“By George!” exclaimed Bartley.  “He may be a sort of wandering joke to the citizens of this State, but he’s doing what he wants to do, and that’s more than I’m doing.  Just fifty miles to Senator Brown’s ranch.  Drop in and see us.  As the chap in Denver said when he wrote to his friend in El Paso:  ’Drop into Denver some evening and I’ll show you the sights.’  Distance?  Negligible.  Time?  An inconsequent factor.  Big stuff!  As for me, I think I’ll go downstairs and interview the pensive Wishful.”

Wishful had the Navajo blankets and chairs piled up in the middle of the hotel office and was thoughtfully sweeping out cigar ashes, cigarette stubs, and burned matches.  Wishful, besides being proprietor of the Antelope House, was chambermaid, baggage-wrangler, clerk, advertising manager, and, upon occasion, waiter in his own establishment.  And he kept a neat place.

Bartley walked over to the desk.  Wishful kept on sweeping.  Bartley glanced at the signatures on the register.  Near the bottom of the page he found Cheyenne’s name, and opposite it “Arizona.”

“Where does Cheyenne belong, anyway?” queried Bartley.

Wishful stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom.  “Wherever he happens to be.”  And Wishful sighed and began sweeping again.

“What sort of traveling companion would he make?”

Wishful stopped sweeping.  His melancholy gaze was fixed on a defunct cigar.  “Never heard either of his hosses object to his company,” he replied.

Bartley grinned and glanced up and down the register.  Wishful dug into a corner with his broom.  Something shot rattling across the floor.  Wishful laid down the broom and upon hands and knees began a search.  Presently he rose.  A slow smile illumined his face.  He had found a pair of dice in the litter on the floor.  He made a throw, shook his head, and picked up the dice.  His sweeping became more sprightly.  Amused by the preoccupation of the lank and cautiously humorous Wishful, Bartley touched the bell on the desk.  Wishful promptly stood his broom against the wall, rolled down his sleeves, and stepped behind the counter.

“I think I’ll pay my bill,” said Bartley.

Wishful promptly named the amount.  Bartley proffered a ten-dollar bill.

Wishful searched in the till for change.  He shook his head.  “You got two dollars comin’,” he stated.

“I’ll shake you for that two dollars,” said Bartley.

Wishful’s tired eyes lighted up.  “You said somethin’.”  And he produced the dice.

Just then the distant “Zoom” of the westbound Overland shook the silence.  Wishful hesitated, then gestured magnificently toward space.  What was the arrival of a mere train, with possibly a guest or so for the hotel, compared with a game of craps?

While they played, the train steamed in and was gone.  Wishful won the two dollars.