Dave caught at the gate of the railing which was between him and the night clerk.  He could not find the combination to open it and therefore vaulted over.  He caught the clerk back of the neck by the collar and jounced him up and down hard in his chair.

“You’re asleep,” he explained.  “I got to waken you up before you can sabe plain talk.”

The clerk looked up out of a white, frightened face.  “Say, don’t do that.  I got heart trouble,” he said in a voice dry as a whisper.

“What about that onloadin’ proposition?” asked the Arizonan.

“I’ll see to it right away.”

Presently the clerk, with a lantern in his hand, was going across to the railroad tracks in front of Dave.  He had quite got over the idea that this lank youth was a safe person to make sport of.

They found the switch crew in the engine of the cab playing seven-up.

“Got a job for you.  Train of cattle out at the junction,” the clerk said, swinging up to the cab.

The men finished the hand and settled up, but within a few minutes the engine was running out to the freight train.

Day was breaking before Dave tumbled into bed.  He had left a call with the clerk to be wakened at noon.  When the bell rang, it seemed to him that he had not been asleep five minutes.

After he had eaten at the stockyards hotel he went out to have a look at his stock.  He found that on the whole the cattle had stood the trip well.  While he was still inspecting them a voice boomed at him a question.

“Well, young fellow, are you satisfied with all the trouble you’ve made me?”

He turned, to see standing before him the owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand.  The boy’s surprise fairly leaped from his eyes.

“Didn’t expect to see me here, I reckon,” the cattleman went on.  “Well, I hopped a train soon as I got yore first wire.  Spill yore story, young man.”

Dave told his tale, while the ranchman listened in grim silence.  When Sanders had finished, the owner of the stock brought a heavy hand down on his shoulder approvingly.

“You can ship cattle for me long as you’ve a mind to, boy.  You fought for that stock like as if it had been yore own.  You’ll do to take along.”

Dave flushed with boyish pleasure.  He had not known whether the cattleman would approve what he had done, and after the long strain of the trip this endorsement of his actions was more to him than food or drink.

“They say I’m kinda stubborn.  I didn’t aim to lie down and let those guys run one over me,” he said.

“Yore stubbornness is money in my pocket.  Do you want to go back and ride for the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle?”

“Maybe, after a while, Mr. West.  I got business in Denver for a few days.”

The cattleman smiled.  “Most of my boys have when they hit town, I notice.”

“Mine ain’t that kind.  I reckon it’s some more stubbornness,” explained Dave.