"Look here, young man, for about eighteen hours you've been rubbing my rawness into me. Lord knows you didn't need to! This rattly, lumpy, jumpy bone-shaker you call a carriage would make any body raw that's not made of cast-iron. How the dickens Cockney Aikens, to say nothing of his wife and the ranch outfit, can contemplate that sixty miles with sufficient equanimity to stick the job is beyond my limited experience."
"Golly, mister, Dakota Fraley—Two-Gun Dakota—bosses the outfit. He's fit for anything."
"Huh! Dakota seems to have a rep."
"Dakota Fraley," confided the driver, "is a gunman, a dead shot with either hand. He's lightning on the draw and was never known to miss his man. He's the toughest of the tough, a broncho-buster that takes all the prizes at the contests—and they say he's got so many men he lost track years ago. But, say, he's a dead-game sport. Ju hear about the police-court case—for shooting up the town that time?"
Stamford knew every word of it, but the lad's story was worth hearing, so he only looked interested.
"He just ponied up seventy-five simoleons without a wink. I think old Jasper was hoping he wouldn't have it, so he could send him down for a couple of months. Gee, I wouldn't send Dakota Fraley down, not by a long sight—least, not unless I was dying or something and wouldn't be there when he got out. I wouldn't fool with Dakota Fraley, no sir-ee!"
Stamford heard it with fitting solemnity.
"I suppose," he murmured, "that's how the books put it. I mustn't blame him."
"What d'you mean, mister?"
"Oh, excuse me, lad. Don't mind me when I get wandering. I'm often taken that way. The doctor says I'm not really dangerous."