt. “If you was otherwise, would we be hidin’ here?”

  “Not so damn loud!” flashed Steele, irritably, and with the authority of a leader. “You might wake him up.”

  “Small matter. What’re you goin’ to do about him, anyhow?”

  “Wal, for one thing, I want thet hoss,” returned Steele. “I ain’t seen his beat in a month of Sundays.”

  “He talked like a man who cared for his horse. You’ll have to steal him and that might not be so easy. Unless — —”

  “He’ll trade all right, with a little urgin’,” interrupted the leader, complacently.

  “You want things so bad you fool yourself,” rejoined Noggin, in his thin-edged voice. “You’ll have to do some strong urgin’ or I’ll miss my guess. What’s more, this stranger who calls himself Arizona Ames may be otherwise than he pretends.”

  “Arizona Ames! — Dammit! thet name rings in my ears like a bell. I must be gettin’ old. . . . What you mean, otherwise?”

  “When you marched him up to this camp fire, with his hands high, he was too damn cool and sharp-eyed to tickle my fancy.”

  “Ahuh! — Wal, he was a cool one, at thet. But what if he is?”

  “He changed so gradual that I never noticed till after supper. And it’s made me think.”

  “So much the better if he’s on the dodge. We’ll find out, an’ if he is, let’s take him in with us.”

  “Advise against that strong,” replied Noggin, vehemently.

  “Why? We could use a couple of slick hombres.”

  “You’re the boss. And my last word is be careful he’s not too slick.”

  “Noggy, you’d throw cold water on your grandmother’s coffin,” said Steele, in disgust.

  “I’m goin’ to bed,” rejoined the other, and his hobnailed boots scraped on the rocks.

  A silence ensued. The camp fire crackled. Some one of the men threw on a stick of wood and the sparks flew upward. Down the canyon an owl hooted dismally.

  Then Steele changed his seat for one closer to Heady, and a good deal of their low conversation was indistinguishable. Ames caught some of Steele’s phrases such as, “To hell with Noggin.”— “I’m runnin’ this outfit.”— “Morgan’s hosses.”— “Too big a bunch.”— “Lund or Nevada.”— “Figgerin’ hard.”— “Get across Canyon.”

  Heady had little to say in reply. Soon the two men followed the others to bed. Ames lay thinking, and watching the flickering shadows of the firelight. There did not appear to be any doubt that he had fallen in with a band of horse-thieves. Steele was easily gauged as a crooked Westerner of long experience. Ames regarded Noggin as the more dangerous. Just where Heady, the Mormon, fitted into this band Ames could not see, but he was inclined to the opinion that Heady was being persuaded or intimidated. For the rest, Ames thought they were planning to rob a Mormon rancher, probably named Morgan. The drove they might corral would probably be too large to drive off to Lund or Nevada, and they wondered if they could get them across the Canyon. Ames, remembering the trails he had traversed and that boiling red river, and the awful roar of the falls below where he had swum his horse, grimly believed the thieves would find just retribution if they attempted it. Here Ames shifted to the references made to his horse, and that set in motion another train of thought not favorable to Steele’s chances for longevity. Lastly Ames pondered over what he should do on the morrow. Finally he gave it up. So much had to be left to the hour itself. Then he fell asleep.

  Ames awakened early, but he was the last to get up. Sleeping in his clothes and boots, nights on end, was not conducive to a comfortable feeling in the mornings.

  “Wal, if you feel like you look, I reckon you didn’t lie about thet trip across the Canyon,” was Steele’s greeting.

  “Trip wasn’t bad,” replied Ames. “It was hustlin’ so fast an’ then losin’ my bed an’ grub that knocked me up. I’d like to rest heah today, if you don’t mind.”

  “Glad to have you. I’d like to know how to cross the Canyon. You’re pretty damn good or else orful lucky. But, come to think, you had a real hoss.”

