“Not at all,” said Blount promptly.  “He has the section opposite mine, and he got on at Omaha.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to know him if I was you,” was the bearded man’s comment.  Then:  “Tryin’ to get you to invest in some o’ his properties?”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, he will, if he gets a chance.  He’d go furder’n that; he’d nail you up to the cross and skin you alive if there was any money in it for him.  His name’s Simon Peter, and it ort to be Judas.  I know him down to the ground!”

“Simon Peter?” said Blount inquiringly.

“Ya-as; Simon Peter Hathaway.  And my name’s Griggs; Griggs, of the Antelopes, back o’ Carnadine—­if anybody should ask you who give you your pointer on Simon Peter Judas.  I don’t blacklist no man in the dark, and I’ve said a heap more to that old ratter’s face than I’ve ever said behind his back.  Ump! him a-wrigglin’ in that chair you’re settin’ in and tryin’ to fix up some way to skin you!  Don’t tell me!  I know blame’ well what he was tryin’ to do.”

Blount listened and was interested, not so much in the bit of gossip as in the big, red-faced ranchman, who so evidently had a grudge to pay off.

“I am not likely to have any dealings with Mr. Hathaway,” he rejoined.  “And I must do him the bare justice of saying that he wasn’t trying to sell me anything.  The shoe was on the other foot.  He seemed to be afraid he was in danger of losing out, and he was asking my advice.”

“S.P.  Hathaway lose out?  Not on your life, my young friend!  You say he was askin’ for advice?  You’ve done stirred up my curiosity a whole heap, and I reckon you’ll have to tell me who you are before it’ll ca’m down again.”

Blount laughed.  “Mr. Hathaway thinks I am a special agent for the Government, travelling on business for the Forest Service.”

“The hell he does!” exploded the big man.  Then he reached over and laid a swollen finger on Blount’s knee.  “Say, boy, before you or him ever gets off this train—­Sufferin’ Moses! what was that?”

The break came upon a thunderous crash transmitting itself from car to car, and the long, heavy train came to a juggling stop.  The ranchman sprang to his feet with an alacrity surprising in so huge a body and ducked to look out of the open window.

“Twin Buttes!” he gurgled.  “And, say, it’s a wreck!  We’ve hit something right slap in the middle of the yard!  Let’s make a break for the scene of the confliggration till we see who’s killed!”

Blount followed the ranchman’s lead, but shortly lost sight of the burly figure in the crowd of curious passengers pouring from the hastily opened vestibules.  Seen at closer range, the accident appeared to be disastrous only in a material sense.  The heavy “Pacific-type” locomotive had stumbled over the tongue of a split switch, leaving the rails and making a blockading barrier of itself across the tracks.  Nobody was hurt; but there would be a delay of some hours before the track could be cleared.