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The Texan drew rein. "We all been discovering that Wyoming is a

powerful big state. Going to feed me a cigarette, Teddy. Too bad

a hawss cayn't smoke his troubles away," he drawled, and

proceeded to roll a cigarette, lighting it with one sweeping

motion of his arm, that passed down the leg of his chaps and

ended in the upward curve at his lips.

The flame had not yet died, when faintly through the illimitable

velvet night there drifted to him a sound.

"Did you hear that, pardner?" the man demanded softly, listening

intently for a repetition of it.

It came presently, from away over to the left, and, after it,

what might have been taken for the popping of a distant bunch of

firecrackers.

"Celebrating the Fourth some premature, looks like. What? Think

not, Teddy! Some one getting shot up? Sho! You are romancin', old

hawss."