"Slender man," repeated Bill, "but I didn't take much notice of him. Said he was in the real-estate business." "In the real-estate business? And did he sit there while you talked this over with the college guy?" muttered Du Sang. "He is all right, boys, and he said you'd know his name if I could speak it," declared Bill. "Look anything like that man standing with his hands in his pockets over there by the wheel?" asked Du Sang, turning his back carefully on a new-comer as he made the suggestion. "Where--there? No! Yes, hold on, that's the man there now! Hold on, now!" urged Bill, struggling with the excitement of ten hours and ten dollars all in one day. "His name sounded like Fogarty." As Dancing spoke, Sinclair's eyes riveted on the new face at the other side of the gambling-room. "Fogarty, hell!" he exclaimed, starting. "Stand right still, Du Sang; don't look around. That man is Whispering Smith." CHAPTER XII PARLEY It was recalled one evening not long ago at the Wickiup that the affair with Sinclair had all taken place within a period of two years, and that practically all of the actors in the event had been together and in friendly relation on a Thanksgiving Day at the Dunning ranch not so very long before the trouble began. Dicksie Dunning was away at school at the time, and Lance Dunning was celebrating with a riding and shooting fest and a barbecue. The whole country had been invited. Bucks was in the mountains on an inspection trip, and Bill Dancing drove him with a party of railroad men over from Medicine Bend. The mountain men for a hundred and fifty miles around were out. Gene and Bob Johnson, from Oroville and the Peace River, had come with their friends. From Williams Cache there was not only a big delegation--more of one than was really desirable--but it was led by old John Rebstock himself. When the invitation is general, lines cannot be too closely drawn. Not only was Lance Dunning something of a sport himself, but on the Long Range it is part of a stockman's creed to be on good terms with his neighbors. At a Thanksgiving Day barbecue not even a mountain sheriff would ask questions, and Ed Banks, though present, respected the holiday truce. Cowboys rode that day in the roping contest who were from Mission Creek and from Two Feather River.