"On the contrary, I greatly enjoy seeing you here," Tom declared. "I'm very grateful for the praise you offered me a moment ago."

"You're welcome," returned the Colthwaite agent, trying hard to smile.

"However, I won't take up your time. Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, then," nodded Tom. "Drop in again, won't you? Any time within working hours."

"Confound that fellow Reade!" muttered Ransom angrily as he rode back to Paloma. "He knows altogether too much--or suspects it. I shall have to call Jim Duff's attention to him!"

"Why did you string the fellow so?" asked Harry when the chums were alone once more.

"I didn't," Reade retorted. "I came very close to giving him straight information."

"Now he'll be more on his guard."

"That won't do him any good," Tom yawned. "He has been on his guard all along, yet we found him out. For that matter, any man who lives regularly at the Mansion House these days is open to our suspicion."

For the Mansion House, ever since Tom's having been ordered away, had been a losing proposition. Now and then a traveling salesman stopped there, though not many.

"By the way, Harry," predicted Tom, as the chums were riding back to Paloma at the close of the afternoon, "look out, in about three of four days, for a new and permanent guest at the Cactus House."

"Who's coming?" inquired Hazelton.

"Whatever man the Colthwaite Company decides to send to the Cactus House as soon as headquarters in Chicago receives Ransom's report. I think we'll know that new chap, too, when he shows up. Also, you'll find that the new man is either an avowed enemy of Ransom, after a little, or else he won't choose to know Ransom at all."

"That's pretty wild guessing," scoffed Harry Hazelton.

"Wait three or four days, and see whether it's guessing or one of the fine fruits of logic," proposed Reade. "Incidentally, the Colthwaite people will wonder why it didn't occur to them before to send one of their gloom men to live at the Cactus. Fact is, I've been looking for the chap for more than a fort-night."

CHAPTER XII. HOW THE TRAP WAS BAITED

It was the evening of the day after Harry, who had insisted on trudging up and down the line all day, instead of using his horse, had a touch of heat headache.

He was not in a serious condition, but he needed rest. He dropped into one of the chairs on the Cactus House porch and prepared to doze.

"Is there anything I can get for you, or do for you, old chap?" inquired Tom, coming out on the porch after supper and looking remarkably comfortable and contented.

"No; just let me doze," begged Harry. "I feel a trifle drowsy."

"Then, if you're going to give a concert through your nose," smiled Tom, "I may as well protect myself by going some distance away."

"Go along."

"I believe I'll take a walk. Probably, too, the ice cream man will be richer when I get back."

Tom went down into the street and sauntered along. He had walked but a few blocks when he met another young man in white ducks.

"Doc, I'm looking for the place where the ice cream flows," Reade hinted. "Can I tempt you?"

"Without half trying," laughed Dr. Furniss the young physician who had gone out to camp to attend the Man-killer victim.

As they were seated together over their ice cream, Dr. Furniss inquired:

"By the way, do you ever see my one-time patient nowadays?"

"The fellow we exhumed from the Man-killer?"

"The same."

"I see him every morning," laughed Tom. "Really, I can't help seeing him, for the man puts himself in my way daily to say good morning. And as yet I haven't learned his name."

"His name is Tim Griggs," replied Dr. Furniss. "He's a fine fellow, too, in his rough, manly way. He's wonderfully grateful to you, Reade. Do you know why?"

"Haven't an idea."

"Well, Tim's sheet anchor in life is a little girl."

"Sweetheart?"

"After a fashion," laughed the young doctor. "The girl is his daughter, eight years old. She's everything to Tim, for his wife is dead. The child lives with somewhat distant relatives, in a New England town.

Tim sends all his spare money to her, and so the child is probably well looked after. Tim told me, with a big choke in his voice, that, if the Man-killer had swallowed him up, it would have been all up with the little girl, too. When money stopped coming the relatives would probably have set the child to being household drudge for the family. Tim has a round dozen of different photos of the child taken at various times."

"Then I'm extra glad we got him out of the Man-killer," said Tom rather huskily.

"I knew you'd be glad, Reade. You're that kind of fellow."

"Tim Griggs, then, is probably one of our steady men," Tom remarked, after a while.

"Steady! Why the man generally sends all of his month's pay, except about eight dollars, to his daughter. From what he tells me she is a sharp, thrifty little thing. She pays her own board bill with her relatives, chooses and pays for her own clothes, and puts the balance of the money in bank for herself and her father."

"Does Tim ever go to see her?"

"Once in two years, regularly. He'd go east oftener, but it costs too much money. He'd live near her, but he says he can earn more money down here on the desert. Tim even talks about a college education for that idolized girl. She looks out just as sharply for her daddy. Whenever Tim is ready to make a trip east, she sends him the money for his fare. The two have a great old time together."

"Tim may marry again one of these days, and then the young lady may not have as happy a time," remarked Tom thoughtfully.

"I hinted as much to Griggs," replied Dr. Furniss, "but he told me, pretty strongly, that there'll be no new wife for him until he has helped the daughter to find her own place in life."

"Say!" muttered Tom, with a queer little choke in his voice. "The heroes in life generally aren't found on the high spots, are they?"

"They're not," retorted the doctor solemnly.

Half an hour later, after having eaten their fill of ice cream, Dr.

Furniss and Engineer Reade parted, Tom strolling on alone in the darkness.