"Buy it!" exclaimed Hobbs with fervent intonation. "Sure, buy it! Let Sandy do it; don't he know all about them things? Let's go on to Two Palms an' do it!" Murray nodded and turned from the bar. "Well, so long!" he said in farewell, and sauntered out into the street. Hobbs followed him. The desert rat gazed after them with bulging eyes; then, shoving the remainder of his ice cream into his mouth, he drew the back of his hand across his lips and left the place hurriedly. Disdaining to notice his burros, he shuffled up the street to the post office, entered, and bought a postal. Over the writing desk in the corner he bent awkwardly, and indited a laborious message to one Deadoak Stevens, at Two Palms. "There!" He gazed upon his handiwork with great satisfaction. "If this yere intimation don't git Deadoak to work, it'll be funny! They got the coin, them three pilgrims has--look at the car they rode up in! I bet I done Deadoak a good turn. If I had a decent hole o' my own, now, I'd unload on them birds!" Sandy Mackintavers, meantime, had fallen to work with true Scottish thrift; when the others rejoined him in the hotel, he was displaying the Twin-Duplex to the proprietor of the stage line. The latter gentleman exhibited very little interest in the proposed deal, and disclaimed any notion of buying the car; however, he crawled into her, over her, and under her, then summoned one of his drivers from the group of loafers on the hotel veranda and ordered him to drive the car around and bring her back. In five minutes the driver returned, and violently disparaged the car so far as stage use was concerned. "Well, I'll tell ye, now," said the owner, "I really ain't got much use for her. But I got a couple o' flivvers over in the garage, last year's model, good shape; if ye'd consider a trade and take 'em both off'n my hands, we might talk turkey. Step in the office, gents." They stepped in, and presently stepped out again. Sandy had rid himself of the big car, attaining two flivvers and five hundred cash. That evening he did a thing which would have mightily astonished anyone who had known the old Mackintavers. He called the other two into his room, and laid upon the table all his worldly wealth. "Now, partners," he stated, "there's all I got. Split it up and start even." Murray's keen eyes swept his face, and read there a stubborn earnestness. It was not without an effort that Sandy had achieved this moment. "Aw, hell!" broke out Hobbs. "Wot kind o' guys d'you take us for, Mac?" "We're partners, aren't we?" affirmed Sandy. "Aiblins, now, one friend ought to help another and----" "We're more than partners, Mac," said Murray quietly. "We're friends, as you say. Is it your proposition that we throw all we have into a common fund?" "Just that," said Mackintavers doggedly. "Each one of us helps the other to get on his feet, eh?"