heavy, honest skinning knife. Slung from a strap over one shoulder hung his "possible" bag, containing various small articles necessary to his calling. In his hand was a double-barreled rifle which he seemed to be excited about.

"Mr. Jarvis!" he exclaimed, offering the weapon for inspection. "Tell me what you think of this?"

The clerk chuckled and his eyes lighted with pleasure. "I've seen it, or its twin, before. English, fine sights, shooting about thirty-six balls to the pound. They're pointed, aren't they? Ah-ha! I thought so." He took the gun and examined it carefully. "Just what I've been[Pg 8] trying to tell Mr. Jacob Hawken. Look at those nipples: large diameter across the threaded end, making it much easier to worry out wet powder by removing them and working with a bent wire from that end. We have to work at the ball with a screw, and that is no easy task after the patch paper becomes swollen. With this rifle you can replace the wet powder with dry and fire the ball out in much less time. Where did you get it, Mr. Boyd?"

[Pg 8]

The plainsman laughed exultingly. "Won it on the boat coming down, from an English sportsman who was returning home. He said it was a fine weapon, and I thought so; but I wanted your opinion."

"Take it out on the Grand Prairie and try it out. From what I can see here it is a remarkably fine rifle; but handsome is, you know."

"I've tried it out already," laughed the other. "It's the best rifle in this country, always excepting, of course, the Hawken!"

"As long as you put it that way I shall have to agree with you. Did you see the man who left a few moments before you came in?"

Boyd nodded shortly. "Yes; but I don't care to discuss him beyond warning you to look out for him. He deals in draft animals in Independence, has the name of being slippery, and is known as Ephriam Schoolcraft. However, I'm not an unprejudiced critic, for there is not the best of feelings between us, due to an unprincipled trick he tried to play on my partner." His face clouded for a moment. His partner had joined the ill-fated Texan Santa Fe Expedition and had lost his life at the hands of one of Armijo's brutal officers, for whom Tom Boyd had an abiding hatred. On his last visit to Santa[Pg 9] Fe he had shown it so actively that only his wits and forthright courage had let him get out of the city with his life. "Well, to change the subject, I lost my pistol in the 

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