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126 "Me?" asked Andrew. "Why, I've just been talking to Hal."

"About young Lanning?"

"Yes."

"By the way, if you're out of Hal's country, maybe you know Lanning, too?"

"Sure. I've stood as close to him as I am to you."

"You don't say so! What sort of a looking fellow is he?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said Andrew, and he smiled in an embarrassed manner. "They say he's a ringer for me. Not much of a compliment, is it?"

The other gasped, and then laughed heartily. "No, it ain't, at that," he replied. "Say, I got a pal that wants to talk to you. Sort of a job on him, at that."

"I'll tell you what," said Andy calmly. "Take him in to the bar, and I'll come in and have a drink with him and you in about two minutes. S'long."

He was gone through the door while the other half reached a hand toward him. But that was all. In the stables he had the saddle on the chestnut in twenty seconds, and brought him to the watering trough before the barroom.

He found his short, bow-legged friend in the barroom in the midst of excited talk with a big, blond man. He looked a German, with his parted beard and his imposing front and he had the stern blue eye of a fighter. "Is this your friend?" asked Andrew, and walked straight up to them. He watched the eyes of the big man expand and then narrow; his hand even fumbled, at his hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewildered to act.

"I was just telling Mike," said the short man, "that you told me yourself folks think you're a ringer for