The men who were bringing in the chest stopped where they had it in the middle of the waiting-room, and one of them, looking up, caught Allan's eye as he looked at them through the ticket-window. "We'd like to put this box in the freight-shed for awhile," said the stranger. "The door's locked, and we thought maybe you'd let us take it through your office." "Why, certainly," answered Allan, who suspected at once that this was the chest containing the money for the miners, and he opened the door and helped them through with it. It was certainly heavy, but its weight, Allan decided, was more from its massive, iron-bound construction than from its contents. The men went on into the freight-shed with it, and Allan heard them talking together, but he was called back to his instrument to take an order and for the moment forgot them. Presently one of them came out again, passed through the office, jumped down the steps of the waiting-room, and hastened away into the darkness. It happened that there were two coal-trains to be started westward to Cincinnati just then, so perhaps half an hour passed before Allan looked up again. When he did so, he found the other custodian of the box standing at his elbow. He was a tall, slim man of middle age, with a black mustache and dare-devil expression, which somehow made Allan think that he had been a cowboy. The slouch hat which he wore pulled down over his eyes added to this effect, as did the repeating rifle whose butt rested on the floor beside him. When the boy looked up, he nodded sociably, and sat down on the end of the table, one leg swinging in the air. "It allers did beat me," he began, "how a feller could learn t' understand one o' them little machines," motioning toward the sounder. "All it takes is practice," answered Allan, leaning back in his chair. "It's like everything else. Now I couldn't hit a barn door with that rifle of yours, but I dare say you could hit a much smaller object." "Why, yes," drawled the other, patting the gun affectionately. "I _hev_ picked off my man at six hundred yards." "Your man?" "I used t' be depitty sheriff of Chloride County, Arizony," explained the stranger. "Hopkins is my name--Jed Hopkins. Mebbe you've heerd o' me?" But Allan was forced to confess that he never had. "Well, I've seen some excitin' times," Hopkins went on. "But life out thar ain't what it was twenty year ago. I got disgusted an' come back east an' got this job." "Which job?" asked Allan.