"Friend, are you Clint Wadley's messenger?" The startled face of Ridley flew a flag of confession. "Why--what do you mean?" he stammered. Nobody was to have known that he had come to get the money for the owner of the A T O. "None of my business, you mean," flung back the man curtly. "Good enough! It ain't. What's more, I don't give a damn. But listen: I was at the Buffalo Hump when two fellows came in. Me, I was most asleep, and they sat in the booth next to me. I didn't hear all they said, but I got this--that they're aimin' to hold up some messenger of Clint Wadley after he leaves town to-morrow. You're the man, I reckon. All right. Look out for yourself. That's all." "But--what shall I do?" asked Ridley. "Do? I don't care. I'm tellin' you--see? Do as you please." "What would _you_ do?" The danger and the responsibility that had fallen upon him out of a sky of sunshine paralyzed the young man's initiative. The deep-set, flinty eyes narrowed to slits. "What I'd do ain't necessarily what you'd better do. What are you, stranger--high-grade stuff, or the run o' the pen?" "I'm no gun-fighter, if that's what you mean." "Then I'd make my get-away like a jackrabbit hell-poppin' for its hole. I got one slant at these fellows in the Buffalo Hump. They're bully-puss kind o' men, if you know what I mean." "I don't. I'm from the East." "They'll run it over you, bluff you off the map, take any advantage they can." "Will they fight?" "They'll burn powder quick if they get the drop on you." "What are they like?" The Texan considered. "One is a tall, red-headed guy; the other's a sawed-off, hammered-down little runt--but gunmen, both of 'em, or I'm a liar." "They would probably follow me," said the messenger, worried. "You better believe they will, soon as they hear you've gone." Arthur kicked a little hole in the ground with the toe of his shoe. What had he better do? He could stay at the fort, of course, and appeal to Major Ponsford for help. But if he did, he would probably be late for his appointment with Wadley. It happened that the cattleman and the army officer had had a sharp difference of opinion about the merits of the herd that had been delivered, and it was not at all likely that Ponsford would give him a military guard to Tascosa. Moreover, he had a feeling that the owner of the A T O would resent any call to the soldiers for assistance. Clint Wadley usually played his own hand, and he expected the same of his men. But the habit of young Ridley's life had not made for fitness to cope with a frontier emergency. Nor was he of stiff enough clay to fight free of his difficulty without help. "What about you?" he asked the other man. "Can I hire you to ride with me to Tascosa?" "As a tenderfoot-wrangler?" sneered the Texan. Arthur flushed. "I've never been there. I don't know the way." "You follow a gun-barrel road from the fort. But I'll ride with you--if the pay is right." "What do you say to twenty dollars for the trip?"