The Man from Bar-20 Part 1

The Man From Bar-20

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CHAPTER I

A STRANGER COMES TO HASTINGS

AHORSEMAN rode slowly out of a draw and up a steep, lava-covered ridge, singing "The Cowboy's Lament," to the disgust of his horse, which suddenly arched its back and stopped the song in the twenty-ninth verse.

"Dearly Beloved," grinned the rider, after he had quelled the trouble, "yore protest is heeded 'Th' Lament' ceases, instanter; an' while you crop some of that grass, I'll look around and observe th' scenery, which shore is scrambled. Now, them two buttes over there," leaning forward to look around a clump of brush, "if they ain't twins, I'll eat—"

He ducked and dismounted in one swift movement to the vengeful tune of a screaming bullet over his head, slapped the horse and jerked his rifle from its scabbard. As the horse leaped down the slope of the ridge there was no sign of any living thing to be seen on the trail. A bush rustled near the edge of a draw, a peeved voice softly cursed the cacti and Mexican ​locust; and a few minutes later the shadow of a black lava bowlder grew suddenly fatter on one side. The cause of this sudden shadow growth lay prone under the bulging side of the great rock, peering out intently between two large stones; and flaming curiosity consumed his soul. A stranger in a strange land, who rode innocently along a free trail and minded his own business, merited no such a welcome as this. His promptness of action and the blind luck in that bending forward at the right instant were all that saved his life; and his celerity of movement spoke well for his reflexes, for he had found himself fattening the shadow of the bowlder almost before he had fully realized the pressing need for it.

Minute after minute passed before his searching eyes detected anything concerned with the unpleasant episode, and then he sensed rather than saw a slight movement on the mottled, bowlder-strewn slope of a distant butte. A bush moved gently, and that was all.

To cross the intervening chaos of rocks and brush, pastures and draws would take him an hour if it were done as caution dictated, and by that time the chase would be useless. So he waited until the sun was two hours higher, pleasantly anticipating a stealthy reconnaissance by his unknown enemy to observe the dead. He had dropped into high grass and brush when he left the saddle and there was no way that the ​marksman could be certain of the results of his shot except by closer examination. But the man in ambush had no curiosity, to his target's regret; and the target, despairing of being honored by a visit, finally gave up the vigil. After a silent interval a soft whistle from a thicket, well back in a draw, caused the grazing horse to lift his head, throw its ears forward and walk sedately toward the sound.

"Dearly Beloved," said a low voice from the thicket, "come closer. That was a two-laigged skunk, an' his eyes are good. Likewise he is one plumb fine shot."

Ever since he had listened to the marriage ceremony which had subjugated his friend Hopalong for the rest of that man's natural life, the phrase "Dearly Beloved" had stuck in his memory; and in his use of it the words took the place of humorous profanity.

Mounting, he rode on again, but kept off all skylines, favored the rough going away from the trail, and passed to the eastward of all the obstructions he met; and his keen eyes darted from point to point unceasingly, not giving up their scrutiny of the surroundings until he saw in the distance a little town, which he knew was Hastings.

In the little cow-town of Hastings the afternoon sun drove the shadows of the few buildings farther afield and pitilessly searched out every defect in the cheap ​and hastily constructed frame buildings, showed the hair-line cracks in the few adobes, where an occasional frost worked insidious damage to the clay, and drew out sticky, pungent beads of rosin from the sun-bleached and checked pine boards of the two-story front of the one-story building owned and occupied by "Pop" Hayes, proprietor of one of the three saloons in the town. The two-story front of Pop's building displayed two windows painted on the warped boards too close to the upper edge, the panes a faded blue, where gummy pine knots had not stained them yellow; and they were framed by sashes of a hideous red.

Inside the building Pop dozed in his favorite position, his feet crossed on a shaky pine table and his chair tipped back against the wall. Slow hoof-beats, muffled by the sand, sounded outside, followed by the sudden, faint jingling of spurs, the sharp creak of saddle gear and the soft thud of feet on the ground. Pop's eyes opened and he blinked at the bright rectangle of sunny street framed by his doorway, where a man loomed up blackly, and slowly entered the room.

"Howd'y, Logan," grunted Pop, sighing. His feet scraped from the table and thumped solidly on the floor in time with the thud of the chair legs, and he slowly arose, yawning and sighing wearily while he waited to see which side of the room would be favored by the newcomer. Pop disliked being disturbed, for ​by nature he was one who craved rest, and he could only sleep all night and most of the day. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes he yawned again and looked more closely at the stranger, a quick look of surprise flashing across his face. Blinking rapidly he looked again and muttered something to himself.

The newcomer turned his back to the bar, took two long steps and peered into the battered showcase on the other side of the room, where a miscellaneous collection of merchandise, fly-specked and dusty, lay piled up in cheerful disorder under the cracked and grimy glass. Staring up at him was a roughly scrawled warning, in faded ink on yellowed paper: "Lean on yourself." The collection showed Mexican holsters, army holsters, holsters with the Lone Star; straps, buckles, bone rings, star-headed tacks, spurs, buttons, needles, thread, knives; two heavy Colt's revolvers, piles of cartridges in boxes, a pair of mother-of-pearl butt plates showing the head of a long-horned steer; pipes, tobacco of both kinds, dice, playing cards, harmonicas, cigars so dried out that they threatened to crumble at a touch; a patented gun-sight with Wild Bill Hickok's picture on the card which held it; oil, corkscrews, loose shot and bullets; empty shells, primers, reloading tools; bar lead, bullet molds—all crowded together as they had been left after many pawings-over. Pop was wont to fretfully damn the case ​and demand, peevishly, to know why "it" was always the very last thing he could find. Often, upon these occasions, he threatened to "get at it" the very first chance that he had; but his threats were harmless.

The stranger tapped on the glass. "Gimme that box of .45's," he remarked, pointing. "No, no; not that one. This new box. I'm shore particular about little things like that."

Pop reluctantly obeyed. "Why, just th' other day I found a box of cartridges I had for eleven years; an' they was better'n them that they sells nowadays. That's one thing that don't spoil." He looked up with shrewdly appraising eyes. "At fust glance I thought you was Logan. You shore looks a heap like him: dead image," he said.

"Yes? Dead image?" responded the stranger, his voice betraying nothing more than a polite, idle curiosity; but his mind flashed back to the trail. "Hum. He must have a lot of friends if he looks like me," he smiled quizzically.

Pop grinned: "Well, he's got some as is; an' some as ain't," he replied knowingly. "An' lemme tell you they both runs true to form. You don't have to copper no bets on either bunch, not a-tall."

"Sheriff, or marshal?" inquired the stranger, turning to the bar. "It's plenty hot an' dusty," he averred, "You have a life-saver with me."

​"Might as well, I reckon," said Pop, shuffling across the room with a sudden show of animation, "though my life ain't exactly in danger. Nope; he ain't no sheriff, or marshal. We ain't got none, 'though I ain't sayin' we couldn't keep one tolerable busy while he lived. I've thought some of gettin' th' boys together to elect me sheriff; an' cussed if I wouldn't 'a' done it, too, if it wasn't for th' ridin'."

"Ridin'?" inquired the stranger with polite interest.

"It shakes a man up so; an' I allus feels sorry for th' hoss," explained the proprietor.

The stranger's facial training at the great American game was all that saved him from committing a breach of etiquette. "Huh! Reckon it does shake a man up," he admitted. "An' I never thought about th' cayuse; no, sir; not till this minute. Any ranches in this country?"

"Shore; lots of 'em. You lookin' for work?"

"Yes; I reckon so," answered the stranger.

"Well, if you don't look out sharp you'll shore find some."

"A man's got to eat more or less regular; an' cowpunchers ain't no exception," replied the stranger, his soft drawl in keeping with his slow, graceful movements.

Pop, shrewd reader of men that he was, suspected ​that neither of those characteristics was a true index to the man's real nature. There was an indefinable something which belied the smile—the eyes, perhaps, steel blue, unwavering, inscrutable; or a latent incisiveness crouching just beyond reach; and there was a sureness and smoothness and minimum of effort in the movements which vaguely reminded Pop of a mountain lion he once had trailed and killed. He was in the presence of a dynamic personality which baffled and disturbed him; and the two plain, heavy Colt's resting in open-top holsters, well down on the stranger's thighs, where his swinging hands brushed the well-worn butts, were signs which even the most stupid frontiersman could hardly overlook. Significant, too, was the fact that the holsters were securely tied by rawhide thongs, at their lower ends, to the leather chaps, this to hold them down when the guns were drawn out. To the initiated the signs proclaimed a gunman, a two-gun man, which was worse; and a red flag would have had no more meaning.

"Well," drawled Pop, smiling amiably, "as to work, I reckon you can find it if you knows it when you sees it; an' don't close yore eyes. I'll deal 'em face up, an' you can take yore choice," he offered, wiping his lips on the edge of the bar towel, both the action and the towel itself being vociferously described by his saddle-sitting friends as affectations, for everybody knew ​that a sleeve or the back of a hand was the natural thing. "Now, there's th' Circle S; but I dunno as they needs any more men. They could get along with less if them they has would work. Smith, of th' Long T, over in th' southwest, could easy use more men; but he's so close an' allfired pe-nurious that I dunno as he'd favor th' idear. He's a reg'lar genius for savin' money, Smith is. He once saved a dollar out of three cents, an' borrowed them of me to start with. Then there's th' CL, over east in th' Deepwater Valley. You might get something there; an' Logan's a nice man to work for, for a few days. He allus gives his men at least two hours sleep a night, averagin' it up; but somehow they're real cheerful about it, an' they all swears by him 'stead of at him. Reckon mebby it's th' wages he pays. He's got th' best outfit of th' three. But, lemme tell you, it's a right lively place, th' CL; an' you don't have to copper that, neither. Th' cards is all spread out in front of you—take yore choice an' foller yore nat'ral bend."

"Logan," mused the stranger. "Didn't you say something about him before?" he asked curiously.

"I did," grunted Pop. "You've got a mem'ry near as bad as Ol' Hiram Jones. Hiram, he once—"

"I thought so," interposed the cow-puncher hastily, "What kind of a ranch is th' CL?"

"Well, it was th' fust to locate in these parts, an' ​had its pick; an', nat'rally, it picked th' valley of th' Deepwater. Funny Logan ain't found no way to make th' river work; it wouldn't have to sleep at all, 'cept once in a while in th' winter, when it freezes over for a spell. It'd be a total loss then; mebby that's why he ain't never tried.

"But takin' a second holt," he continued, frowning with deep thought; "I dunno as I'd work for him, if I was you. You looks too much like him; an' you got a long life of piety an' bad whiskey ahead of you, mebby. An', come to think of it, I dunno as I'd stay very long around these parts, neither; an' for th' same reason. Now you have a drink with me. It shore is th' hottest spring I've seen in fifty year," he remarked, thereby quoting himself for about that period of time. Each succeeding spring and summer was to him hotter than any which had gone before, which had moved Billy Atwood to remark that if Pop only lived long enough he would find hell a cool place, by comparison, when he eventually arrived there.

