Inside, the scene was set as he remembered it. Tables for drinking
were about the floor, and there was a roulette wheel at one side. A
red-shirted bartender, his hair plastered low over his brow, leaned
negligently on the bar. Scattered around the room were dance-hall
girls in short skirts, and a number of cowboys.

"First, I'll wise you up a little bit," said Baird. "You've come out
here to work on a ranche in the great open spaces, and these cowboys
all love you and come to town with you every time, and they'll stand
by you when the detective from New York gets here. Now--let's see--I
guess first we'll get your entrance. You come in the front door at
the head of them. You've ridden in from the ranche. We get the
horseback stuff later. You all come in yelling and so on, and the
boys scatter, some to the bar and some to the wheel, and some sit
down to the tables to have their drinks and some dance with the
girls. You distribute money to them from a paper sack. Here's the
sack." From a waiting property boy he took a paper sack. "Put this
in your pocket and take it out whenever you need money.

"It's the same sack, see, that the kid put the stolen money in, and
you saved it after returning the money. It's just a kind of an idea
of mine," he vaguely added, as Merton looked puzzled at this.

"All right, sir." He took the sack, observing it to contain a rude
imitation of bills, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Then, after the boys scatter around, you go stand at the end of the
bar. You don't join in their sports and pastimes, see? You're
serious; you have things on your mind. Just sort of look around the