“As usual, Pop, your lips gives forth words of wisdom. We shall leave. Stranger, you tend to that arm of yours.” Mr. Manley, followed by Teddy, Roy, and Pop, made for the door. Outside, in the street, a crowd awaited them. That is, a crowd for Eagles--population one hundred and fifty in a rush season. Three cowboys, one woman, and five children stood staring curiously at the four men as they emerged from Rimor’s Place. Nick and Gus Tripp were prancing about on restless ponies, rifles held in readiness. As these two saw the four men, their faces cleared and Nick yelled: “Everything O. K., boss?” “Yes!” Mr. Manley answered. Then, as his eye roved over the small crowd in front of the restaurant, he added. “We were havin’ a little argument, that’s all. It’s all over now.” The cowboys looked dubious at this explanation of the yelling, but the gathered people slowly drifted away. The boys remounted their ponies, which, like good Western horses, had stood quiet when the reins were thrown over their heads and left dangling. Roy urged his animal over to Nick. “Say, Nick,” he said in a low voice, “you and Gus didn’t see anything of a puncher in a checkered shirt busting out of Rimor’s, did you?” “No, we didn’t, Roy,” Nick answered. “He the bucker what was doin’ the yelling?” Gus asked casually. It would take a great deal to startle Gus out of his placid way. When he acted, he acted quickly. When he did nothing, to quote himself, he “did it just as slow as he knew how.” Gus was a product of New Mexico. “He didn’t do any yelling,” Teddy answered. “That was done by the New York plug-ugly they’ve got in there for a barkeeper. Dad taught him a few things about the use of a revolver.” “Kill him?” Gus drawled, as though he were asking the time of day. “Certainly not!” Roy answered, startled. “He just clubbed him. Put his right arm out of commission by a crack from the butt of his gun.” Nick Looker nodded approvingly. Nick was young and fair-haired. He had not the assumed callousness of Gus. He knew, though, that beneath this pretended hardness, Gus had a heart as soft as a woman’s. “We’ll be gettin’ on,” Mr. Manley said. He had heard Nick say he had not seen “checkered shirt,” as Roy called the puncher, and he knew there would be no use in delaying further. They could get no information in Eagles. The six swung down the main street and out of the town. They were riding directly away from the X Bar X and into a valley separating Bitter Cliff Mountain from its neighbor, Mica Mountain. Here the road lost its travel-worn appearance and dwindled into an uphill trail. Up this trail the six men rode. Teddy and Roy were in the rear of the riders, about two hundred yards from the rest. The trail turned now, and in a moment those ahead were out of sight of the two boys. “Come on, let’s get along,” Roy said. “Dad’s hitting a good gait, all right.”