Next morning we routed out an old kit-bag, into which we packed a few necessaries. When we insisted upon Johnson accepting this, he shrugged his shoulders and turned the palms of his hands upwards, as if to show their emptiness. "Why do you do this?" he asked, with a certain indescribable peremptoriness. Ajax answered simply-- "A man must have clean linen. In the town you are going to, a boiled shirt is a credential. I should like to give you a letter to the cashier of the bank. He is a Britisher, and a good fellow. You are not strong enough for such work as we might offer you, but he will find you a billet." "You positively overwhelm me," said Johnson. "You must be lineally descended from the Good Samaritan." Ajax wrote the letter. A neighbour was driving in to town, as we knew, and I had arranged early that morning for our guest's transportation. "And what am I to do in return for these favours?" Johnson demanded. "Let us hear from you," said my brother. "You shall," he replied. Within half an hour Johnson had vanished in a buckboard and a cloud of fine white dust. Upon the following afternoon I made an alarming discovery. Our burglar-proof safe had been opened, and the roll of notes was missing. I sought Ajax and told him. He allowed one word only to escape his lips-- "Johnson!" "What tenderfeet we are!" I groaned. "Lineal descendants of the Good Samaritan. Well, he has had a long start, but we must catch him." "If it should not be--Johnson?" "Conan would have nailed anybody else." This was unanswerable, for Conan guarded our safe whenever there was anything in it worth guarding. Ajax never is so happy as when he can prove himself a prophet. "I said he was an artist," he remarked. "The truth is, we tried an experiment upon the wrong man." A few minutes later we took the road. We had not gone very far, however, before we met the neighbour who had driven Johnson to town. He pulled up and greeted us. "Boys," said he. "I've a note for ye from that Britisher." We took the note, but we did not open it till our Californian friend had disappeared. We had been butchered, but as yet the abominable fact that a compatriot had skinned us was something we wished to keep to ourselves. "Great Minneapolis!" said Ajax. "Look at this!" I saw a bank receipt for the exact sum which represented our bunch of steers. "Is that all?" I asked. Ajax ought to have shouted for joy, but he answered with a groan. "Yes; there isn't a line of explanation. He said we should hear from him." "And we have," I replied. We returned to the ranch very soberly. When Ajax placed the bank receipt in the safe, he kicked that solid piece of furniture. "We'll drive in comfortably to-morrow, and find out what we can," he observed. "I don't think we shall find Johnson," I murmured. Nor did we. The cashier testified to receiving the roll of notes, but not the letter of introduction. We hunted high and low for Johnson; but he was not.