Two days later Dave was hard at work with the others on the mountainside when a gang of six cowboys rode up. They were curious to know some particulars concerning the new railroad spur which was to be put through in that vicinity, and stopped to watch proceedings and to ask a number of questions.

“What ranch do you hail from, boys?” questioned Frank Andrews of the leader of the crowd, a tall, leathery-looking man of about forty.

“We’re from the Double Eight outfit,” was the answer, as the fellow pulled a sheet from a book of papers he carried, filled it with some loose tobacco from a pouch, and proceeded to roll himself a cigarette.

“The Double Eight, eh?” exclaimed the civil engineer. “That is interesting. I think one of my young men here would like to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“All right, pard, shoot away,” answered the 99cowboy calmly, as he began to puff at his cigarette.

Frank Andrews lost no time in summoning Dave, who was some distance up the trail, and told our hero where the cowboy hailed from.

“I believe you have a fellow staying with you who calls himself Jasper Nicholas,” began Dave.

“We did have a feller with that handle down to our outfit,” responded the cowboy. “But he got fired some days ago.”

“Fired!” cried Dave and Roger simultaneously.

“That’s the size on it, son. He got kind o’ fresh with the boss, and Jim wouldn’t stand for it nohow. I don’t know exactly wot the rumpus was about, but that feller didn’t lose no time vamoosin’.”

“I wish you would tell me some of the particulars about him,” went on Dave. “Then I’ll tell you something that may interest you.”

“I ain’t got much to tell, ’cause I didn’t like the feller, and consequently didn’t have much to do with him. Fact is, he wasn’t in cahoots with nobody around the ranch. He had a hang-dog way about him none of us cottoned to.”

“But I wish you would tell me what you do know,” insisted our hero.

Thereupon the cowboy, who said his name was Pete Sine, told how Nick Jasniff had come to the 100Double Eight Ranch some weeks before with a hard-luck story and had been given a job as an all-around handy man.

“But he wasn’t handy at all,” announced Pete Sine. “Fact is, he was the most unhandy critter I ’most ever met up with. But he told such a pitiful story, the boss and some of the fellers felt sorry for him, so they all done the best they knowed how for him—that is at the start. But he soon showed the yellow streak that was in him, and then, as I said before, the boss got wise to him and fired him. Now what do you know about him?”

Dave, aided by Roger, gave many of the particulars concerning Nick Jasniff’s past doings, and our hero related the details of the fight on the road, and how he had lost the contents of his pocketbook.

“Snortin’ buffaloes!” ejaculated Pete Sine, giving his thigh a resounding slap with his hand. “I knew it! I sized that feller up from the very start. I warned Jim Dackley about him, but Jim was too tender-hearted to see it—that is at first. Now when did this happen?” went on the cowboy. And after Dave had mentioned the day, he continued: “That was the very day the boss fired him!”

“And have you any idea where he went to?” questioned our hero quickly.

101“Not exactly, son. But Fred Gurney, one of our gang who ain’t here just now, got it from the agent over to the railroad depot that the feller took the seven-thirty train that night for Chicago.”

“He must have left Montana for good!” cried Roger. “Dave, I’m afraid you can whistle your forty-odd dollars good-bye.”

“So it would seem, Roger. It’s too bad! But I’m mighty glad Nick Jasniff has cleared out. I’d hate to think he was around here. He would be sure to try to do us some harm.”

“You might send on to Chicago and have him arrested on his arrival there,” suggested Frank Andrews. “That is, if he hasn’t gotten there already.”

“I don’t think it would be worth bothering about,” answered Dave. “It would make a lot of trouble all around; and maybe I would have to go on to Chicago to identify him, and then stay around and push the charge against him. I’d rather let him go and pocket my loss.”

“Maybe you’ll meet up with him some day,” suggested Pete Sine. “And if you do——Well, I know what I’d do to him,” and he tapped his pistol suggestively.

The other cowboys had listened with interest to the talk, and every one of them intimated that he had distrusted Nick Jasniff from the start. Evidently the fellow who had been in prison had 102not created a favorable impression, even though his hard-luck story had brought him some sympathy.

After this occurrence matters moved along quietly for a few days. On Sunday, there being no work to do, old John Hixon and several of the other men went out to look for the bobcat Dave had met on the trail. But though they spent several hours in beating around through the brushwood and the scrub timber, they failed to find the animal.

“Guess he got strayed away from his regular haunts, and then went back,” was Hixon’s comment. “Wild animals do that once in a while. I remember years ago an old hunter told me about a she bear he had met here in Montana. Some time later another hunter, a friend of his’n, told about meetin’ the same bear over in Wyoming. Then, less than a month later, this old hunter I first mentioned met the same bear and killed her. He always wondered how it was that bear got so far away from home and then got back again.”

On Monday morning came more letters from home, and also communications from Phil Lawrence, Ben Basswood and Shadow Hamilton. The letters from Crumville were, as usual, two communications from Laura and Jessie; and in each of these the girls mentioned the fact that Dave’s Uncle Dunston, as well as Mr. Wadsworth 103and Mr. Basswood, had had more trouble with the gypsies who had formerly occupied the vacant land on the outskirts of the town.

“Uncle Dunston says the gypsies were very forward,” wrote Laura. “They said all kinds of mean thin............