“Quarrelin’?  What about?”

“Oh, I dunno.  They act like they’re sore as a boil at each other.  Honest, I thought they was goin’ to mix it yesterday.  I breezed up wit’ a bottle an’ they kinda cooled off.”

“Doble drunk?”

“Nope.  Fact is, they’d trimmed a Greeley boob and was rowin’ about the split.  Miller he claimed Doble held out on him.  I’ll bet he did too.”

Dave did not care how much they quarreled or how soon they parted after he had got back his horse.  Until that time he preferred that they would give him only one trail to follow instead of two.

The cowpuncher made it his business to loaf on Larimer Street for the rest of the day.  His beat was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets, usually on the other side of the road from the Klondike Saloon.

About four o’clock his patience was rewarded.  Miller came rolling along in a sort of sailor fashion characteristic of him.  Dave had just time to dive into a pawnbroker’s shop unnoticed.

A black-haired, black-eyed salesman came forward to wait on him.  The puncher cast an eye helplessly about him.  It fell on a suitcase.

“How much?” he asked.

“Seven dollars.  Dirt sheap, my frient.”

“Got any telescope grips?”

The salesman produced one.  Dave bought it because he did not know how to escape without.

He carried it with him while he lounged up and down the sidewalk waiting for Miller to come out of the Klondike.  When the fat gambler reappeared, the range-rider fell in behind him unobserved and followed uptown past the Tabor Opera House as far as California Street.  Here they swung to the left to Fourteenth, where Miller disappeared into a rooming-house.

The amateur detective turned back toward the business section.  On the way he dropped guiltily the telescope grip into a delivery wagon standing in front of a grocery.  He had no use for it, and he had already come to feel it a white elephant on his hands.

With the aid of a city directory Dave located the livery stables within walking distance of the house where Miller was staying.  Inspired perhaps by the nickel detective stories he had read, the cowboy bought a pair of blue goggles and a “store” collar.  In this last, substituted for the handkerchief he usually wore loosely round his throat, the sleuth nearly strangled himself for lack of air.  His inquiries at such stables as he found brought no satisfaction.  Neither Miller nor the pinto had been seen at any of them.

Later in the evening he met Henry B. West at the St. James Hotel.

“How’s that business of yore’s gettin’ along, boy?” asked the cattleman with a smile.

“Don’ know yet.  Say, Mr. West, if I find a hawss that’s been stole from me, how can I get it back?”

“Some one steal a hawss from you?”

Dave told his story.  West listened to a finish.

“I know a lawyer here.  We’ll ask him what to do,” the ranchman said.