"Ever been in St. Louis?" he inquired casually. "No? They say it's a fine burg. Think I'll save up my _dinero_ and try it a whirl some day." The supper table was cleared and Creede had lit his second cigarette before Hardy reverted to the matter of his mail. "Well," he said, "I might as well look over those letters--may be a thousand-dollar check amongst them." Then, stepping into his room, he picked up the package, examined it curiously, and cut the cords with his knife. A sheaf of twenty or more letters spilled out and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he shuffled them over in the uncertain light of the fire, noting each inscription with a quick glance; and as he gathered up the last he quietly tucked three of them beneath the folds of his blankets--two in the same hand, bold and dashing yet stamped with a certain feminine delicacy and grace, and each envelope of a pale blue; the third also feminine, but inscribed in black and white, a crooked little hand that strayed across the page, yet modestly shrank from trespassing on the stamp. With the remainder of his mail Hardy blundered over to the table, dumping the loose handful in a great pile before the weak glimmer of the lamp. "There," he said, as Creede blinked at the heap, "I reckon that's mail enough for both of us. You can read the advertisements and I'll see what the judge has to say for himself. Pitch in, now." He waved his hand towards a lot of business envelopes, but Creede shook his head and continued to smoke dreamily. "Nope," he said briefly, "don't interest me." He reached out and thumbed the letters over dumbly, spelling out a long word here and there or scrutinizing some obscure handwriting curiously, as if it were Chinese, or an Indian sign on a rock. Then, shoving back his chair, he watched Hardy's face as he skimmed rapidly through the first letter. "Good news in the first part of it and bad in the last," he remarked, as Hardy put it down. "That's right," admitted Hardy, "but how'd you know?" He gazed up at his complacent partner with a look of innocent wonder, and Creede laughed. "W'y, hell boy," he said, "I can read you like a book. Your face tells the whole story as you go along. After you've been down here in Arizona a few seasons and got them big eyes of yourn squinched down a little--well, I may have to ast you a few questions, then." He waved his hand in a large gesture and blew out a cloud of smoke, while a twinkle of amusement crept into Hardy's unsquinched eyes. "Maybe I'm smoother than I look," he suggested dryly. "You big, fat fellows get so self-satisfied sometimes that you let lots of things go by you." "Well, I'll take my chances on you," answered Creede placidly. "What did the old judge say?" "He says you did fine with the cattle," said Hardy, "and sold 'em just in time--the market fell off within a week after we shipped." "Um-huh," grunted Creede. "And what's the bad bunch of news at the end?"