"Sic 'em, Towser!" shrilled a falsetto voice from somewhere. "I'll eat his black heart!" Then followed whistling, clucking, and a string of expletives classical in its completeness. "Andy wants a drink! Quick!"

A green object dropped past the stranger's face, thumped solidly on the pine bar, hooked a ​vicious-looking beak on the edge of the counter, and swore luridly as its crafty nip missed the stranger's thumb.

The puncher swiftly bent his sinewy forefinger, touched it with his thumb, and let it snap forward. The parrot got it on an eye and staggered, squawking a protest.

Pop was surprised and disappointed, for most strangers showed some signs of being startled, and often bought the drinks to further prove that the joke was on them. This capable young man carelessly dropped his great sombrero over Andrew Jackson and went right on talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. It appeared that the bird was also surprised and disappointed. The great hat heaved and rocked, bobbed forward, backward, and sideways, and then slid jerkily along the bar, its hidden locomotive force too deeply buried in thought and darkness to utter even a single curse. Reaching the edge of the bar the big hat pushed out over it, teetered a moment and then fell to the floor, where Andrew Jackson, recovering his breath and vocabulary at the same instant, filled the room with shrill and clamorous profanity.

The conversation finished to his satisfaction, the stranger glanced down at his boot, where the ruffled bird was delivering tentative frontal and flank attacks upon the glittering, sharp-toothed spur, whose revolving rowel had the better of the argument. Andrew ​sensed the movement, side-stepped clumsily and cocked an evil eye upward.

"You should 'a' taught him to swear in th' deaf an' dumb alphabet," commented the puncher, grinning at the bird's gravity. "Does he drink?" he asked.

"Try him, an' see," suggested Pop, chuckling. He reached for a bottle and clucked loudly.

Andrew shook himself energetically, and then proceeded to go up the puncher's chaps by making diligent use of beak and claws. Reaching the low-hung belt, he hooked his claws into it and then looked evilly and suspiciously at the strange, suddenly extended forefinger. Deciding to forego hostilities, he swung himself upon it and was slowly lifted up to the bar.

Pop was disappointed again, for it was the bird's invariable custom to deftly remove a portion of strange forefingers so trustingly offered. He could crack nuts in his crooked beak. Andy shook himself violently, craned his neck and hastened to bend it over the rim of the glass.

The stranger watched him in frank disgust and shrugged his shoulders eloquently. "So all you could teach him was vile cuss words an' to like whiskey, huh?" he muttered. "He's got less sense than I thought he had," he growled, and, turning abruptly, went swiftly out to his horse.

Pop stared after him angrily and slapped the bird ​savagely. Emptying the liquor upon the floor, he shuffled quickly to the door and shook his fist at the departing horseman.

"Don't you tell Logan that I sent you!" he shouted belligerently.

The stranger turned in his saddle, grinning cheerfully, and favored his late host with a well-known, two-handed nose signal. Then he slapped the black horse and shot down the street without another backward glance.

Pop, arms akimbo, watched him sweep out of sight around a bend.

"Huh!" he snorted. "Wonder what yo're doin' down here? Galivantin' around th' country, insultin' honest, hard-workin' folks, an' wearin' two guns, low down an' tied! I reckon when you learns th' lay of th' country, if you stays long enough, you'll wind up by joinin' that gang up in th' Twin Buttes country. I allus like to see triggers on six-shooters, I do." He had not noticed the triggers, but that was no bar to his healthy imagination. Shuffling back to his seat, he watched the indignant Andy pecking at a wet spot on the floor.

"So you didn't chaw his finger, huh?" he demanded, in open and frank admiration of the bird's astuteness. "Strikes me you got a hull lot of wisdom, my boy. Some folks says a bird ain't got no brains; but lemme tell you that you've got a danged good instinct."

 CHAPTER II

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

MEANWHILE the stranger was loping steadily eastward, and he arrived at the corral of the CL ranch before sundown, nodding pleasantly to the man who emerged from it: "Howd'y," he said. "I'm lookin' for Logan."

The CL man casually let his right hand lay loosely near the butt of his Colt: "Howd'y," he nodded. "Yo're lookin' right at him."

"Do you need any more punchers?" asked the stranger.

"H'm," muttered the foreman. "Might use one. If it's you, we'll talk money on pay-day. I'll know more about you then."

A puncher, passing the corral, noticed the two guns, frowned slightly and entered the enclosure, and leaned alertly against the palisade, where a crack between two logs served him as a loophole.

The two-gun man laughed with genuine enjoyment at the foreman's way of hiring men. "That's fair," he replied; "but what's th' high an' low figgers? I like to know th' limit of any game I sets in."

Logan shrugged his shoulders. "Forty is th' lowest ​I'd offer a white man; an' he wouldn't draw that more'n a month. Any man as ain't worth more is in our way. It's a waste of grub to feed him. Th' sky is th' high limit—but you've got to work like h—l to pass th' clouds."

"I'm some balloon," laughed the stranger. "Where's the grub shack?"

"Hold on, young man! We ain't got that far, yet. Where are you from, an' what have you been doin' with yore sweet young life?"

The stranger's face grew grave and his eyes narrowed a trifle.

"Some folks allow that's a leadin' question. It ain't polite."

"I allow that, too. An' I'm aimin' to make it a leadin' question, 'though I ain't lackin' in politeness, nor tryin' to rile you. You don't have to answer. Th' wide world, full of jobs, is all around you."

The newcomer regarded him calmly for a moment, and suddenly smiled.

"Yore gall is refreshin'," he grinned. "I'm from th' Bar-20, Texas. I'm five feet ten; weigh a hundred an' sixty; blue eyes, brown hair; single an' sober, now an' always. I writes left-handed; eat an' shoot with both; wears pants, smokes tobacco, an' I'm as handy a cow-puncher as ever threw a rope. Oh, yes; modesty is one of my glarin' faults; you might say my only ​glarin' fault Some people call me 'Dearly Beloved'; others, other things; but I answer to any old handle at grub pile. My name is Johnny Nelson an' I never had no other, 'cept 'Kid,' to my friends. I'm thirty years old, minus some. An'—oh, yes; I'm from th' Tin Cup, Montanny. I get things twisted at times, an' this shore looks like one of 'em."

"Of course," grunted Logan, his eyes twinkling. "That's easy. Th' two ranches, bein' so close together, would bother a man. Sorta wander off one onto th' other, an' have to stop to think which one yo're workin' u for. They should mark th' boundaries plainer—or put up a fence."

Johnny flushed. "I allus say Bar-20 when I speaks off-hand an' have more on my mind than my hair. That man in th' corral divides my attention. He flusters me. You see, I was cussed near born on th' old Bar-20—worked there ever since I was a boy. That crack in th' wall is big enough for two men to use. Thank you, friend: you near scared me to death," he chuckled as the suspicious watcher emerged and started for the bunk-house.

"You look so much like th' boss, I couldn't help watchin' you," grinned the puncher over his shoulder. Logan grunted something, and then nodded at the stranger.

"Cut it loose," he encouraged. "I don't get a ​chance like this every day, my observant friend. I allus reckoned I could cover ground purty well, but I'll be hanged if I can spread myself so I can work in Texas an' Montanny at th' same time. You got me beat from soda to hock. Yo're goin' to be a real valuable man, which I can see plain. Comin' down to cases, you ain't really a cow-puncher; yo're a whole cussed outfit, barrin' th' chuck waggin an' th' cook. I have great hopes for you. Tell me about it."

Johnny swung a leg over the pommel and smiled down at the man who was grinning up at him.

"Of course," he replied, "it ain't none of yore business, which we both admits. We just can't do any business on any other understandin'. But I waives that: an' here goes.

"I worked with the Bar-20 till Buck went up to run th' Tin Cup. Cow-thieves kept him so busy that our new foreman went up to help him. He stayed there. Red got lonesome for Hoppy, and shore follered. Skinny was lost without th' pair of 'em, so he up an' follered Red. Lanky, missin' Skinny, got plumb restless an' takes th' trail a month later. Then a railroad crosses our ranch an' begins layin' out two towns, so Pete gets on his hind laigs, licks a section boss, an' chases after Lanky. I'm gettin' lonesomer and lonesomer all th' time, but I manages to stick on th' job by pullin' leather, because I was drawin' down a foreman's ​pay. That ranch had five foremen in three months; an' they was all good ones, 'cept, mebby, me. But when I saw barbed wire on th' siding fence posts along th' right of way, sheep on th' hills, an' plows plumb ruinin' good grass land, I hunts up that same section boss, licks him again in mem'ry of Pete, packed my war bag, an' loped north after Pete. Th' old ranch has gone plumb to h—l!"

Logan, a scowl on his face, rubbed the butt of his Colt and swore softly. "It'll be that way all over th' range, some day. Go on."

"Well, up on th' Tin Cup, Buck got married. Hoppy had been before he left Texas. Tex Ewalt's gettin' th' disease now. He quit drinkin', card playin', an' most everything worth doin'. He ain't fit company for a sheep no more. Not knowing he was framin' up th' play, I loafed along an' didn't propose quick enough. That's once more he saved my life. Th' air's plumb full of matrimony on th' Tin Cup. There was two black-eyed sisters in Twin River—Lanky takes one an' Skinny th' other. They tossed for choice. Pete, who was matrimony galled, raised such a ruction at th' doin's that there just wasn't no livin' with him. His disposition was full of sand cracks, an' he'd ruther fight than eat. We pulled off a couple of hummers, me an' him.

"Every time I'd try to get some of my friends to ​go to town for a regular, old time, quiet evenin' I found I didn't have no friends left; an' th' wimmin all joined hands an' made me feel like a brand-blotter. I was awful popular, I was! Ever try to argue with a bunch of wimmin? It's like a dicky bird chirpin' in a cyclone; he can't even hear hisself!

"We had a cook once, on th' Bar-2O, that would run an' grab a gun if he saw a coyote ten miles away. That's th' way they acted about me, all but Mary, who is Mrs. Hopalong. She had th' idea she could make me all over again; an' I wouldn't a-cared if she hadn't kept tryin' all th' time. At first all my ex-friends would sneak around an' sort of apologize to me for th' way their wives acted; an' then, d—d if they didn't get to sidin' in with th' wives! Whenever I wandered into sight th' wimmin would cluck to their worse halves, an' scold me like I was a chicken hawk. An' I had lots of advice, too. It was just like my shadow, only it worked nights, too. Nobody called me 'Kid' or 'Johnny' no more. Them days was past. I was that Johnny Nelson: know what I mean?

"Red did sneak off to town with me twice—an' drank ginger-ale, an' acted about as free an' happy as a calf with a red-hot old brandin' iron over his flank. He wouldn't play faro because he only had two dollars, an' reckoned he might need it for somethin' before pay-day come around again. That was on ​pay-day, too! An' that was Red, Red Connors! Great polecats! Why, there was a time when Red—oh, what's th' use!

