HE blazing July sun made the rails glisten as they stretched away from the station at Three Fingers, the heat giving one the impression that they were racing towards the cool of the mountains that lay to the west. The wavy heat that rose from the plain looked like the shimmering air that streams up from a cauldron, and the desolate vastness of the alkali curse lay awesome over all.
Three Fingers, a city, as it was fondly called by its meager population, boasted of a depot, a dance hall, a general store, two saloons, and two through trails, one of which came in from Arizona; the other from Mexico.
The noises were not of business. Far off across the gray plain, lost in innumerable sage bushes, the howl of a coyote dissipated itself in the nothingness of its surroundings; a cracked piano burst forth in tinkly, discordant spurts, and the interrupted calling of a faro dealer oozed out of the "Golden Scepter" saloon. The muffled galloping of a horse, followed by a shot, split the silence, a hubbub followed, and all was still.
One morning a whistle sounded, tempered by distance and the flatness of the country, and in a short time a train approached in a leisurely way. With a groaning of couplings and shrieking of brakes it came to a stand, the panting engine exuding heat and the odor of oil, its nervous air-brakes complaining of a stop in such a place when the cool mountains were farther on.
As the train stopped, a man, nervous, small in stature, and with the complexion of things which grow where the rays of the sun do not penetrate, stepped from the combined baggage and smoking car and, looking carefully around, sauntered over to the deceiving shade of the station.
The agent, returning from his trip to the engine cab, glanced at the traveler, nodded, and passed into his office, from which he emerged a minute later, and, rounding the corner, called out: "Howdy, stranger. How's things in God's land?"
The stranger started and looked away. "If you refer to the east, it is the same as ever," he replied, and after a pause added: "Have you seen a tall, light complected, well proportioned stranger around here lately?"
"No-o, I don't think so," responded the agent.
Neither had seen the man who had slipped from the front platform of the baggage car and who was safe in a saloon before the train pulled out.
A look of fear settled upon the stranger's face as he wondered if he had eluded his pursuer and how he could hide his own presence in Three Fingers if he had not. An inspiration struck him: "Mr."
"Thompson, Bill Thompson," confidently supplied the agent.
"Mr. Thompson, my name is John Barnett, and I am the professor of archæology in an eastern college. I am out here at no small inconvenience to myself and expense to my college to secure if possible a complete set of maps and data, together with weapons and a little pottery, of a cliff city that is rumored located in this vicinity.
"This has long been my cherished field. All my energies have been spent in the study of this race, and now, a man well past middle age, weak and sickly, I am here. My future depends on my success. If I can go back with all that I believe I can find if left undisturbed in my work, I will become famous and my old age will be provided for. It is a very serious matter to me, I can assure you, Mr. Thompson.
"I have told you this because I am going to ask you to assist me by evading any questions that may be asked you as to my being here. I do not ask you to lie, only to evade. The man I spoke to you about is my rival, rich, strong and healthy, having everything I lack. Will you help me in this matter? All I want is fair play, and with this assistance to make up for life's handicap let the best man win."
"Mr. Barnett, I'll do what you want an' I'll do some on my own hook, too. I got a room in that there depot an' I got a broncho outen th' shack there, an' all yu got to do is straddle th' ornery cuss an' go any place yu want.
"I'm worse than a homesick pup out here by my lonesome. Yu see, I was a cow puncher afore I tackled poundin' th' key, an' I don't see the boys very much. Of course, they sure call around some, but it's when I'm poundin' my ear mostly an' then th' first thing I goes for is my gun. They sometimes shoots th' depot up a whole lot from over th' tracks. So I was sort of figurin' that yu'd be more homelike right here by me than over at th' hotel yonder. An' seein' as I got a spare bed, as mother used to say, I'd be a whole lot tickeled if yu'd bunk with me. Yu got to reckon on th' tenderfoot proposition too. Th' boys ud have more fun out o' yu than they'd get out o' a stampede.