“What about him?” asked Kelsey quickly.
Cates smiled as he puffed his cigar.
“I never met him,” he said slowly. “One of those sagebrush Sherlocks, I suppose. Maybe I hadn’t ought to make fun of him—he did some good work for my company. Oh, I’ve heard a lot about what he has done. It’s our business to keep track of all those things, you see. But some of it sounds rather mythical.”
“Well, that’s shore funny,” said Kelsey. “There’s a Hartley and Stevens out at the HJ ranch right now.”
“Eh? Cates stared at Kelsey. “Hashknife Hartley?”
“I dunno; name’s Hartley.”
“Stevens? Huh! Say, I believe he has a partner by that name. Wouldn’t that be funny if it was Hashknife Hartley. How do you get out to that HJ ranch?”
“We can take yuh out, Cates.”
“Fine. But how do they happen to be here?”
Kelsey told him about the burning bridge and the stalled cattle-train.