"Hopalong—you call him that now when his wife's around!—he was something on some board, or something; an' he said he had to set a good example. Wouldn't even play penny ante! Think of it! There was a time when a camel, with all his stummicks, an' a Gatlin' gun on his back, couldn't a follered th' example he set. I was just as happy as a bobcat in a trap—an' about as peaceful. There wasn't nothin' I could do, if I stayed up there, but get married; an' that was like hangin' myself to keep from gettin' shot. Then, one day, Mrs. Hopalong caught me learnin' William, Junior, how to chew tobacco. As if a five-year-old kid hadn't ought to get some manly habits! An', say! You ought to see that kid ! If he won't bust his daddy's records for h—l-raisin' I miss my guess; unless they plumb spoils him in th' bringin' up. Well, she caught me learnin' him; but like th' boundin' jack rabbit I'm hard to catch. An' here I am."

Logan's grin threatened his ears. "I'm glad of it," he laughed. "There's something in yore face I like—mebby it's th' tobacco. Thanks; I will; I'm all out of it right now. How did you come to pick us out to land on? Pop recommend us to you?"

"Now don't blame me for that," rejoined Johnny. ​"Anyhow, he took it back later. As to stoppin' in this country, th' idea suddenly whizzed my way at them twin buttes north of town. I like this range. Things sort of start themselves, an' there's music in th' air. It reminds me of th' Bar-2O, in th' old days. A man won't grow lazy down here; he'll keep jumpin'. An' I found a trace of lead at that funny-lookin' ridge east of them freak buttes; but I couldn't find where it come from. If I had, I'd 'a' salted th' mine with a Sharp's Special. You see, I'm ambidextrous—ain't that a snorter of a word?—an' when I ain't punchin' cows with one hand, I'm prospectin' with th' other. Somebody down here is plumb careless with his gun—an' he's got a good gun, too. He's too cussed familiar on short acquaintance. But it's too bad I look like you, 'though that's why I'm offerin' you my valuable services."

"I reckon it's a cross I got to stagger under," replied Logan, the smile gone from his face; "but I'll try to live it down. An' somehow my trusting nature leans toward you, though it shouldn't. Yo're a two-gun man, which acts like yeast in th' suspicious mind. I've seen 'em before; an' you looks most disconcertin' capable. Then you says Bar-2O, an' Hopalong, an' Red Connors, an' th' others. You talk like you knew 'em intimate. I've heard of 'em, all of 'em. Like th' moon, you shine in reflected light. I've heard of ​you, too; I'm surprised you ain't in jail. Now then: If you are that Johnny Nelson, of that outfit, an' you can prove it, I yearns to weep on yore bosom; if you ain't, then I'll weep on yore grave. Th' question of identity is a ticklish one. It makes me that nervous I want to look under th' bed. As a two-gun man, unknown, yo're about as welcome on this ranch, right now, as a hydrophoby skunk; but as Johnny Nelson, of that old Bar-2O, yo're worth fifty a month to me, as a starter, with ten dollars extra for each six-gun. But I've just simply got to have proof about who you are, an' where you come from. Let's pause for an inspiration."

Johnny grinned. "I don't blame you; for I've had a sample of something already. An' I've got a tail holt on an inspiration. You hunt up that pen you've had since Adam was a boy; find th' ink that you put away last summer so you'd know where it was when you wanted it in a hurry; an' then, in thirty minutes' hard labor you'll have something like this:

"'Mr. William Cassidy, Senior, Tin Cup, Twin Rivers, Montanny: Dear Sir: A nice lookin' young man wants to take seventy dollars a month away from me, as a starter. His undershirt is red, with th' initials "WC" worked near th' top buttonhole in pretty blue silk thread ​wants Pete to send him that eight dollars that Pete borrowed to buy William, Junior, a .22 rifle to bust windows with. Tell Red his pants wear well. Does William, Junior, chew tobacco? He has been shot at already. What is this young man's name? Did he work on th' old Bar-20 with you? Yours truly, Logan.'

"Exhibit 1: Th' red undershirt. Hoppy has even more of 'em than Buck, 'though Rose is comin' along fast. Mary branded 'em all so she could pick 'em out of th' wash. It helped me pick this one off th' clothes-line, because me an' Hoppy wears th' same size. Exhibit 2: A scab on my off ear. William, Junior, was shootin' at a calf an' I stopped him. He's a spunky little cuss, all right; but they'll spoil him yet. An' Pete never did have any sense, anyhow. Th' poor kid is shootin' blanks now, an' blamin' it on th' gun. An' it was a mean trick, too. That hit about th' tobacco will get under Hoppy's scalp—he'll answer right quick. You might say to tell William, Junior, that I ain't forgot my promise, an' that I'll send him a shotgun just as soon as he gets big enough to tote it around."

"I'll shore send it," laughed Logan, whose imagination was running wild. "But outside of the identity you suits me right down to the ground. If Hopalong Cassidy says yo're all right I'll back you to my last dollar. You ​mentioned hearin' music in th' air. It was a tunin' up. Will you stay for th' dance?"

"Sweet bells of joy!" exclaimed Johnny, leaving the saddle as though shot out by a spring. "From wimmin', barb wire, sheep an' railroad towns, to this! I can go to town with th' boys once more! I can cuss out loud an' swagger around regardless! An' some mangey gent is careless with his gun! You can lose me just as easy as a cow can lose a tick. I feel right at home."

"All right, then. Strip off yore saddle and turn that fine cayuse loose," replied Logan, chuckling. He hoped that he might be able to coax the new man to swap horses. "Th' cook's callin' his hogs, so let's go feed"

CHAPTER III

THE WISDOM OF THE FROGS

FOR two weeks Johnny rode range with the outfit and got familiar with the ranch. There was one discovery which puzzled him and seemed to offer an explanation for the shot on the trail: He had found the ruins of a burned homestead on the northern end of the ranch and he guessed that it had been used by "nesters;" and the evicted squatters might have mistaken him for Logan. His thoughts constantly turned to the man who had shot at him, and to the country around Twin Buttes; and often he sat for minutes, stiffly erect in his saddle, staring at the two great buttes, eager to explore the country surrounding them and to pay his debt.

From where he rode, facing westward, he could see the Deepwater, cold at all seasons of the year. Flowing swiftly, it gurgled and swished around bowlders of lava and granite and could be forded in but one place in thirty miles, where it spread out over a rocky, submerged plateau on the trail between the CL and Hastings, and where it grew turbulent and frothy with wrath as it poured over the up-thrust ledges. Along its eastern bank lay the ranch, in the valley of the ​Deepwater, and beyond it a short distance stood the Barrier, following it mile after mile and curving as it curved.

The Barrier, well named, was a great ledge of limestone, up-flung like a wall, sheer, smooth and only occasionally broken by narrow crevices which ran far back and sloped gradually upward, rock-strewn, damp, cool, and wild. It stretched for miles to Johnny's right and left, a wall between the wild tumble of the buttes and the smooth, gently rolling, fertile plain, which, beginning at the river, swept far to the eastward behind him, where it eventually became lost in the desert wastes. On one side of the rampart lay the scurrying river and the valley of the Deepwater, rolling, sparsely timbered and heavily grassed, placid, peaceful, restful; on the other, seeming to leap against the horizon, lay the grandeur of chaos, wild and forbidding.

Highest above all that jagged western skyline, shouldering up above all other buttes and plateaus, Twin Buttes peremptorily challenged attention. Remarkably alike from all sides, when viewed from the CL ranch-house they seemed to have been cast in the same mold; and the two towering, steep-sided masses with their different colored strata stood high above the Barrier and the chaos behind it like concrete examples of eternity.

Twin Buttes were the lords of their realm, and what ​a realm it was! Around them for miles great buttes rose solidly upward, naked on their abrupt sides except for an occasional, straggling bush or dwarfed pine or fir which here and there held precarious footholds in cracks and crevices or on the more secure placement of a ledge. Deep draws choked with brush lay between the more rolling hills along the eastern edge of the watershed where the Barrier stood on guard, and rich patches of heavy grass found the needed moisture in them. On the slopes of the hills were great forests of yellow pine, a straggling growth of fir crowning their tops. Farther west, where the massive buttes reared aloft, the deep canyons were of two kinds. The first, wide, with sloping banks of detritus, were covered with pine forests and torn with draws; the second, steep-walled, were great, narrow chasms of wind- and water-swept rock, bare and awe inspiring. They sloped upward to the backbone of the watershed and had humble beginnings in shallow, basin-like arroyos, which gradually became boxes in the rock formation as the level sloped downward.

But the chaos stopped at the Barrier, which marked the breaking of stratum upon stratum of the earth's crust. Ages ago there had been a mighty struggle here between titanic forces. To the west the earth's crust, battered into buttes, canyons, draws, and great plateaus, had held out with a granite stubbornness and ​strength, defying the seething powers below it; but the limestone and the sandstone, weaker brothers, betrayed by the treachery of the shales, had given under the great strain and parted. The western portion had held its own; but the eastern section had dropped down into the heaving turmoil and formed the floor of the valley of the Deepwater. And as if in compensation, the winds of the ages, still battling with the stubborn buttes, had robbed them of soil and deposited it in the valley.

One evening, when Johnny rode in for supper, Logan met him at the corral and held out his hand.

"Shake, Nelson," he smiled. "Crosby went to town today and brought me a letter from th' Tin Cup. After you have fed up, come around to my room an' see me. I want to hold a right lively pow-wow with you."

"Shore enough!" laughed Johnny, an expectant grin on his face. "Bet he laid me out from soda to hock, tail to bit, th' old pirate!"

"Well, you've got a terrible reputation, young man. Go an' feed."

Johnny was the first at the table that night, and the first away from it by a wide margin. Rolling a cigarette, he lit it and hastened to Logan's quarters, where he found the foreman contentedly smoking.

"Come in an' set down," invited the foreman. ​"We're goin' to do a lot of talkin' ; it's due to be a long session. There's th' letter."

Johnny read it:

"Mr. John C. Logan. Dear Sir: I take my pen in hand to answer your letter of recent date. Pete paid Red the 8 dollars to even up for the pants, but nobody paid me for the shirt, ask him why he took the best one. William, Junior, hates tobacco. We was scared hed die. He swears most suspicious like Johnny Nelson. I hid the gun in the storeroom. It cost me $12 damages the first week, besides a calf. Can you use Pete Wilson? I'll pay ½ his wages the first 6 months. I'd ruther have boils than him. He's worse since Johnny left. Don't let Johnny come north again, and God have mercy on your soul. He's easy worth $70, if you are in trouble. If you ain't in trouble he'll get you there. Excuse pensil. Yours truly, Wm. Cassidy, Senior. P. S. His old job is waiting for him and he can have the shirt. It must be near wore out anyhow. Tell him it only costs 2 cents to write me a letter, but I bet hell freezes before I get one. William, Junior, raised the devil when he missed Johnny. Yes, he worked on the Bar-2O. If he sends the kid a shotgun, I'll come down and bust his neck. Excuse pensil."

​Johnny looked steadily out of the door, ashamed to let Logan see his face, for homesickness is no respecter of age. He gulped and felt like a sick calf. Logan smiled at him through the gloom and chuckled, and at the sound the puncher stiffened and turned around with a fine attempt at indifference.

