“Important business, amigo.  Where’s he at?”

The man directed him to a door upon which was printed the legend, “Superintendent of Complaints.”  Inside, a man was dictating a letter to a stenographer.  The bow-legged man in the wrinkled suit waited awkwardly until the letter was finished, twirling in his hands a white, broad-rimmed hat with pinched-in crown.  He was chewing tobacco.  He wondered whether it would be “etiquette” to squirt the juice into a waste-paper basket standing conveniently near.

“Well, sir!  What can I do for you?” the man behind the big desk snapped.

“I wantta see the postmaster.”

“What about?”

“I got important business with him.”

“Who are you?”

“Me, I’m Johnnie Green of the B-in-a-Box Ranch.  I just drapped in from Arizona and I wantta see the postmaster.”

“Suppose you tell your troubles to me.”

Johnnie changed his weight to the other foot.  “No, suh, I allow to see the postmaster himself personal.”

“He’s busy,” explained the official.  “He can’t possibly see anybody without knowing his business.”

“Tha’s all right.  I’ve lost my pal.  I wantta see—­”

The Superintendent of Complaints cut into his parrot-like repetition.  “Yes, you mentioned that.  But the postmaster doesn’t know where he is, does he?”

“He might tell me where his mail goes, as the old sayin’ is.”

“When did you lose your friend?”

“I ain’t heard from him since he come to New York.  So bein’ as I got a chanct to go from Tucson with a jackpot trainload of cows to Denver, I kinda made up my mind to come on here the rest of the way and look him up.  I’m afraid some one’s done him dirt.”

“Do you know where he’s staying?”

“No, suh, I don’t.”

The Superintendent of Complaints tapped with his fingers on the desk.  Then he smiled.  The postmaster was fond of a joke.  Why not let this odd little freak from the West have an interview with him?

Twenty minutes later Johnnie was telling his story to the postmaster of the City of New York.  He had written three times to Clay Lindsay and had received no answer.  So he had come to look for him.

“And seein’ as I was here, thinks I to myself thinks I it costs nothin’ Mex to go to the postmaster and ask where Clay’s at,” explained Johnnie with his wistful, ingratiating, give-me-a-bone smile.  “Thinks I, it cayn’t be but a little ways down to the office.”

“Is your friend like you?” asked the postmaster, interested in spite of himself.

“No, suh.”  Johnnie, alias the Runt, began to beam.  “He’s a sure-enough go-getter, Clay is, every jump of the road.  I’d follow his dust any day of the week.  You don’t never need to think he’s any shorthorn cattleman, for he ain’t.  He’s the livest proposition that ever come out of Graham County.  You can ce’tainly gamble on that.”