Alan felt the suave irony that covered this man's amusement, and he resented it impotently. When Melissy came to his support he was the more grateful. "And we all think he did just right in using his common sense, Mr. Norris," the girl flashed. "Oh, certainly." And with that he was gone after her father to help him water the sheep. "I don't see why those sheep have to be watered right now," she frowned to Alan. "Dad _did_ water them this morning. I helped him." Together they went into the store, where Jose was telling his story for the sixth time to a listening circle of plainsmen. "And right then he come at you and ree-quested yore whole outfit to poke a hole in the scenery with yore front feet?" old Dave Ellis asked just as Melissy entered. "_Si, Senor._" "One of MacQueen's Roaring Fork gang did it, I'll bet," Alan contributed sourly. "What kind of a lookin' guy was he?" spoke up a dark young man known as Bob Farnum. "A big man, _senor_, and looked a ruffian." "They're always that way until you run 'em down," grinned Ellis. "Never knew a hold-up wasn't eight foot high and then some--to the fellow at the wrong end of the gun." "If you mean to say, Dave Ellis, that I lay down to a bluff----" Alan was beginning hotly when the old frontiersman interrupted. "Keep your shirt on, McKinstra. I don't mean to say it. Nobody but a darn fool makes a gun-play when the cards are stacked that-a-way. Yore bad play was in reaching for the gun at all." "Well, Jack Flatray will git him. I'll bet a stack of blues on that," contributed a fat ranchman wheezily. "Unless you mussed up the trail coming back," said Ellis to the stage-driver. "We didn't. I thought of that, and I had Jose drive clear round the place. Jack will find it all right unless there's too much travel before he gets here," said Alan. Farnum laughed malevolently. "Mebbe he'll get him and mebbe he won't. Jack's human, like the rest of us, if he is the best sheriff in Arizona. Here's hoping he don't get him. Any man that waltzes out of the cactus and appropriates twenty thousand dollars belonging to Mr. Morse is welcome to it for all of me. I don't care if he is one of MacQueen's bad men. I wish it had been forty thousand."