The foreman nodded at the letter. "Keep it if you wants. They must be a purty fine bunch, them fellers. I never knowed any of 'em, but I've heard a lot about 'em. 'Youbet' Somes used to drop in here once in a while, an' he knowed 'em all. I ain't seen Youbet for quite a spell now."

Johnny managed to relax his throat. "Finest outfit that ever wore pants," he blurted. "Youbet's dead. Went out fightin' seven sheep-herders in a saloon, but he got three of 'em. Hoppy met up with two of th' others th' next summer an' had words with 'em. Th' other two are still livin', I reckon." He thought for a moment and growled: "It's th' wimmin that done it. You wouldn't believe how that crowd has changed! D—n it, why can't a man keep his friends?"

The foreman puffed slowly and made no answer beyond a grunt of understanding. Johnny folded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket. "What's th' cow business comin' to, anyhow?" he demanded. "Wimmin, railroads, towns, sheep, wire—" he despaired of words and glared at the inoffensive corral.

​"An' rustlers," added Logan.

"They're only an incident," retorted Johnny. "They can be licked, like a disease; but th' others—oh, what's th' use!"

"Yo're right," replied Logan; "but it's the rustlers that have got me worried. I ain't thinkin' about th' others very much, yet."

Johnny turned like a flash. He wanted action, action that would take his thoughts into other channels. The times were out of joint and he wanted something upon which to vent his spleen. He had been waiting for that word to come from Logan, waiting for days. And he had a score of his own to pay, as well.

"Rustlers!" he exulted. "I knowed it! I've knowed it for a week, an' I'm tired of ridin' around like a cussed fool. I know th' job I want! What about 'em?"

Logan closed the door by a push of his foot, refilled and lit his pipe, and for two hours the only light the room knew was the soft glow of the pipe and the firey ends of the puncher's cigarettes, while Logan unfolded his troubles to eager ears. The cook sang in the kitchen as he wrestled his dishes and pans, and then the noise died out. Laughter and words and the thumping of knuckles on a card table came from the bunkroom, and grew silent. A gray coyote slid around the corral, sniffing suspiciously, and at some faint noise faded into ​the twilight, and from a distant rise howled mournfully at the moon. From a little pond in the corral came the deep-throated warning of the frogs, endless, insistent, untiring: "Go 'round! Go 'round! Knee deep! Knee deep! Go 'round! Go 'round! Go 'round!"

The soft murmur of voices in the foreman's room suddenly ceased, and a chair scraped over the sandy floor. The door creaked a protest as it swung slowly inward and a gray shape suddenly took form against the darkness of the room, paused on the threshold and then Logan stepped out into the moonlight and knocked his pipe against his boot heel. A second figure emerged and joined him, tossing away a cigarette.

The foreman yawned and shook his head. "I didn't know how to get 'em, Nelson," he said again. "I wasn't satisfied to stop th' rustlin'. I wanted to wipe 'em out an' get back my cows; but I didn't have men enough to go about it right, an' that cussed Barrier spoiled every plan."

"Yes," said the puncher. "But it's funny that none of th' boys, watchin' nights, never got a sign of them fellers. They must be slick. Well, all right; there'll have to be another plan tried, an' that'll be my job. I told you that I found traces of lead over near Twin Buttes? Well, I'm goin' prospectin', an' try to earn that seventy dollars a month. Any time you see a green bush lyin' at th' foot of th' Barrier, just north of ​Little Canyon, keep th' boys from ridin' near there that same night. I may have some business there an' I shore don't want to be shot at when I can't shoot back. It's too cussed bad Hoppy an' Red are married."

Logan laughed: "Then don't you make that mistake some day! But what about that feller Pete Wilson that Cassidy wants to get rid of?"

"Don't you worry about me gettin' married!" snorted Johnny. "I saw too much of it. An' as for Pete, he's too happy wallerin' in his misery. Anyhow, he wouldn't leave Hoppy an' th' boys; an' they wouldn't let him go. You couldn't drag him off the Tin Cup with a rope. Then we've settled it, huh? I'm to leave you tomorrow, with hard words?"

"Hard words ain't necessary. I know every man that works for me an' they'll stick, an' keep their mouths shut. Now, I warn you again: I wouldn't give a dollar, Mex., for yore life if you go through with your scheme. An' it'll be more dangerous because you look like me, an' have worked for me. You can give it up right now an' not lose anythin' in my opinion. Think it over tonight."

Johnny laughed and shook his head.

"Well," said the foreman, "I'm lettin' you into a bad game, with th' cards stacked against you; but I'll come in after you when you say th' word; an' th' outfit'll be at my back."

​"I know that," smiled Johnny. "I'll be under a handicap, keepin' under cover an' not doin' any shootin'; but if I make a gun-play they'll begin to do some figgerin'. Gosh, I'm sleepy. Reckon I'll hunt my bunk. Good night."

"No gun-play," growled Logan. "You know what I want. How many they are, where they round up my cows, an' when they will be makin' a raid, so I can get 'em red-handed. We'll do the fightin'. Good night."

They shook hands and parted, Johnny entering the house, Logan wandering out to the corral, where he sat on a stump for an hour or more and slowly smoked his pipe. When he finally arose he found that it was out, and cold, much to his surprise.

"Go 'round! Go 'round!" said the pond. "Better go 'round! Go 'round!"

Logan turned and sighed with relief at a problem solved. "Yo're a right smart frog, Big Mouth," he grinned. "'Go 'round' is th' medicine; an' I've got th' doctor to shove it down their throats! There's a roundup due in th' Twin Buttes, an' it's started now."

CHAPTER IV

A FEINT

POP HAYES sighed, raised his head and watched the door as hoof-beats outside ceased abruptly.

"Dearly Beloved!" said an indignant voice. "If you tries any more of yore tricks I'll gentle you with th' butt of a six-gun, you barrel-bellied cow! Oh, that's it, huh? I savvy. You yearns for that shade. Go to it, Pepper."

"'Dearly Beloved'!" snorted Pop in fine disgust. "You'd think it was a weddin' tower! Who th' devil ever heard a cayuse called any such a name as that?" he indignantly demanded of Andrew Jackson; but Andrew paid no attention to him. The bird's head was cocked on one side and he sidled deliberately toward the door.

A figure jumped backward past the door, followed by a pair of hoofs, which shot into sight and out again. Andy stopped short and craned his neck, his beady eyes glittering with quick suspicion.

"I can shore see where you an' me has an argument," said the voice outside. "If you make any more plays like that I'll just naturally kick yore ribs in. G'wan, now; I ain't got no sugar, you old fool!" And ​the smiling two-gun man stepped into the room, with a wary and affectionate backward glance. "Hello, Pop!" he grinned. "You old Piute, you owes me a drink!"

"Like h—l I do!" retorted Pop with no politeness, sitting up very straight in his chair.

"You shore do!" rejoined Johnny firmly. "Didn't you tell me that th' CL was a nice ranch to work for?"

"Yo're loco! I didn't say nothin' of th' kind!" snapped Pop indignantly. "I said they'd work you nigh to death; that's what I said!"

"Oh; was that it?" asked Johnny dubiously. "I ain't nowise shore about it; but we'll let it go as it lays. Then I owe you a drink; so it's all th' same. Yo're a real prophet."

Pop hastily shuffled to his appointed place and performed the honors gracefully. "So you went an' got a job over there, huh?" he chuckled. "An' now yo're all through with 'em? Well, I will say that you stuck it out longer than some I knows of. Two weeks with Logan is a long time."

"It's so long that I've aged considerable," admitted Johnny, smiling foolishly. "But I'm cured. I'm cured of punchin' cows for anybody, for a while. Seems to me that all I've done, all my life, was to play guardian to fool cows. I've had enough for a while. Th' last two weeks plumb cured me of punchin'."

He looked down and saw Andy, feathers ruffled, ​squaring off for another go at the spur, stooped suddenly, scooped the squawking bird into his hand, tossed it into the air, caught it, and quickly shoved it headfirst into a pocket. Andy swore and backed and wriggled, threatened to eat his black heart and to do other unkind and reprehensible things. Giving a desperate heave he plopped out of the pocket and struck the floor with a thud. Shaking himself, he screamed profane defiance at the world at large and then made his clumsy and comical way up the chaps and finally roosted on the butt of one of the six-guns, where he clucked loudly and whistled.

Johnny gave a peculiar whistle in reply, and almost instantly Pop let out a roar and jumped toward the door to drive back a black horse that was coming in.

"Get out of here!" he yelled pugnaciously. Pepper, bared her teeth and slowly backed out again. Turning, Pop glared at the puncher. "Did you see that? Mebby Andy ain't th' only animal that drinks," he jabbed, remembering a former conversation.

Johnny laughed and scratched the bird, which stood first on one foot and then on the other, foolish with ecstatic joy.

Pop regarded the bird with surprise. "Well, if that don't beat all!" he marveled. "There ain't another man can do that, 'cept me, an' get off with a whole hand, Andy'll miss you, I reckon."

​"He won't miss me much," responded Johnny, comfortably seating himself in Pop's private chair. "I ain't leavin' th' country."

"You won't have to. There's other ranches, where they treats punchers better'n cows. There's another chair, over there."

"No more ranches for me," replied Johnny, ignoring the hint. "I'm through punching I tell you. I'm goin' to play a while for a change."

"Gamblin's bad business," replied Pop, turning to get the cards.

"Mebby some gamblin' is; but there's some as ain't," grinned Johnny. "I ain't meanin' cards."

"Oh," said Pop, disappointed. "What you mean—shootin' craps?"

"Nope; I'm goin' prospectin'; an' if that ain't gamblin' then I never saw anythin' that was."

Pop straightened up and stared. "Prospectin?" he demanded, incredulously. "Regular prospectin'? Well, I'll be cussed! If yo're goin' to do it around here, lemme tell you it won't be no gamble. It'll be a dead shore loss. A flea couldn't live on what you'll earn on that game in this country."

"Well, I ain't aimin' to support no flea, unless Andy leaves me one," laughed Johnny, again scratching the restless bird. "But I'm tired of cows, an' I might as well amuse myself prospectin' as any other way. I like ​this country an' I'm goin' to stay a while. Besides, when I was a kid I shore wanted to be a pirate; then when I got older I saw a prospector an' hankered to be one. I can't be a pirate, but I'm goin' to be a prospector. When my money is gone I'll guard cows again."

"Lord help us!" muttered Pop. "Yo're plumb loco."

"How can I be plumb an' loco at th' same time?"

"Andy!" snapped Pop. "Come away from there! Lord knows you ain't got no sense, but there ain't no use riskin' yore instinct!"

Johnny laughed. "Leavin' jokes aside, me an' Pepper are goin' off by ourselves an' poke around pannin' th' streams an' bustin' nuggets off th' rocks till we get a fortune or our grub runs out. We can have a good time, an'—hey! You got any fishhooks?"

