Lonesome Pete nodded complacently.  “I got ’em off’n ol’ Sam Bristow.  You don’t happen to know Sam, do you, stranger?”

Conniston shook his head.  Lonesome Pete went on to enlighten him.

“Sam Bristow is about the eddicatedest man this side San Francisco, I reckon.  He’s got a store over to Rocky Bend.  Ever been there?”

Again Conniston shook his head, and again Lonesome Pete explained: 

“Rocky Bend is a right smart city, more’n four times as big as Injun Creek.  It’s a hundred mile t’other side Injun Creek, makin’ it a hundred an’ fifty mile from here.  In his store he’s got a lot of books.  I went over there to make my buy, an’ I don’t mind tellin’ you, stranger, I sure hit a bargain.  I got them three books an nine more as is in that box under the seat, makin’ an even dozen, an’ ol’ Sam let the bunch go for fourteen dollars.  I reckon he was short of cash, huh?”

Since the books at a second-hand store should have been worth about ninety cents, Conniston made no answer.  Instead he picked up the dog-eared volume of “Macbeth.”

“How did you happen to pick out this?” he asked, curiously.

“I knowed the jasper as wrote it.”

Conniston gasped.  Lonesome Pete evidently taking the gasp as prompted by a deep awe that he should know a man who wrote books, smiled broadly and went on: 

“Yes, suh.  I’m real sure I knowed him.  You see, I was workin’ a couple er years ago for the Triangle Bar outfit.  Young Jeff Comstock, the ol’ man’s son, he used to hang out in the East.  An’ he had a feller visitin’ him.  That feller’s name was Bill, an’ he was out here to git the dope so’s he could write books about the cattle country.  I reckon his las’ name was the same as the Bill as wrote this.  I don’t know no other Bills as writes books, do you, stranger?”

Conniston evaded.  “Are you sure it’s about the cattle country?”

“It sorta sounds like it, an’ then it don’t.  You see it begins in a desert place.  That goes all right.  But I ain’t sure I git jest what this here firs’ page is drivin’ at.  It’s about three witches, an’ they don’t say much as a man can tie to.  I jest got to where there’s something about a fight, an’ I guess he jest throwed the witches in, extry.  Here it says as they wear chaps.  That oughta settle it, huh?”

There was the line, half hidden by Lonesome Pete’s horny forefinger. “He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps!” That certainly settled it as far as Lonesome Pete was concerned.  Macbeth was a cattle-king, and Bill Shakespeare was the young fellow who had visited the Triangle Bar.

Thoughtfully he put his books away in the box, which he covered with a sack and which he pushed back under the seat.  Then he looked to his horses, saw that they had plenty of grass within the radius of tie-rope, and after that came back to where Hapgood lay.

“I reckon you can git along with one of them blankets, stranger.  You two fellers can have it, an’ I’ll make out with the other.”