I followed his pointing finger. The truckers had rigged up an overhead light just above their platform. It was a three hundred watter at least. And I got the little guy's meaning. Whoever had taken the pot-shot had been outlined. He had seen the shadow in time to my life-or his life. I said as much.

He shrugged his narrow shoulders and said:

"No use worrying about it. They're gone."

I laughed sharply. Who the hell was going after them. Certainly not up that alley.

He had a single bag, a plain leather affair. I lugged it for him up to the Joslyn House, the only hotel in town.

"Well," he said after we had left the room and descended to the lobby, "what do we do now?"

"There isn't much to do, Mr. Beemish," he had registered as Sylvester Beemish. "Except do a bit of drinking, or go back to the Cat, or shoot a little..."

"I think I've had enough of shooting for one night," he said.

"We can sit here and talk," I said. "Frankly, I'm curious about that Swede."

"He's a," he began sharply, then less irately, "what's the difference? We've been looking for him. It seems that he has something coming to him..."

"We?"... I said.

"Oh, I only represent these people," Beemish said. "There is a matter of debt... Sorensen is involved, and so I was sent to find him. It has been a long quest, I assure you?"

"Why? Where are you from?" I asked.

"From..." he hesitated, then went on, "Chicago."

"Wouldn't it be a hell of a thing if you were chasing the wrong man?"

"It would be," he said. "Though I don't think so."

"You mean you've got a picture of him, a description to go on?" I asked. "Yes."

"Well," I said. "That makes things simpler. Mind if I see it?"

He slipped his hand inside the breast pocket of his serge suit and pulled out a picture. It was of a thick-shouldered smiling man, whose bland and rather full features showed no distinguishing traits.

"Looks like any of a hundred Swedes," I said.

"My God!" Beemish exclaimed. "Aren't there any others but Swedes who work here?"

"Swedes and Mexs," I said. "This is Arizona. Mines depend on cheap labor. South of the border labor is cheap and men work hard for a few bucks a day. The biggest end of getting copper is a hard, dirty job. And lately they've been stopping new openings. That meant new help, muckers particularly, had to be hired. Mexs, of course. But to get back to the Swedes, somehow they've always been associated with digging of one sort or another. And they make good foremen."

Beemish digested that in silence.

I asked, "Is there more besides the picture? Y'know, identifying labels?"

"Sure," Beemish said, and suddenly reached for my hand, pulling it off the chair side and turning it palm-up.

"Sorensen had a..." he stopped and his eyes went wide when he saw the crisscross of a dozen lacerations. "What under the sun happened to you?" he asked.

"Some caps went off when rocks fell on one," I said. "That fulminate makes a hell of a show."

"So I see," he said slowly. "Sorensen had a peculiar scar on his palm. I was going to show you what it looked like."