"Look here, Wanda," he said sharply. "On the level, that thing ain't deadly, is it? I been setting on it for half an hour, I know. It might have been biting me all the time, I'm so numb I wouldn't have felt it." She assured him, chokingly, that there was no cause for alarm. Dart rubbed himself and brightened. But his face fell again as she went on to inform him that the creatures were so numerous that in his walk home he might encounter a dozen. So it was that Mr. Willie Dart changed his mind and decided to ride the three miles across the valley. CHAPTER XIII SLEDGE HUME MAKES A CALL AND LAYS A WAGER "Now, my erstwhile Noble Benefactor, brighten up and look happy. I've got some red, white and blue news for you. I like you first rate, I'm strong for the grub and I guess I can stand for the country being stood on edge. I've come to stay!" The door had been flung open and Mr. Willie Dart came gaily into Wayne Shandon's bed room carrying a big book in his hands, trailing a long wisp of fragrant smoke from one of his host's cigars behind him. Shandon looked at him with a sober, thoughtful frown, and seemed in no way hilariously impressed with Mr. Dart's glad tidings. Already the latter had been at the Bar L-M several days. During this time Shandon had not seen Wanda; he had come close to blows with Ruf Ettinger; he had been variously and grievously annoyed by Mr. Dart; certain other matters had gone wrong; and altogether he was in no pleasant mood. "Look here, Dart," he replied savagely, kicking off his boot so hard that it struck against the far wall of the room, and continuing his undressing with a fierceness that brought a momentary speculative squint into Mr. Dart's innocent eyes. "What's your game, anyhow?" "Game?" Willie Dart put a great deal of reproach into his tone. "Nix on that, Red, old sport. When a man travels three thousand miles in a damned stuffy car and then on top of that rides a horse like I did clean over the backbone of the universe, just through gratitude to his Noble Ben--" "Oh, damn the gratitude," cried Shandon. "I'm tired of hearing of it. I most heartily wish that I'd let matters take their own course." "Now," resumed Dart, again smilingly, having softly closed the door and made himself comfortable in a chair, "what's the use of pals getting off wrong with one another? You slipped up and got your tongue twisted when you said what's my game. What you'd ought to have said was what noble purpose is kicking around in my manly boosum. You don't seem to put any faith in me, Red." Shandon's short laugh prefixed his short answer. "Do you wonder I don't?" Then Mr. Dart chuckled. "Come right down to it, Red, I don't! But you wrong me. Gratitude, my Noble--" "Call me that once more and I'll heave you through the window," snapped Shandon. "If you've got anything to say, say it. I'm going to bed."