"Fishhooks nothin'!" snorted Pop. "Lot of call I got for fishhooks. Why, I ain't heard th' word for ten years. Say!" he grinned sheepishly. "Mebby you'll get lonesome. Now, if we went off together, with some fishhooks—but, shucks! I can't leave this here business."

Johnny hid his relief. "That's th' worst of havin' a business. You certainly can't go off an' let everythin' go to smash."

"Cuss th' luck!" growled Pop. "Gosh, I'm all het up over it! I ain't done no fishin' since I was a kid, an' ​there must be lots of trout in these streams." Then he brightened a little. "But I dunno. You look too cussed much like Logan to be real comfortable company for me. I reckon I'll pay attention to business."

Johnny showed a little irritation. "There you go again! You do a lot of worryin' about my looks. If they don't suit you, start right in an' change 'em!"

"There you go!" snapped Pop disgustedly. "On th' prod th' first thing! You'd show more common sense if you did some of th' worryin'. But then, I reckon it'll be all right if you does yore prospectin' an' fishin' south of here."

"No, sir! I'm goin' to do it north of here, in th' Twin Buttes country."

Pop's expression baffled description, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a monkey on a stick. "Good Lord ! You stick to Devil's Gap, an' south of there!"

Johnny's eyes narrowed and he sat up very straight. "This is a free country an' I goes where I please. It's a habit of mine. I said north, an' that's where I'm goin'. I wasn't so set on it before; but now I'm as set as a Missouri mule."

Pop growled. "There ain't no chance of you havin' my company; an' you leave th' name an' address of yore next of kin before you starts."

Johnny laughed derisively. "I ain't worryin'. An' ​now let's figger out what a regular prospector needs. Bein' new at th' game I reckon I better get some advice. What I'm dubious about are th' proper things to pry th' nuggets loose with, an' hoist 'em on my cayuse," he grinned. "Ought to have a pick, shovel, gold pan for placer fussin'—'gold pan' sounds regular, don't it?—an' some sacks to tie it up in. A dozen'll do for a starter. I can allus come back for more."

"Or you can borrow a chuck waggin; that would be handy because it would make it easy to get yore body out, 'though I reckon they'll just bury you an' let it go that way."

"They? Meanin' who?"

"I ain't got a word to say."

"There's some consolation in that," jeered Johnny.

"Yo're a fool!" snorted Pop heatedly.

"An' so that's went an' follered me down here, too," sighed Johnny. "A man can't get away from some things. Well, let's get back on th' trail. All th' prospectors I ever saw wore cowhide boots, with low, flat heels. Somehow I can't see myself trampin' around with these I'm wearin'; an' they're too expensive to wear 'em out that way. What else? Need any blastin' powder?"

"Cussed if I wouldn't grub-stake you if you wasn't goin' up there," grinned Pop. "It takes a fool for luck; an' it'll be just like you to fall down a canyon an' ​butt th' dirt off'n a million dollar nugget. I got a notion to do it anyhow."

"You needn't get no notions!" retorted Johnny. "I'm goin' to hog it. Prospectors never get grubstaked unless they're busted; an' I ain't got there yet. Oh, yes; I got to get them fishhooks—you see, I ain't aimin' to cripple my back workin' hard all th' time. I'll fill a sack in th' mornin', eat my dinner an' rest all afternoon. Next day I'll fill another sack, an' so on. Now, what am I goin' to get for my outfit? I'll need a lot of things."

"Go see Charley James, acrost th' street. He keeps th' general store; an' he's got more trash than anybody I ever saw."

"Mebby he can tell me what I need," suggested Johnny, hopefully.

As Pop started to answer, the doorway darkened and a man stepped into the room. Pop's face paled and he swiftly moved to one side, out of range. The newcomer glanced at Johnny, swore under his breath and his hand streaked to his holster. It remained there, for he discovered that he was glaring squarely down a revolver barrel.

"Let loose of it!" snapped Johnny. "Now, then: What's eatin' you?"

"Why—why, I mistook you for somebody else!" muttered the other. "Comin' in from th' sunlight, ​sudden like, I couldn't see very well. My mistake, Stranger. What'll you have?"

Johnny grunted skeptically. "Yo're shore you can see all right now?"

"It's all right, Nelson," hastily interposed the anxious proprietor, nodding emphatic assurance. "It's all right!"

"My mistake, Mr. Nelson," smiled the stranger. "I shouldn't 'a' been so hasty—but I was fooled. Yore looks are shore misleadin'."

"They suits me. What's wrong about 'em?" demanded Johnny.

"There you go again!" snorted Pop in quick disgust. "A gent makes a mistake, says he didn't mean no harm in it, an' you goes on th' prod! Didn't I tell you that yore looks would get you into trouble? Didn't I?"

"Oh! Is that it?" He arose and slipped the gun back into its holster. "I'll take th' same, Stranger."

"Now yo're gettin' some sense," beamed Pop, smiling with relief. "Mr. Nelson, shake han's with Tom Quigley. Here's luck."

"Fill 'em again," grinned Johnny. "Not that I hankers for th' kind of liquor you sells, but because we has to do th' best we can with what's pervided."

"Pop's sellin' better liquor than he used to," smiled Quigley. "Am I to thank you for th' improvement?"

​"I refuse to accept th' responsibility," laughed Johnny.

"Well, he had some waggin varnish last year, an' for a long time we was puzzled to know what he did with it. One day, somebody said his whiskey tasted like a pine knot: an' then we knew th' answer."

"You both can go to th' devil," grinned Pop.

"Aimin' to make a long stay with us, Mr. Nelson?" asked Quigley.

"That all depends on how soon I gets all th' gold out of this country."

"Ah! Prospecting?"

"Startin' tomorrow, I am: if this varnish don't kill me."

"There ain't never been none found around here, 'though I never could understand why. There was a couple of prospectors here some years ago, an' they worked harder for nothin' than anybody I ever saw. They covered th' ground purty well, but they was broke about th' time they started south of town, an' had to clear out. They claimed there was pay dirt down there, but they couldn't get a grub-stake on th' strength of that, so they just had to quit."

"That's where it is if it's any place," said Pop hurriedly. "Th' river's workin' day an' night, pilin' it ag'in them rock ledges above th' ford; an' it's been doin' it since th' world began."

​Johnny shook his head. "Mebby; but there ain't no way to get it, unless you can drain th' river. I want shallow water—little streams, where there's sand an' gravel bars an' flats. I'm aimin' to work north of here."

Quigley forced a smile and shook his head. "I'm afraid you'll waste yore time. I've been all through that section, in fact I live up there, an* some of my men have fooled around lookin' for color. There ain't a sign of it anywhere."

"Well, I'm aimin' to go back north when I get tired of prospectin'," replied Johnny, grinning cheerfully; "an' I figgers I can prospect around an' gradually work up that way, toward Hope. I'll drop in an' see you if I run acrost yore place. I reckon prospectin' is a lonesome game."

"Didn't you ever try it before?" asked Quigley in surprise.

"This is my first whirl at it," reluctantly admitted Johnny. "I'm a cow-puncher, got tired of th' north ranges an' drifted down here. An' I might 'a' stayed a cow-puncher, only I got a job on th' CL an' worked there for th' last two weeks; an' I got a-plenty. It soured me of punchin'. Outside of bein' cussed suspicious, that man Logan is loco. I don't mind bein' suspected a little at first; but I ain't goin' to work like a fool when there ain't no call for it. I might 'a' stuck ​it out, at that, only for a fool notion of his. That's where I cut loose."

Quigley looked curious. "New notion?"

"Yes," laughed Johnny contemptuously. "He got th' idea that th' night air, close to th' river, ain't healthy for th' cows! Told us to drive all of 'em back from th' river every evenin' before we rode in. I said as how we ought to blanket 'em, an' build fires under 'em. I reckon mebby I was a mite sarcastic, at that. Well, anyhow; we had an argument, an' I drew my pay an' quit."

Pop let out a howl. "Good Lord!" he snorted. "Evenin' air too wet for cows! Drive 'em back every night! An' lemme tell you that outfit's just foolish enough to do it, too. He-he-he!"

Quigley laughed, and then looked at the proprietor: "Pop, we ain't forgettin'. We both has bought, an' it usually goes th' rounds before it stops."

"Oh, I'll set 'em up," growled Pop.

"You ranchin', Mr. Quigley?" asked Johnny.

"Well, I am, an' I ain't," answered Quigley. "I'm farmin' an* ranchin' both, on a small scale. I got a few head, but not enough to give me much bother. We sort of let 'em look after themselves."

"Oh," said Johnny regretfully. "I thought mebby if I got tired of prospectin', an' short of cash, that I might get a job with you."

​"I ain't got cows enough to keep me busy," explained Quigley. "We let 'em wander, an' get 'em as we need 'em. Well," he said, turning as if to leave, "I'm sorry about that fool break of mine, Mr. Nelson; an' to prove it I'm goin' to give you some real good advice: Keep away from th' Twin Buttes country. So long, boys."

Johnny looked after him, and then faced Pop, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't quite get th' drift of that," he said slowly; "but he ought to know th' country he lives in. I'll try Devil's Gap first; but I got a cussed strong notion not to!"

Pop sighed with relief. "Let's go over an' see what Charley's got for yore kit," he suggested.

Charley James was playing solitaire on a box laid across a nail keg and he smiled a welcome as they entered.

"Charley," said Pop. "This cow-puncher's aimin' to change his spots. He's a amatchure prospector an' wants us to pick out his outfit."

"I can believe that he's an amatchure if he's goin' to try it in this part of th' country," smiled Charley. "Nobody's ever tried it down here before."

Johnny was about to mention the two prospectors referred to by Mr. Quigley, but thought better of it.

"Oh, it's been tried," said Pop casually. "But they didn't stay long. What you got in that line, Charley?"

​"I ain't shore; but first you want an axe. Come on; well saunter aroun' an' pick things out as they hit our eye. Here's th' axe—double bitted, six-pounder."

"Too big," chuckled Pop. "There ain't none of them there redwood trees out here; they're in Californy."

"Huh!" grunted Charley. "Mebbyso; but that's a good axe."

"Pop's right; it's too heavy," decided Johnny. "An' I don't want it double bitted because I may want to drive stakes with it."

"All right," said Charley, who had hoped to at last get rid of the big axe. "Here's a three-pounder—'Little Gem'—an' it shore is. All right; now for th' next article."

In half an hour the outfit was assembled and they were turning to leave the store when Johnny suddenly grabbed his companions. "What about some fish-hooks?" he demanded anxiously.

Charley rubbed his head reflectively. "I think mebby I got some; don't remember throwin' 'em away. There was some with feathers, an' some without; plain hooks, an' flies. Brought 'em with me when I first came out here, an' never used 'em. Ought to have some line, too; an' a reel somewheres. I'll hunt 'em up an' put 'em with yore duffle. You can cut yoreself a pole. They'll be a little present from me."

​"Thank you," beamed Johnny, and forthwith Pop dragged them to his place of business.

Johnny left the following morning, and one week later he returned, trudging along beside his loaded horse, and he was the owner of a generous amount of gold, the treasure of a "pocket" upon which he had blundered. He determined to keep this a secret, for if he let it be known that he had found "color," what excuse could he offer for leaving that field? It fit too well into his plans to be revealed.

