Reedy Jenkins sat at his desk in shirt sleeves, his pink face a trifle pasty as he sweated over a column of figures. He looked up annoyedly as someone entered through the open door; and the annoyance changed to surprise when he saw that it was Bob Rogeen.
"I merely came in to tell you a story," said Bob as he dropped into a chair and took a paper from the pocket of his shirt and held it in his left hand.
"This," Bob flecked the paper and spoke reminiscently, "is quite a curiosity. I got it up near Blindon, Colorado. A bunch of rascals jumped me one night when my back was turned.
"Next day my friends hired an undertaker to take charge of my remains, and made up money to pay him. This paper is the undertaker's receipt for my funeral.
"The rascals did not get either me or the cash they were after; but they taught me a valuable lesson: never to have my back turned again."
He stopped.
"You see," went on Bob in a tone that did not suggest argument, "there is a ranch over my way you happen to want—two of them, in fact. The last week the lessees have both been much annoyed; the one on the south one especially.
"Now, of course, we can kill Madrigal and any other Mexican that keeps up that annoyance. But instead, I suggest that you call them off. For the Chandlers have fully made up their minds not to sell, and so have I."
Bob rose. "If anything further happens down there, I'm afraid there'll be an accident on this side of the line. It was merely that you might be prepared in advance that I dropped in this morning to make you a present of this." He tossed the paper on Jenkins' desk and went out.
Reedy picked up the receipt. The undertaker, after Rogeen's recovery, had facetiously written on the back: