was the quicker. He looked it over carefully and then passed it to his partner. "What ye think o' her, Tom?" he asked.

After a moment's scrutiny Tom nodded and gave it back. "Looks brand new, Hank. Good pistol. I tried mine out on th' boat comin' up. They shoot hard an' straight."

Hank looked up at the stranger and shook his head deprecatingly, starting the preliminary to a long, hard-driven barter; but he hadn't reckoned on Birdsall, the skeptic.

"Ten dollars an' this hyar pistol," said Enoch quickly.

"Wall!" exclaimed Hank, staring at him. "Dang ye! Eleven dollars an' this pistol!"

"Twelve," placidly said Enoch.

"Twelve an' a half!" snapped Hank.

"An' three quarters."

"Thirteen!" growled Hank, trying to hide his misery.[Pg 115]

[Pg 115]

Enoch raised again and, a quarter at a time, they ran the price up to sixteen dollars, Enoch bidding with Yankee caution and reluctance, Hank with a stubborn determination not to let his friend get ahead of him. One was a trader, shrewd and thrifty; the other, a trapper, which made it a game between a canny barterer on one side and a reckless spender on the other. At twenty-three dollars Birdsall quit, spat angrily at a box, and scowled at his excited companion, who was counting the money onto the table. Hank glared at Enoch, jammed the Colt in his belt and bit savagely into a plug of tobacco, while the stranger, hiding his smile, bowed ironically and left them; and in a moment he was back again with another Colt.

"I knowed it!" mourned Hank. "Dang ye, Enoch!"

"Boys," said the stranger, sadly, "my friend is in th' same fix that I am. He is willin' ter part with his Colt for th' same money an' another old fashioned pistol. His mother's dyin' in St. Louie an' he's got ter git back ter her."

"Too danged bad it ain't him, an' you," snorted Hank.

Jim Ogden held out his hand, took the weapon and studied it. Quietly handing over his own 

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