Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/22

 "Conductor'll be along in a minute," Coburn said, having got no answer to his last remark.

"I'm rather expecting him," the imperturbable adventurer replied.

"Where you headin' for?"

"Panhandle."

"That's a long ways to try to make it without a ticket," Sid reflected. "Why don't you take a freight? they're easier to bum."

"Out on the line a freight has its advantages," the young man said, nodding confirmation gravely, "But not when you're starting from a town like this. They arrest a chap here if he swings on to a freight."

"I git your scheme," Sid beamed on him admiringly. "You figger they'll not stop this train to put you off between here and Argentine, and you don't give a cuss if they do chuck you off there."

"It's so much more pleasant than walking it," the self-possessed deadbeat explained, diffidently, so diffidently, indeed, that he seemed almost apologetic.

Coburn sat ruminating this extraordinary traveller's case, the blue pass for five men rolled around his finger. He had the cowman's caution about asking or offering favors, and he naturally was a deliberative person in a business deal as well. Before the conductor made his appearance Sid had reached the conclusion that he didn't stand to lose anything by taking this man on the pass in Waco Johnson's place. A man was a man when no names were mentioned; they couldn't hold him for the fare even if they should discover the deceit.

"I could help you along as far as Wellington if you