We finds Buck Masterson on the steps.

“Howdy, Buck,” says Magpie. “What can I do for yuh?”

“Well, unless you improves your ways I don’t reckon yuh can do anything,” says Buck, sort of helpless-like. “I been robbed!”

Pshaw!” says I. “How comes that, Buck?”

“Feller—same one what robbed the bank, I reckon—comes into my saloon this morning, sticks a gun in my face and annexes what I got in the safe. Said he knowed the sheriff was away. Say, Magpie, what in —— are you doing? Sending out proclamations of your absence?”

I don’t care to listen to no such conversation, so I goes inside, and pretty soon Magpie and Buck pilgrims up-town. I takes that stuff, throws it on a hoss, and points for the lady of my dreams.

I gets almost to her place, when Magpie overtakes me. We rides up, deposits stuff and partakes of a light lunch.

“I’m a outlaw-hunter,” states Magpie, during the meal. “It’s a precarious existence, fraught with much danger, and takes a man of nerve.”

“Romantic,” says she. “And what does Mister Harper do?”

“He holds my bronc.”