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“Dan was kinda queer about some things, and one of ’em was about money. It never made any difference how much or how little he had, he always packed it in his clothes; said a bank had busted on him once and left him broke in the middle uh winter, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. He never gambled none, nor blowed his money any farther than a couple uh glasses uh beer once in a while. He was one uh these saving cusses–but he was honest; I know that for a fact.

“So he had all this money on him, and went down there with this jasper, that he’d got in with somehow and didn’t know much about, and they wolfed all winter, according to all accounts, and must uh made quite a stake, the way the bounty runs up, these days. And here comes this darned Siwash, hiking out uh there fast as he can–and if he hadn’t run slap onto us at this crossing, I’ll gamble he’d never uh showed up at camp at all, but kept right on going. We didn’t ask him no questions, did we? But he goes to all the pains uh telling us his tale uh woe, about how Dan had robbed him and pulled out down river.

“If that was the case, wouldn’t he be apt to hike out after him and try and get back his stuff? And wouldn’t–“

“How much money did this friend uh yours have?” queried Jack Bates innocently.

“Well, when I seen him in Benton, he had somewhere between six and seven hundred dollars. He got it all changed into fifty-dollar bills–“

“Oh, golly!” Jack Bates rolled over in disgust. “Andy’s losing his grip. Why, darn yuh, if you was in a normal, lying condition, you’d make it ten thousand, at the lowest–and I’ve seen the time when you’d uh said fifty thousand; and you’d uh made us swallow the load, too! Buck up and do a good stunt, Andy, or else keep still. Why, Happy Jack could tell that big a lie!”

“Aw, gwan!” Happy Jack rose up to avenge the insult. “Yuh needn’t compare me to Andy Green. I ain’t a liar, and I can lick the darned son-of-a-gun that calls me one. I ain’t, and yuh can’t say I am, unless yuh lie worse’n Andy.”

“Calm down,” urged Weary pacifically. “Jack said yuh could lie; he didn’t say–“

“By gracious, you’d think I was necked up with a whole bunch uh George Washingtons!” growled Andy, half-indignantly. “And what gets me is, that I tell the truth as often as anybody in the outfit; oftener than some I could mention. But that ain’t the point. I’m telling the truth now, when I say somebody ought to hike down to their camp and see what this old skunk has done with Dan. I’d bet money you’d find him sunk in the river, or cached under a cut-bank, or something like that. If he’d kept his face closed I wouldn’t uh give it a second thought, but the more I think uh the story he put up, the more I believe there’s something wrong. He’s made way with Dan somehow, and–“

“Yes. Sure thing,” drawled Pink wickedly. “Let’s organize a searching party and go down there and investigate. It’s only about a three or four days’ trip, through the roughest country the Lord ever stood on end to cool and then forgot till it crumpled down in spots and got set that way, so He just left it go and mixed fresh mud for the job He was working on. Andy’d lead us down there, and we’d find–“

“His friend Dan buried in a tomato can, maybe,” supplied Jack Bates.

“By golly, I’ll bet yuh could put friend Dan into one,” Slim burst out. “By golly, I never met up with no Dan that packed fifty-dollar bills around in his gun-pocket–“

“Andy’s telling the truth. He says so,” reproved Weary. “And when Andy says a thing is the truth, yuh always know–“