Racey, hurrying after and still on all fours, suddenly saw the dark shape of a tall man loom in front of him.  He halted perforce.  His own special brand of bull luck was with him.  The dark shape, walking almost without a sound, shaved his body so closely as it passed that he felt the stir of the air against his face.

When the men had gone on a few yards Racey looked over his shoulder.  Silhouetted against the streak of dying red was the upper half of Jack Harpe’s torso.  There was no mistaking the set of that head and those shoulders.  Both it and them were unmistakable.  Jack Harpe.  Racey swore behind his teeth.  If only he could have reached the barn in time to hear what the two men had said to each other.

After a decent interval Racey went on.  The Happy Heart was the nearest saloon.  He felt reasonably certain that Luke Tweezy would go there to have his cut head dressed.  He had.  Racey, his back against the bar, looked on with interest at the bandaging of Luke Tweezy by the proprietor.

“Yep,” said Luke, sitting sidewise in the chair, “stubbed my toe against a cordwood stick in front of Tom Kane’s barn and hit my head on a rock.  Knocked me silly.”

“Sh’d think it might,” grunted the proprietor, attending to his job with difficulty because Luke would squirm.  “Hold still, will you, Luke?”

“Yo’re taking twice as many stitches as necessary,” grumbled Luke.

“I ain’t,” denied the proprietor.  “And I got two more to take.  HOLD STILL!”

“Don’t need to deafen me!” squalled Luke, indignantly.

“Shut up!” ordered the proprietor, who, for that he did not owe any money to Luke, was not prepared to pay much attention to his fussing.  “If you think I’m enjoying this, you got another guess coming.  And if you don’t like the way I’m doing it, you can do it yoreself.”

Luke stood up at last, a white bandage encircling his head, said that he was much obliged, and would like to borrow a lantern for a few moments.

“Aw, you don’t need any lantern,” objected the proprietor.  “I forgot to fill mine to-day, anyway.  Can’t you find yore way to the hotel in the dark?  That crack on the topknot didn’t blind you, did it?”

“I lost something,” explained Luke Tweezy.  “When I fell down most all my money slipped out of my pocket.”

“I’ll get you a lantern then,” grumbled the proprietor.

Ten minutes later Luke Tweezy, frantically quartering the floor of Tom Kane’s barn, heard a slight sound and looked up to see Racey Dawson and Swing Tunstall standing in the doorway.

“I didn’t know you fell down inside the barn,” Racey observed.

“There’s lots you dunno,” said Luke, ungraciously.

“So there is,” assented Racey.  “But don’t rub it in, Luke.  Rubbing it in hurts my feelings.  And my feelings are tender to-day—­most awful tender, Luke.  Don’t you go for to lacerate ’em.  I ain’t owing you a dime, you know.”