  Ames grasped the drift of the horse-thief’s thought, but he offered no reply to that speech. Hot water and a shave, neither of which he had had for weeks, helped considerably toward comfort, not to say appearance. Steele gave him an appraising glance.

  “Humph! Damn queer I don’t remember you, if I ever seen you.”

  “Thanks. I’m takin’ that for a compliment.”

  “Wal, you can, an’ no mistake.”

  “Mawnin’, men,” said Ames, cheerfully, to the others.

  Noggin was the only one who did not reply in like vein. Daylight seemed to accentuate this little man’s crafty face, as it did the swarthy evil of Steele’s. The cook was a jovial blond giant, likable even if he was a horse-thief. Heady appeared to be a broken man, one who might have seen better days.

  “Amos, I’m shore gamblin’ you never learned to cook in cow camps,” said Ames, at the conclusion of a hearty breakfast.

  “Not much. I learned in a hotel in Missouri, if you want to know.”

  “That so! — Well, I’m not bein’ inquisitive, but I’m shore wonderin’ how you ever came to be shootin’ biscuits heah.”

  All of them, except Noggin, enjoyed a hearty laugh.

  “It’s a sad story, Ames,” replied the cook.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Ames. “I might be moved to inflict mine on you.”

  Without being asked, Ames set to help at the camp tasks, which he had observed appeared to be left to Amos. It was after he had chopped and split a spruce log that Steele remarked:

  “You was raised in a timber country.”

  “How’d you figure that?”

  “Plain as print. Seen it in the way you swung an ax.”

  “Steele, I can tell you where you was raised.”

  “Bet you can’t.”

  “Shore won’t take your money, but I’ll bet you.”

  “Wal, where now?”

  “Kentucky.”

  “How’n hell did you guess thet?” queried Steele, astounded.

  “It was the way you said, ‘hoss.’”

  “Wal, you could have won my last dollar. . . . You’re an interestin’ sort of fellar, Arizona Ames. I notice you pack thet gun pretty low. An’ it ‘pears to kind of grow on you.”

  “Habit, I reckon. I’ve had to sleep with a gun so long.”

  “Ahuh. Air you as handy with one as you air with an ax?”

  “Lots handier,” replied Ames, smiling. He saw that he had Steele frankly curious and Noggin openly suspicious.

  “Can you put six shots in the ace of spades, at twenty feet?”

  “Steele, I can split the ace of spades, edgeways, three shots out of six.”

  “Air you braggin’ or foolin’?”

  “Neither.”

  “Wal, I pass. Hittin’ the ace face up is my best, an’ I always thought I was good.”

  “That’s fair shootin’.”

  At this juncture Noggin entered the argument, and not with the agreeable badinage which characterized Steele and Ames.

  “I’ll bet you fifty you can’t,” he interposed. Whatever his motive was, cunning prompted it.

  “Fifty what?” queried Ames, in a different tone of voice.

  “Dollars.”

  “I haven’t got even one dollar. But I’ll bet you my gun to a cigarette, if you’ll throw up your hat I can put two bullet holes in it before it comes down.”

  Before Noggin could reply Steele cracked a hard fist in his palm.

  “Arizona Ames, I’ve placed you!” he shouted, in loud acclaim.

  “Have you? Just where, now?” rejoined Ames, with no appreciable interest.

  “Thet brag about shootin’ holes in Noggin’s hat gave you away. I got you, Arizona Ames,” said Steele, forcefully, with leering grin. “I remembered your name, but I knowed sure I’d never seen you.”

  “Well, you’re talkin’ a lot aboot placin’ me,” drawled Ames, coolly. “But you’re shore not sayin’ much.”

  “Wal, give me breathin’-room. . . . It was four years ago, this very month. I remember because they had a big Fourth of July time in Laramie. I was hittin’ south an’ stopped at a little cow town on the border of Wyomin’. What was thet name?”

