"You got the right idea!" exclaimed the blacksmith, evidently pleased. "All Cheyenne's friends have been waitin' for years for him to clean that slate and start fresh again. He used to be a right-smart hand, before he had trouble."
The blacksmith accompanied his conversation with considerable elbow motion and the rattle and clang of shaping horseshoes. Presently Dobe was new shod and ready for the road. Bartley paid the smith, thanked him for a good job, and rode south. Evidently Cheyenne's open quarrel with Sears was the talk of the countryside. It was expected of Cheyenne that he would "clean the slate and start fresh" some day. And cleaning the slate meant killing Sears. To Bartley it seemed strange that any one should be pleased with the idea of one man killing another deliberately.
In speaking of the recent horse-stealings, the blacksmith had mentioned no names. But Bartley at once drew the conclusion that it had been Sneed's men who had run off the Senator's horses. Sneed was known to be a horse-thief. He had never been convicted, although he had been arrested and tried several times. It was also known that Senator Steve had openly vowed that he would rid the country of Sneed, sooner or later.
Several times, during his journey south, Bartley was questioned, but never interfered with. Thus far he heard of Cheyenne occasionally, but, nearing Phoenix, he lost track of his erstwhile companion. However, he took it for granted that Phoenix had been Cheyenne's destination. And Bartley wanted to see the town for himself, in any event.
Cheyenne, arriving in Phoenix, stabled his horses at the Top-Notch livery, and took a room for himself directly opposite the Hole-in-the-Wall gambling-house. He refused to drink with the occasional acquaintance he met, not because he did not like liquor, but because Colonel Stevenson, the city marshal, had told him that Panhandle Sears and his friends were in town.
"Why don't you tell me to go git him?" queried Cheyenne, looking the marshal in the eye.
"I didn't think it was necessary," said the marshal.
"What? To git him?"
The marshal smiled. Then casually: "I hear that Panhandle and his friends are drinking heavy and spending considerable money. They must have made a strike, somewhere."