Pop grinned a welcome: "Have any luck?"

"Fishin', yes," laughed Johnny. "Bet I moved ten acres of gravel. I wasted a week; now I'm goin' north."

Pop frowned. "I reckon you'll have yore own way; but put in yore time fishin' an' prospectin', an' mind yore own business."

"Shore," said Johnny. "Look here," unrolling a bundle and producing two of the gold sacks, which were heavy and bulging. Pop stared, speechless, until his new friend opened one of them and dumped four dressed trout on the bar.

"Slip 'em in a fryin' pan with some bacon," grinned Johnny.

"Get 'em in th' river?" demanded Pop incredulously.

"You know that draw runnin' east from th' Gap—th' one with them two dead pines leanin' against each other?"

​"Yes; 'tain't more'n a mile from th' ford!"

"I found 'em up there, hidin' in a bush."

"Reckon you think that's funny," grunted Pop. "Why them's brook trout! I ain't had any since I was a boy. Th' devil with business! I'm goin' fishin' one day a week. Now where you goin'?"

"Got some for Charley," laughed Johnny from the door.

Charley looked up from his eternal solitaire: "Hello, Nelson!"

"Look what I got," exulted Johnny, extending the bag.

"God help us!" exclaimed Charley. "Did you—did you—"

"I did. Brook trout, Pop says. Prospectin' ain't nothin' compared to fishin'. Pop's goin' one day a week, an' after you eat these mebby you'll be with him."

"Pop can't put on no airs with me," chuckled Charley. "If he can afford to close up, so can I. But you shouldn't 'a' poked no bulgin' gold sack at me like that! It was a shock. Come on; let's take somethin' for it." He grabbed the fish and led the way across the street; and for the rest of the afternoon three happy men discussed prospecting and trout fishing, but the latter was by far the more important.

CHAPTER V

PREPARATIONS

THE next morning Johnny said good-bye to Pop and walked by Pepper's side, watching the big pack on her back, while Pop, shaking his head, entered his place of business and forthwith began work on a crude sign which, one day a week, would hang on his locked front door.

Well to the north of Hastings, Johnny came to a brook flowing through a deep ravine, and, forsaking the trail, followed the little stream westward and evening found him encamped in a small clearing. He spent several days here, panning the stream and fishing during daylight, and scouting in his moccasins at night. He paid a visit to Little Canyon and explored the valley he was in, and at the head of the valley he found a deep-walled pasture above a short, narrow canyon. Deciding to erect a cabin at the canyon entrance as a monument to the innocence of his activities, he prospected a sand bar near by and rediscovered the gold which he had found at Devil's Gap, which served as an excellent excuse for locating there permanently; and after a week of hard work, the cabin became a reality.

​His every movement had been made upon the supposition that he was being watched; and the supposition became a fact when he discovered boot-prints along the opposite bank of the creek. These promised him a trail by which he could easily locate the rustlers' ranch, and at daylight the next morning he was following them and finally reached a great ridge, which he ascended with caution.

Below him was a deep valley, through which a stream moved sluggishly, and at the upper end was a narrow canyon, not more than ten paces wide, through which the stream escaped from another valley above. Twin Buttes were several miles to the east of him, lying a mile or more north of the valley. He looked through the deep canyon and at the corner of a stone house at its other end, and as he watched he saw several men come into view. One of them motioned toward the south and paused to speak to his companions, whereupon Johnny wriggled down the slope and set out for his camp.

Back again in his own valley, he built a sapling fence across the little canyon, cut a pile of firewood near by, and then rode to Hastings, where he nearly gave Charley heart failure by displaying a pleasing amount of virgin gold. He did not see Pop because on the saloon door he found a sign reading: "Back at 4 p. m."

​It was a very cheerful cow-puncher who rode to the new cabin that evening, for he was matching his wits against those of his natural enemies, he was playing a lone hand in his own way against odds, and the game was only beginning.

In perfect condition, virile, young, enduring, he had serene confidence in his ability to take care of himself. He admitted but one master in the art of gunplay, and that man had been his teacher and best friend for years. Even now Hopalong could beat him on the draw, but barely, and he could roll his two guns forward, backward and "mixed;" but he could shoot neither faster nor straighter than his pupil.

Johnny could not roll a gun because he never had tried very hard to master that most difficult of all gun-play, regarding it as an idle accomplishment, good only for exhibition purposes, and, while awe inspiring, Johnny had no yearning for it. He clove to strict utility and did not care to call attention to his wooden-handled, flare-butt Frontiers. There was no ornamentation on them, no ivory, inlay, or engraving. The only marks on their heavy, worn frames were a few dents. He had such a strong dislike for fancy guns that the sight of ivory grips made his lips curl, and such things as pearl handles filled him with grieving contempt for the owner.

He never mentioned his guns to any but his closest ​friends, and they were as unconscious a part of him as his arms or his legs. And it was his creed that no man but himself should touch them, his friends excepted. He wore them low because utility demanded it; and to so wear them, and to tie them down besides, was in itself a responsibility, for there were men who would not be satisfied with the quiet warning.

In other things, from routine ranch work to man-hunting, from roping and riding to rifle shooting, the old outfit of the Bar-2O had been his teachers and they had taken him in hand at an early age. His rifle he had copied from Hopalong; but Red had taught him the use of it, and to his way of thinking Red Connors was without a peer in the use of the longer weapon.

Johnny was a genius with his six-guns, one of those few men produced in a generation; and he did not belong to the class of fancy gun-workers who shine at exhibitions and fall short when lead is flying and the nerves are sorely tried. He shot from his hips by instinct, and that is the real test of utility. Had he turned his talents to ends which lay outside the law he would have become the most dangerous and the most feared man in the cow-country.

John Logan awoke with a start, sat up suddenly in his bunk and grunted a profane query as his hand closed over his Colt.

​"It's Nelson," softly said a voice from outside the window. "Don't make so much noise," it continued, as its owner dropped a handful of pebbles on the ground. "I wanted you awake before I showed myself. Never like to walk into a man's room in th' dark, when he's asleep an' not expectin' visitors. 'Specially when he's worryin' about rustlers. It ain't allus healthy."

"All right," growled the foreman, "but you don't have to throw 'em; you can toss 'em, easy, from there. I've got a welt on my head as big as a chew of tobacco. I'm shore glad you couldn't find nothin' out there that was any bigger. You comin' in or am I comin' out?"

The door squeaked open and squeaked shut and then a chair squeaked.

"You got a musical room," observed Johnny, chuckling softly. "Yore bunk squeaked, too, when you sat up."

"It was a narrow squeak for you," grunted Logan, reluctantly putting down the Colt. "If I'd seen a head I'd 'a' let drive on suspicion. I was havin' a cussed bad dream an' was all het up. My cows was goin' up Little Canyon in whole herds an' I couldn't seem to stop 'em nohow."

"Keepin' my head out of trouble is my long suit," chuckled Johnny. "An' there ain't none of yore cows ​goin' up Little Canyon—not till I steal some of 'em. Been wonderin' where I was an' what I was doin'?"

"Not very much," answered the foreman. "Got a match? We been gettin' our mail reg'lar every week, an' th' boys allus drop in for a drink at Pop's; an' they're good listeners. Say! What th' h—l is this I hears about puttin' blankets on my cows an' shovin' 'em into th' river every night? Well, that can wait. You've shore made an impression on Ol' Pop Hayes. Th' old Piute can't talk about nothin' but you. Every time th' boys drop in there they get fed up on you. Of course they don't show much interest in yore doin's; an' they don't have to. They says yo're a d—d quitter, an' stuff like that, an' Pop gets riled up an' near scalps 'em. What you been doin' to get him so friendly? I never thought he'd be friendly, like that, to anythin' but a silver dollar."

"I don't know—just treat him decent," replied Johnny.

"Huh! I been treatin' him decent for ten years, an' he still thinks I'm some kind of an unknown animal. If he saw me dyin' in th' street he wouldn't drag me five feet, unless I was blockin' his door; but he's doin' a lot of worryin' about you, all right. What you been doin' besides courtin' Pop an' Andy Jackson, washin' gravel an' ketchin' fish?"

Johnny laughed. "I've been playin' cautious—an' ​right now I ain't shore that I've fooled 'em a whole lot. Here, lemme tell you th' whole thing—" and he explained his activitives since leaving the CL.

At its conclusion Logan grunted. "You got nerve an' patience; an' mebby you got brains. If you can keep 'em from bein' shot out of yore head, you have. An' you say they ain't usin' Little Canyon? I know they ain't usin' it now; but was they?"

"Not since th' frost come out of th' ground," replied Johnny. "I can't tell you about what they are doin' because I'm just beginnin' to get close to 'em. Th' next time you see me I may know somethin'. Now you listen to me," and he gave the foreman certain instructions, which Logan repeated over after him. "Now, then: I want about sixty feet of rope strong enough to hold me, an' I want a short, straight iron."

"Come with me," ordered the foreman, slipping on his clothes; and in ten minutes they emerged from the blacksmith shop, which also was a storeroom, and Johnny carried a coil of old but strong rope and an iron bar.

"I never thought I'd be totin' a runnin' iron," he chuckled. "If my friends could only see me now! Johnny Nelson, cow-thief an' brand-blotter!"

"You needn't swell up," growled Logan. "You ain't th' only one in this country right now."

​"Well," said Johnny, "go back an' finish yore dream—mebby you can find out how to make them cows come back through Little Canyon."

"Yo're goin' to do that," responded Logan; "an 'I'm goin' to close that window in case you come back. I ain't forgot nothin' you said—an' if we don't see one of yore signs for a period of five days, we'll comb yore valley an' th' whole Twin Buttes country. So long!"

Johnny melted into the dark, a low whistle sounded and in a few minutes Logan heard the rhythmic drumming of hoofs, rapidly growing fainter.

CHAPTER VI

A MOONLIGHT RECONNAISSANCE

THE evening following his visit to the CL, Johnny went to bed early but not to sleep. For several hours he lay thinking and listening, and then he arose and put on his moccasins, threw on his shoulder Logan's rope, now knotted every foot of its length, slipped out of the cabin and was swallowed up in the darkness along the base of the rocky wall. To cover the few yards between the cabin and the narrow crevice took ten minutes, and to go softly up the crevice took twice as long.

Reaching the top he listened intently, and then moved slowly and silently to a small clump of pines growing close to the rim of the steep wall enclosing the walled-in pasture, at a point where it was so sheer and smooth that he believed it would not be watched. Fastening one end of the rope to a tree, he lowered the rest of it over the wall and went down. Pausing again to listen, he made his way to a line of stones which lay across the creek, crossed with dry feet, and reached the northern wall of the pasture. This could be climbed at half a dozen places and he soon was up it and on his way north. After colliding with ​several bowlders and tripping twice he waited until the moon arose and then went on again at a creditable speed.

