But Swing Tunstall was before him, and was disposed to make an issue of the dropped boots.  Only by his superior agility was Racey enabled to dodge all save a few drops of a full bucket of water.

“Djever get left!  Djever get left!” singsonged Racey from the corner of the building, and set the thumb of one hand to his nose and twiddled opprobrious fingers at his comrade.  “You wanna be a li’l bit quicker when you go to souse me, Swing.  Yo’re too slow, a lot too slow.  Yep.  Now I wouldn’t go for to fling that pail at me, Swing.  You might bust it, and yore carelessness with crockery thataway has already cost you ten dollars and six bits.”

This was too much for the ruffled Swing.  Waving the pail he pursued his tormentor round the hotel and into the front doorway.  Racey fled up the stairs.  At the stair foot Swing gave over the chase and returned to the washbench to resume his face-washing.  Racey went on into their room.  There was in it several articles belonging to Swing that he intended to throw out of the window at once.

But when he had entered the room and the door was closed behind him he did not touch any of Swing’s belongings.  Instead he remained standing in the middle of the room looking thoughtfully at the floor.  What had given him pause was the fact that he had found the door ajar.  And he knew with absolute certainty that he had closed the door tightly before he went downstairs.

It is the vagrant straw that shows the wind’s direction, and since the attempt to bushwhack him Racey was not overlooking any straws.  The door had been ajar.  Why?

There was no closet, and from where he stood he could see under both cots.  No one lay concealed in the room.  The bedclothes on Swing’s cot had not been touched.  At least they were in precisely the position in which they had been landed when thrown back by Swing’s careless hand.  Racey did not believe that his own had been touched, either.  But the saddlebags and cantenas lying on the floor at the head of his cot had certainly been moved.  He recalled distinctly having, the previous evening, piled the cantenas on top of the saddlebags.  And now the saddlebags were on top of the cantenas.

He glanced at Swing’s warbags.  They had not been moved.  He wondered if Jack Harpe and the Starlight’s owner were still in their rooms.  He listened intently.  Hearing no sound he went out into the hall, and knocked gently on Jack Harpe’s door and called him softly by name.  Getting no reply, he lifted the latch and walked in.  There were Jack Harpe’s saddlebags, cantenas, and rifle in a corner.  A coat lay on the tumbled blankets of the cot.  Otherwise the room was empty.

Racey went out, being careful to close the door tightly, and went to the room of the Starlight’s owner.  This room, too, was empty.  Racey returned to his own room, tossed his cantenas and saddlebags on the cot, and began feverishly to paw through their contents.