  “Reckon I can help you to remember,” returned Ames, dryly. He saw that Steele had a line on him, not creditable, and it served his purpose to help out with the identification. “How aboot Keystone, at the haid of the Medicine Bow Range?”

  “Aha! — Keystone? Thet sure was it. An’ I remember them Medicine Bow hills, fer I got chased into them.”

  “Shore, Steele, it’s a small world, for me, anyhow. What’d you heah about me at Keystone?”

  “Wal, there was a young cowpuncher about to marry a gurl, daughter of a rancher. I ought to remember them names, but I don’t. Anyway, the very mornin’ of the weddin’ day, which was when I rode into Keystone, this cowpuncher was arrested by some sheriff’s deputies fer rustlin’ steers or sellin’ rustled steers, I forget which. He swore he hadn’t done it — thet another fellar had, an’ rung him in. Wal, I heerd the story, they was takin’ him along when a rider on a grand buckskin hoss. . . . By Gawd! Ames, this hoss you rode in hyar last night is thet very hoss. . . .”

  “Go on with your story. Your pards are listenin’ fine, an’ I’m pretty keen to heah the rest myself.”

  “Wal,” went on Steele, “this rider, who was you, Ames, held up the deputies, an’ proved they had the wrong fellar because he was the right one. Would they mind lettin’ this cowpuncher loose, so he could go an’ git married? An’ if they wanted to risk tryin’ to arrest him, come on. . . . Haw! Haw! — Ames, you shot your way out of town an’ escaped.”

  “But how do you connect that job up with me?” queried Ames.

  “Simple as a-b-c. There was heaps of talk in town. If thet rider was Arizona Ames — an’ there were some who swore he was — how’n hell did it come he only crippled two or three of them sheriff deputies? Fer thet hombre, Arizona Ames, could shoot. He could shoot holes in a sombrero — thrown up in the air!”

  “Steele, it shore is a small West,” drawled Ames. “I’d like to know if that cowboy got married. His name was Riggy Turner.”

  “Thet’s it. I remember now. He sure did git hitched up. The town might hev had a circus.”

  Like a ghost of the past this almost forgotten episode in Ames’ eventful career now rose to confront him. It was what he considered the only black mark attached to his name on all the ranges. But Riggy Turner really had been the guilty one and Ames had been innocent. Turner’s first offense, so easy to drift into those days! How many cowboys fell simply because it was so easy to do and to conceal! Ames had found it out too late. But he had given this boy Turner a cursing he could never forget and had extracted a solemn pledge, for the sake of the girl who loved Turner, that he would never transgress again. They had hoped to avoid arrest for Turner, but had made no attempt to dodge it. Then Ames had ridden down upon the deputies and the stricken cowboy with the result Steele had narrated.

  “Steele, your memory isn’t so poor,” remarked Ames. “But are you shore aboot one thing? Did the folks in Keystone think it was just accident the range officers got off only crippled?”

  “Why, course they figgered it thet way,” rejoined Steele, surprised.

  Ames edged a half-burned stick into the fire with the toe of his boot. He had no more to say. It had amused him, yet made him a little wistful to recall the incident.

  Steele stroked the scant dark hair on his lean chin. “Wal, Arizona Ames, you might do wuss than throwin’ in with us.”

  CHAPTER X

  AMES HAD EXPECTED such a proposal and was prepared for it. Steele had accepted him at the valuation of the gossip of Keystone, augmented by the vague hints Ames had seen fit to let slip.

  Noggin, however, saw through Ames, or at least powerfully distrusted him, or more remotely a possibility, he actually knew Ames by repute. Ames realized he must be wary, yet seem natural.

  “Steele, I told you I didn’t have a dollar,” presently replied Ames.

  “Wal, you don’t need none.”

  “What’s your deal?” asked Ames, pointedly.

  “Hosses.”

  “How many?”

  “Two hundred head or thereabouts. Fine-blooded stock. All broke. Just about ready to be druv to Salt Lake, fer sale.”