The crescent moon had risen well above the tops of Twin Buttes when a man in moccasins moved cautiously across a high plateau some miles north of Nelson's creek and finally dropped to all fours and proceeded much more slowly. From all fours to stomach was his next choice and he wriggled toward the edge of the plateau, pausing every foot or so to remove loose stones. These he put aside before going on again, for there is no telling where a rolling pebble will stop, or the noise it may make, when the edge of a mesa wall is but a few feet away. Coming to within an arm's length of the edge, he first made sure that the rim was solid rock and free from dirt and pebbles; and then, hitching forward slowly, he peered down into the deep valley.

Its immensity amazed him, for upon the occasion of his former reconnaissance he had viewed it from the outside; and as a picture of his own pasture flashed into his mind he snorted softly at the contrast, for where he had acres, this great "sink" had square miles. It was wider than his own was long, and it stretched away in the faint moonlight until its upper reaches were lost to his eyes. It was large enough to hold one great butte in its middle, and perhaps there ​were more; and from where he lay he judged the wall below him dropped straight down for three hundred feet.

"There ain't no line ridin' here, unless th' cows grow wings," he muttered.

To the south of him were four lighted windows near the forbidding blackness of the entrance canyon, and from their spacing he deduced two houses. And across from the windows he could make out a vague quadrangle, which experience told him was the horse corral. As if to confirm his judgment there came from it at that moment a shrill squeal and the sound of hoofs on wood, muffled by the distance. And from the corral extended a faint line which ran across the valley and became lost in the darkness near the opposite cliff. This he knew to be a fence.

"If this valley ends like it begins, three or four men can handle an awful lot of cows, 'cept at drive time," he soliloquized, and then listened intently to the sound of distant voices.

⁠.... many happy hours away,
A sittin an' a singin' by a little cottage do-o-r,
Where lived my darlin' Nel-lie Gr-a-ay,

came floating faintly from far below him.

He peered in the direction of the singing and barely made out a moving blot well out in the valley. As it ​came steadily nearer, the blot resolved itself into several dots, and the chorus had greater volume. It appeared that the group was harmonizing.

"You'll be doin' somethin' more than sittin' an' singin' at yore little cottage door one of these days," grunted Johnny savagely. It was his rebuff to the thought which came to him of how long it had been since he had ruined the silence in company with his friends. "That first feller is purty good; but one of 'em shore warbles like a sick calf."

Several other dots arose suddenly from the earth and lumbered sleepily away as the horsemen appreached them.

"There's some of Logan's cows, I reckon," grunted the watcher grimly. "Wish I could see better. I've got to do my prospectin' in daylight; an' I got to find some way to ride over here—waste too much time on foot."

More squealing came from the corral and grew in volume as other horses joined in it. From the noise it appeared to be turning into a free-for-all. A door in one of the distant houses suddenly opened and framed a rectangular patch of light, dull and yellow; and from it emerged a bright little light which swung in short, jerky arcs close to the ground and went rapidly toward the corral. Soon thereafter the squealing ceased and a moment later the little light went ​bobbing back again, blotted out in rhythmic dashes by the swinging legs beside it.

"Big Jerry fightin' again," laughed one of the horsemen during a pause in the singing. Johnny barely was able to hear him.

⁠Oh my darlin Nellie Gra-a-y, they have taken her awa-a-y;
An' I'll never see my darlin' any more—any more!

rumbled the harmonizers, bursting into a thundering perpetration on the repetition of the last two words.

"Th' farther off they get th' better they sound," growled Johnny as the harmonizers were swallowed up in the darkness near the opposite cliff. "They'd sound better at about ten miles."

Lying comfortably on his stomach, his head out over the rim of the wall, he was lost in thought when a sudden, startled snort behind him nearly caused him to go over the edge. A contortionist hardly could have changed ends quicker than he did; he simply went up in the air and when he came down again he was on hands and knees, one foot where his head had been. But he did not stop there; indeed, he did not even pause there, for he kept on moving until he was on his feet, his knees bent and his head thrust forward, and each hand, without conscious direction, held a gun. And almost instantly they chocked back into the holsters.

​A gray shape was backing slowly into the shadows of a bowlder, two green eyes boring through the gloom, and Johnny's hair became ambitious.

"I dassn't shoot, I dassn't run, an' I can't back up! All right; when in doubt try a bluff; but I shore hopes it's th' bluffin' kind!"

He emitted a throaty, ferocious snarl, dropped the tips of his fingers to the earth and started for the bowlder and the green eyes, on a series of back-humping, awkward jumps, like a weak-kneed calf cavorting playfully. Another snort, curious, incredulous, frightened, came from the bowlder and a great gray wolf backed off hastily, but with a hesitating uncertainty which was not as reassuring as might be hoped for.

Johnny let out another snarl, more terrifying than the first, humped his back energetically, waved his legs, and then with a low-toned but blood-curdling shriek, leaped at the wavering cow-killer. The gray silhouette lengthened and vanished, simply melting into the darkness as though it had urgent business elsewhere.

Johnny arose, a rock in his hand, and sighed with relief; and his ambitious hair settled back again into its accustomed place while the prickling along his spine died out.

"Holy smoke! What if it had been half-starved, or a grizzly! Blast you!" he growled, shaking a vengeful fist at the presumed locality of the wolf. ​"You just come snortin' around my valley! I'll shoot yore insides all over th' landscape!"

Hanging onto the rock, he readjusted his belts and went nearer the entrance canyon to get a closer view of the houses and surroundings. When again he looked over the edge of the precipice he was directly over the corral and across from the houses, which the rays of the moon, slanting through a break in the opposite cliff, now faintly revealed.

There were three houses and they were low, long and narrow, and built of stone, with the customary adobe roofs; and they were built in echelon, the three end walls appearing as one from the canyon. He nodded appreciatively, for it required no great imagination to see, in his mind's eye, the loopholes which undoubtedly ornamented that end of the houses. The narrow canyon, straight as an arrow and fully half a mile long, lay at almost perfect right angles to the three walls. A handful of determined men, cool and accurate, in those houses could hold the canyon against great odds while their food, water and ammunition held out. Moving his head, he caught a sudden glint, and peered intently to discover what had caused it. He moved again until he saw it the second time, and then he knew. A small trickle of water flowed from a spring back near the great wall, and it passed under one corner of each house.

​"That's purty good!" he ejaculated in ungrudging admiration. He was something of a strategist himself and he was not slow to pay respect to the handiwork of genius when he saw it. "Built 'em like steps so as to cover th' canyon from all three houses; an' diverted that little stream so they could get water without showing themselves. No matter which side of them houses is rushed, there is allus three walls to face. Th' only weak spots are th' north an' south corners. If they ain't loopholed a good man could sneak right up to th' corner of th' end houses; but what he'd do after he got there, I don't know."

He studied the problem in silence and then nodded his head: "Huh! Them walls don't overhang, an' so they can't shoot down close to 'em. Mebby I've found th' weak spot—but I'll have to get a whole lot closer than I am now before I'm shore of it. An' that can wait."

He wriggled back from the wall and arose. "Seen all I can at night. Don't even know if these fellers are rustlin'. Bein' suspicious an' bein' shore ain't th' same. But th' next time I come up here I won't leave until I am shore, not if it takes all summer. Logan said to be shore to find out how many there are, their trail from his ranch an' th' place where they operates on th' CL. Says he's got to get 'em actually stealin' his cows on his ranch. Says he ain't got no friends ​out here and that th' other ranches acts like they was sort of on th' side of th' thieves. That's a h—l of a note, that is! Buck, an' Hoppy, an' us: we never gave a whoop where we found rustlers if they had our cows; an' we never gave two whoops in h—l what th' rest of th' country thought about it. Times have changed. Imagine us askin' anybody if we could shoot rustlers! Huh!"

He started back the way he had come up, and reached his own valley without incident; but when he wriggled toward the wall he was puzzled, and worried. There was the clump of pines up above him, ghostly in the faint moonlight; but he could see no rope. Thankful that he had been cautious in crossing the valley, he wriggled a little closer and then started back over his trail, recrossed the valley, climbed the other wall in the shelter offered by a crevice and slipped along the great ridge. All he cared about now was to get back into the cabin without being seen. All kinds of conjectures ran through his head concerning the absence of the rope, and while he thrashed them out he kept going ahead, careful to take full advantage of the wealth of cover at hand.

His senses were keyed to their highest pitch of efficiency and at times he concentrated on one of them at the expense of the others. While he used his eyes constantly, it was in his ears that he placed the most ​confidence. The man who does the moving about is at a disadvantage, which he keenly realized.

He did not mind so much being away from the cabin if he could make it appear to be innocent; and to that end he moved steadily toward the Hastings trail. His horse was not to be seen, and that worried him. It could have strayed, for he had neither picketed nor hobbled it, but he feared that it had not strayed.

Passing his old camp site he heard a noise, and flattened himself on the ground. It came again and from the edge of the clearing where he had spent his first few nights in the valley. Anyone foolish enough to make a noise, under the circumstances, was foolish enough to be stalked by any man who had good sense; and he proceeded to do the stalking.

It took him quite a while to get around back of the place where his tent had stood, but when he finally got there he was repaid for his time and trouble. It was not the direction from which he would be expected, if the rustlers' suspicions were aroused; and there was a certain twisting path through the brush which was devoid of twigs and sticks.

Foot by foot he crept forward until he could see the big bowlder in the clearing, and then he paused as the sound was heard again, and he tried to classify it. A twig snapped, and then another sound made ​him nod quickly. It was a horse; that was certain; but could it be Pepper? While he pondered and listened to the slow, interrupted steps, a dark shape moved out from the deep shadows of the trees, pricked its ears, stretched out its head toward him, nickered softly and slowly advanced.

He stared in amazement, for while it was Pepper, the saddle was on her back; and when he had left the cabin the saddle was inside. But, was it, though? In a moment his mind had, marshaled in review before him all his acts of the previous day; all but one. Had he unsaddled the horse when he had ridden back from the upper end of his little valley? Of course he had; why should he have neglected to do such a thing as that? But, perhaps he hadn't. He swore under his breath and backed away, for the horse was coming nearer all the time. It was his saddle; he could tell that easily. And then all of his doubts cleared in a flash. When he had ridden in from the pasture he had started to remove the saddle, but when he thought of his boiling pots he had pushed the end of the cinch strap back under the little holding strap, and he had not shoved it home. Right now that cinch end should be sticking out in a loop. Craning his neck and shifting silently he managed to see it; and a chuckle escaped from him. He whistled softly, so softly that anyone a hundred feet away could ​not have heard it; but the horse heard it and nickered again. What fools these men were! Did her master think that she had to hear a whistle to know that he was about, when the wind was right and he was so close?

Pepper was a well-trained, intelligent animal, and Johnny knew it better than anyone else; and Pepper had a strong aversion to strangers, which he also knew; and knowing that, he was instantly assured that there were no strangers in the immediate vicinity because Pepper was thoroughly at her ease. The black head thrust forward into his face and the bared teeth snapped at him, whereupon he playfully cuffed the velvety nozzle. Pepper forthwith swung her head suddenly and knocked off her master's hat, and pretended to be in a fine rage.

