Here Stover slowly raised one booted foot and kicked his other calf. "The boys nicknamed him Humpy Joe--" "Why, poor thing! Was he humpbacked?" inquired Helen. "No," answered Still Bill. "Humpback is lucky. We called him Humpy Joe because when it came to running he could sure get up and hump himself." "Soon after Joseph went to work," Jean continued, "the Centipede outfit hired a new cook. You know the Centipede Ranch--the one you see over yonder by the foot-hills." "It wasn't 'soon after,' it was simuletaneous," said Stover, darkly. "We're beginnin' to see plain at last." He went on as if to air the injury that was gnawing him. "One day we hear that this grub-slinger over yonder thinks he can run, which same is as welcome to us as the smell of flowers on a spring breeze, for Humpy Joe had amused us in his idle hours by running jack-rabbits to earth--" "Not really?" said Miss Blake. "Well, no, but from what we see we judge he'd ought to limp a hundred yards in about nothing and three-fifths seconds, so we frame a race between him and the Centipede cook." "As a matter of fact, there has been a feud for years between the two outfits," Jean offered. "With tumulchous joy we bet our wages and all the loose gear we have, and in a burst of childish enthusiasm we put up--the talking-machine." "A phonograph?" "Yes. An Echo Phonograph," said Miss Chapin. "Of New York and Paris," added Stover. "Our boys won it from this very Centipede outfit at a bronco- busting tournament in Cheyenne." "Wyoming." Stover made the location definite. "The Centipede crowd took their defeat badly on Frontier Day, and swore to get even." "And was Humpy Joe defeated?" asked Helen. "Was he?" Still Bill shook his head sadly, and sighed for a third