He was a singular-looking man, tall, lean, sinewy, with a high, thin nose and a square chin which seemed not in keeping with his calling.  His left nostril was indented by a scar which ran across his cheek, and one ear was notched well-nigh as deeply as that of a calf at a spring branding.

“This feller,” said Uncle Jim Brothers, “looks like he come from Arkansaw.”

“Maybe so,” answered Curly.  “Anyhow, he shot up two of the boys and killed a horse for us before we got at him.  We was out of ammunition—­I told you we didn’t have enough.  After we killed the woollies, and run off them two herders, we rid up the canon.  There was him, a-settin’ in the door of his ole Kentucky home, with a Winchester that’d go off—­which it stands to reason couldn’t have happened if he was a real sheepherder.  I can’t figure that out.”  Curly scratched his head dubiously, and looked again at his prisoner.

“He ain’t saying a vort alretty,” said Whiteman.

“He’s happy enough without.  He was livin’ like a lord there, in his shack—­four hundred paper-back novels, a keg of whiskey and a tin cup, and some kind of ‘hop’ that we brung along, and which was the only thing he hollered over.”

The prisoner sat up in the wagon.  “If you’d be so good as to give me the packet you’ve in your pocket,” said he to Curly, “I’d be awfully obliged to you, old fellow, I would indeed.”  Curly drew a paper package from his pocket and passed it to the speaker, who opened it with eager fingers.

“Thanks, my good man,” he remarked, “thank you awfully.”  They led him into the deserted Lone Star for further deliberations.

“That’s the snuff he’s been takin’,” Curly explained aside.  “I know.  It’s ‘hop.’  Sheep, ‘hop,’ and whiskey!  With that for a life and them for a steady diet, I don’t believe our friend here’d last more’n about thirty years more.”  He turned to the captive, who by this time was leaning back against the wall in his chair, the central figure of present affairs, but apparently quite unconcerned.

“How you feelin’ now?” Curly asked.

“Much better,” replied the prisoner.  “Thank you awfully.  I was beginning to feel deucedly seedy, you know.”

“I’d like to know,” inquired Curly, bluntly, “what in merry-hell you’re doing down in here, anyhow.  Where’d you come from?  Where’ve you been?”

A half-humorous smile came to the face of the captive.  “You seem not to know a Sandhurst man, gentlemen, when you see one,” said he.

“I said he was from Arkansaw,” remarked Uncle Jim.

“No foolin’ now, young feller,” said Curly, frowning.  “You may have more trouble than you’re lookin’ for.  What’s your name?”

“I really forget my first name,” replied the prisoner, blandly, but not discourteously.  “Of late I have been customarily addressed as the King of Gee-Whiz.”

“Well, King,” suggested the acting foreman, grimly, “you’d better turn loose and tell us your story, about as soon as you know how.”