Enoch raised again and, a quarter at a time, they ran the price up to sixteen dollars, Enoch bidding with Yankee caution and reluctance, Hank with a stubborn determination not to let his friend get ahead of him. One was a trader, shrewd and thrifty; the other, a trapper, which made it a game between a canny barterer on one side and a reckless spender on the other. At twenty-three dollars Birdsall quit, spat angrily at a box, and scowled at his excited companion, who was counting the money onto the table. Hank glared at Enoch, jammed the Colt in his belt and bit savagely into a plug of tobacco, while the stranger, hiding his smile, bowed ironically and left them; and in a moment he was back again with another Colt. "I knowed it!" mourned Hank. "Dang ye, Enoch!" "Boys," said the stranger, sadly, "my friend is in th' same fix that I am. He is willin' ter part with his Colt for th' same money an' another old fashioned pistol. His mother's dyin' in St. Louie an' he's got ter git back ter her." "Too danged bad it ain't him, an' you," snorted Hank. Jim Ogden held out his hand, took the weapon and studied it. Quietly handing over his own pistol and the money, he held out his other hand, empty. "Whar's th' mold; an' some caps?" "Wall," drawled the stranger, rubbing his chin. "They don't go with th' weapons--they're separate. Cost ye three dollars fer th' mold; an' th' caps air two dollars a box o' two hundred." "Then hand her back ag'in an' take th' Colt," said Ogden, slowly arising. "Think I'm goin' ter whittle, or chew bullets fer it? Neither one of them guns has even been used. Thar bran' new, an' with 'em goes th' mold. Jest because I've spent a lot o' my days up on Green River ain't sayin' I'm green. They named it that because I left my greenness thar." "Th' caps air extry," said the vendor of Colt pistols. "Ain't said nothin' about no caps, yit," retorted Ogden. "I'm talkin' molds. Gimme one, an' give Hank one; or ye'll both shore as hell miss his mother's funeral." The stranger complied, sold some caps and left the saloon in good humor; but he had not been gone two minutes before Enoch hastily arose and pleaded that he had to meet a man; and when they saw him again he had a newfangled contraption in a holster at his belt. Hank carelessly opened his mold and glanced at it. "Pinted!" he exclaimed. Tom explained swiftly and reassured his friends, and then suggested that they go down to a smithy owned by a mutual friend, and run some bullets. "We better do it while we're thinkin' about it, an' have th' time," he added. "Got lots o' time," said Ogden. "Be three weeks afore th' second caravan starts. Thar's two goin' out this year. If 'twarn't fer th' early warm weather on th' prairies th' fust wouldn't 'a' left yet. Th' grass is comin' up fast."