“My dear sir, graduates of Boston Tech. do not carry their diplomas round with them on their key rings. You’ll have to take Bagley’s word for it that I’m an engineer if my own is not convincing.” The gangling doctor took two turns of the office with enormous strides; one hand tugged at his straggling goatee. Abruptly he stopped by Grant’s chair. “Young man, what need do you figure a doctor in Arizora would have of an engineer--more especial an engineer from New York? Why should I tell this Bagley, who’s as crazy as a June-bug, to fetch a graduate engineer out to Arizora? Engineers are a drug on the market here--and every one of ’em a crook.” Grant’s patience snapped. He rose and strode to the door. “Dr. Stooder, I didn’t come away out here to your town to have somebody play horse with me. When you are sober you can find me at the International Hotel.” A grin started under Doc Stooder’s moustache and travelled swiftly to his ears. “God bless my soul, boy! When I’m sober, you say. I’m never sober and I hope I never will be--” Grant slammed the door behind him. CHAPTER IV COLONEL URGO REPAYS Before he had descended to the street Grant began to regret his flash of anger which had launched him out of Doc Stooder’s office. To be sure, the unconventional doctor had been insulting; his was hardly the orthodox reception to be expected by one who had crossed the continent to become his partner in some hidden enterprise. Equally certain it was that, to apply the cigar clerk’s pat phrase, Stooder was “organized for the day”; the finishing touches to that organization had been made in two trips to the closet in Grant’s presence. Need one have been so touchy under these alcoholic circumstances? Strive as he would to put the best face on the matter, the man from New York could not escape a lowering of the spiritual barometer. Here he was, a stranger in an outlandish desert town with none to give him so much as a friendly glance. Glances enough came his way, but they were inspired by his clothes, the cut of which seemed to put them beyond the pale. Grant pleasured himself by reviewing his case in the most pessimistic light. He had been but a fortnight ago a sober and industrious citizen. Came to him a wild letter hinting darkly of some shadowy enterprise in a bleak land. Instantly he had quit his work and galloped across two thousand miles to encounter a scarecrow cynic who greeted him as a book agent. He wandered aimlessly beyond the town and out onto a road which wound up to the edge of one of the mesas which were the eaves of Arizora. Well might drivers of passing cars stare at the figure of a broad-shouldered young man in a black derby and double-breasted coat, who was afoot in a country where no man walks unless he carries a blanket on his shoulders--unless he is a “stiff,” in the phrase of the Southwest. Even though February was but on the wane, already the sun was guarantor of a promise to pay with heat interest in sixty days.