“Did he come in for medicine, perhaps?”

“Mebby.  But most like he’s after chewin’-gum for his squaw, and cigarettes for himself, with a bottle of red pop on the side.  Injuns always buy red pop.”

“Cigarettes and chewing-gum?”

“Sure thing!  Didn’t you ever see a squaw chew gum and smoke a tailor-made cigarette at the same time?  You didn’t, eh?  Well, then, you got somethin’ comin’.”

“Romance!” laughed Bartley.

“Ever sleep in a Injun hogan?” queried Cheyenne as he busied himself adjusting the pack.

“No.  This is my first trip West.”

“I was forgettin’.  Well, I ain’t what you’d call a dude, but, honest, if I was prospectin’ round lookin’ for Injun romance I’d use a pair of field-glasses.  Injuns is all right if you’re far enough up wind from ’em.”

“When do you start?” asked Bartley.

“Oh, ’most any time.  And that’s when I’ll get there.”

“Well, give my regards to Senator Brown and his wife, if you happen to see them.”

“Sure thing!  I’m on my way.  You know—­

    “I was top-hand once—­but the trail for mine: 
      Git along, cayuse, git along! 
    But now I’m ridin’ the old chuck line,
      Feedin’ good and a-feelin’ fine: 
    Oh, some folks eat and some folks dine,
      Git along, cayuse, git along!”

Bartley smiled.  Here was the real hobo, the irrepressible absolute.  Cheyenne stepped up and swung to the saddle with the effortless ease of the old hand.  Bartley noticed that the pack-horse had no lead-rope, nor had he been tied.  Bartley did not know that Filaree, the pack-horse, would never let Joshua, the saddle-horse, out of his sight.  They had traveled the Arizona trails together for years.

In spite of his happy-go-lucky indifference to persons and events, Cheyenne had a sort of intuitive shrewdness in reading humans.  And he read in Bartley’s glance a half-awakened desire to outfit and hit the trail himself.  But Cheyenne departed without suggesting any such idea.  Every man for himself was his motto.  “And as for me,” he added, aloud: 

    Seems like I don’t git anywhere,
      Git along, cayuse, git along;
    But we’re leavin’ here and we’re goin’ there: 
      Git along, cayuse, git along!

    With little ole Josh that steps right free,
      And my ole gray pack-hoss, Filaree,
    The world ain’t got no rope on me: 
      Git along, cayuse, git along!

Bartley watched him as he crossed the railroad tracks and turned down a side street.

Back in his room Bartley paced up and down, keeping time to the tune of Cheyenne’s trail song.  The morning sun poured down upon the station roof opposite, and danced flickering across the polished tracks of the railroad.  Presently Bartley stopped pacing his room and stood at the window.  Far out across the mesa he saw a rider, drifting along in the sunshine, followed by a gray pack-horse.