"You old coyote!" chuckled Johnny, cuffing her again. "Cussed if you ain't th' most no-account old fool I ever saw. But I ought to be kicked from here to Hastings an' back again for leavin' that saddle on you all afternoon an' night. Will some sugar square it? Hey! Get out of my pocket—it's in th' shack," he laughed. And there was a note in his laughter that a horse of Pepper's intelligence might easily understand.

Mounting, he rode across the clearing, and when he reached the water course he followed it to his ​cabin. Pepper had given him the card he needed now for, in the saddle and careless of being seen, which was his best play, dangerous as it might be, he was riding home from an evening spent in Hastings. As to answering any questions about the dangling rope, he either would inform the curious that it was none of their business, or lie; and whether the lie would be a humorous exaggeration which could not possibly be believed, or adroit, plausible, and convincing would be a matter of mood.

Whistling softly he rode across the little plateau, stripped the saddle from Pepper, who waited until he returned with some sugar, and lit the lantern. Pepper was not the only member of that partnership whose nose was useful; and the faint odor of a vile, frontier cigar had lingered after its possessor had departed.

"Huh! We must 'a' swapped ends tonight; but I'll bet he's doin' more wonderin' than me. He thinks he's got a lead, findin' that rope. I know he didn't see me put it there, or go down it; an' I'll bet he don't know that I came back to it. He can watch an' be cussed."

CHAPTER VII

A COUNCIL OF WAR

CLEARING away the breakfast pans the following morning, Johnny did some soliloquizing.

"This is a nice little shack, but I ain't stuck on it a whole lot. Now that I've built it, I've got to use it or tip off my hand; an' as long as I use it they know where to find me. I've got to come back to it. At th' worst I can hold it against them for five days; an' then th' outfit'll be up here an' drive 'em off. But if it comes to trouble they won't let me get to it; they'll pick me off when I'm outside. They're gettin' more suspicious all th' time, too, judgin' from that missin' rope an' th' smell of that cigar. Nope; I don't like this shack a little bit. An' some night when I'm sneakin' back to it, suppose one of 'em is in it, waitin' for me? That wouldn't be nice. First chance I get I'll tote my tarpaulin an' some supplies out of here an' cache 'em some place not too far away."

Going into the little valley he was greatly surprised to see the rope hanging as he had left it, but he did not give it a second glance, and acted as though he was ignorant that it had been removed. He busied himself carrying firewood from the pile and heaping ​it up in the center of a cleared space, ready to be lit later on, and then removed the two saplings which made the gate to his rough fence and swung them aside so that they formed a V-shaped approach to the opening. Having performed these mysterious rites he passed the cabin, climbed up the crevice, recovered the rope, and returned. Carrying it into the house he carelessly closed the door behind him, went swiftly to the loose log in the rear wall and removed the things he had hidden behind it, rolling them up in the tarpaulin. Then he picked ravelings from an empty salt sack, tied them together and rolled them in the dirt on the floor until they matched it in color. After filling the water pails and chopping some firewood he took the gold pan and his rod and sought the creek, where he spent the rest of the day working and fishing.

Darkness found his supper dishes washed and put away, and, kneeling by the door, he stretched a string of weak ravelings across the opening, six inches above the sill. Cord not only would have been too prominent, but too strong; a foot would break the ravelings and never feel the contact. Whistling to Pepper, he took his saddle and the tarpaulin, stepped high over the door sill and in a few minutes was riding down the valley. Just before he came to the Hastings trail he threw the tarpaulin far into the brush without ​slowing the horse, and then, crossing the trail, plunged into the sloping draw which eventually became Little Canyon.

Pepper gingerly picked her way down the rough canyon trail without any directions from her rider, crossed the level, bowlder-strewn flat to the river, and stopped at the water's edge.

The Deepwater gurgled and swished, cold, swift, deep, and black, and Johnny shivered in anticipation of the discomforts due to be his for the next few hours. Unbuckling his belts, he slung them around his neck, and in his hat he placed the contents of his pockets. Giving Pepper a friendly and encouraging slap, he urged her into the river, a task which she did not like; but she overcame her prejudices against ice water and plunged in, swimming with powerful strokes. Emerging on the other bank they cantered briskly to the faintly beaten trail where Billy Atwood spent so many hours, and along it until a small, isolated clump of trees loomed up. There was a stump among them and on this Johnny placed a stone. Then he waited, shivering, until the moon came up.

A black blot arose hastily from the earth and became a cow. Two more near it also arose, and the three lumbered off clumsily, driven in the right direction by a horse that knew her work. It was her firm belief that cows had been put on earth to be ​bossed by her, and no matter how quickly they swerved she was always at the right place at the right time and kept them going as her master wished. She neither hurried them too fast nor pressed them too closely, for she knew that when a range cow is pushed too hard it is likely to go "on the prod" and change instantly from an easy-going, docile victim to a stubborn, vicious quadruped with no sense whatever and a strong yearning to use its horns.

It did not take long to get six cows to the edge of the Deepwater; but it took two hours of careful but hard riding, perseverance and profuse profanity to get them into the water. It was no one-man job, and with a horse that had less training than Pepper it might have proved to be an impossibility; but at last one cow preferred the water to being made a fool of, and when it went in the others reluctantly followed. Scrambling out on the farther bank they doubtless were congratulating themselves upon having escaped a pest, when the pest itself emerged behind them and drove them slowly but steadily toward Little Canyon. In it they went, and up it; and as they paused on the main trail to determine which way to go, the pest arrived and decided the question for them, drove them across it and into a small valley; and as day broke, six unhurried, placid cows wandered slowly into the crooked canyon and through the opening in the fence.

​Having changed the brands from the original CL to an equally sprawling GB, he returned to the cabin, unsaddled, and entered, stepping high over the sill. No one was there and nothing had been disturbed, but when he looked for the thread he found it snapped and lying on the floor.

Starting a brisk fire he hung his wet clothes before it on crude tripods made of sticks, hastily ate a substantial breakfast, fastened the shutter of the window, hung the gold pan over the closed door to serve as an alarm if anyone should enter, and in a few minutes was asleep.

Across the creek, high up on the great ridge, a man lay behind a bowlder, a rifle in his hands, and he kept close watch on the cabin. Waiting a reasonable length of time, he finally arose, waved his hand and settled down again, the rifle covering the cabin door. In the pasture another man emerged from a thicket and hurried toward the canyon, swearing softly when he saw the changed brands. It took no second sight to tell him what the original brand had been. Emerging from the canyon he paused, glanced up at his friend, who made a significant sign, debated something in his mind, and then, pulling out a notebook, scrawled something in it and tore out the page. Creeping softly he reached the cabin door, stuck the page on it and then hurried away to join his friend. ​They climbed the ridge and hastened northward, conversing with animation.

When they reached the canyon leading to their ranch a tall, rangy man advanced to meet them. "Well," he said, smiling: "what did you find out about the rope? An' what kept you so long?"

"We found out a-plenty," growled Ackerman angrily. "That feller ain't no prospector. I've said so all along. He don't know enough about prospectin' to earn a livin' on th' top of a pile of gold!"

His companion nodded quickly. "Jim's right; he's a rustler. Doin' it single-handed, on a small scale."

"I ain't nowise shore that rustlin' is his game, neither," said Ackerman. "If he is he's a new hand at it. I could rebrand them cows in just about half th' time it took him, an' do a better job. He's dangerous; an' he should 'a' been shot long before this. I can get him today," he urged.

"I don't doubt that; but I wouldn't do it," smiled Quigley. "An' I hope yo're shore he ain't Logan."

Jim swore. "Yes; but if he keeps on rustlin' he'll have Logan after him. An' that'll mean that we'll have to look sharp, an' mebby fight. You let me get him, Tom."

Quigley shook his head. "'Tain't necessary. All we got to do is let him know he ain't wanted. Steal his cows, burn his cabin; an' shoot near him a couple ​of times, until he realizes how easy we can shoot through him. But I ain't shore I want him drove away."

"Huh!" ejaculated Ackerman.

"Huh!" repeated Fleming foolishly.

"Well," drawled Quigley, "for one thing Logan's purty shore to begin missin' cows before long. What puzzles me is that he ain't missed 'em long ago. Then he'll begin watchin' his range nights."

"But he won't watch up there," interrupted Fleming. "He don't know about that ford."

"There's only two breaks in th' Barrier," continued Quigley, ignoring the interruption, "that are near Nelson's valley; an' they're th' first places Logan'll watch. They're Big an' Little Canyons. Some fine night Nelson will get caught or followed. Bein' a stranger, an' once workin' for th' CL, Logan will think he's got th' rustlers. He'll find signs that'll make him look in Nelson's pasture—if they ain't there naturally we'll put 'em there. They'll find his cabin an' his rebranded herd. When they go back again they'll reckon that th' rustlin' is all over; an' we'll still be in th' game, lettin' up a little for a while, an' be better off than ever. Savvy my drift?"

Ackerman shook his head savagely. "With them six cows, an' Logan missin' hundreds?" he sarcastically demanded.

​Quigley smiled patronizingly. "Findin' only a few won't mean nothin', except that he's driven off th' rest every time he has got a few together, an' sold 'em. Now if you was to take that notebook that's stickin' out of yore pocket, an' write in it some words an' figgers showin' that he's sold so many cows, an' what he got for 'em each time, it might help. We'll know when Logan's due, an' we can drop that book where he'll find it. You never want to kill anythin' till yo're shore it ain't goin' to be useful. There's one thing I'm set on: there ain't going to be no unnecessary killin'."

Ackerman laughed grimly. "Well, anyhow; I've started things. I left a note on his door tellin' him what to do."

"What did you write?" demanded Quigley.

Ackerman told him defiantly. "An' what's more," he added, "I'm goin' to do some pot-shootin' before long."

"Well," replied Quigley, "I'd rather drive him out, an' then watch him for a while. I ain't shore he can't be scared. Do you think he suspects he's bein' watched?"

"I don't think so," answered Fleming.

"I know he does!" snapped Ackerman. "Why does he paw around that gravel bed an' pertend that he's found gold in it? There ain't no gold there!"

​Quigley laughed. "He found gold, all right. Charley James saw it: an' he got it right there. He wanted Charley to take it in pay. I don't doubt that you know somethin' about prospectin' but 'gold is where it's found.'"

Ackerman thrust his head forward. "Gold in that gravel! H—l!"

"Charley saw it," grunted Quigley.

"Charley be d—d!" snorted Ackerman. He looked closely at Quigley and suddenly demanded: "What makes you so set ag'in us shootin' him?"

Quigley regarded him evenly. "There was a lot of talk when Porter was found dead. I told you all at th' time. Four men have got curious, come up in these hills an' never went out again. Twin Buttes has a bad name; an' th' next dead man that's blamed on us is goin' to make a lot more talk an' may stir up trouble.

"Now then: Pop knows that Nelson's up here, an' that means that everybody knows it. He saw me reach for my gun, an' heard me tell him to keep out of here. An' let me tell you Pop knows more about us than he lets on; an' he's as venomous as a snake when he gets riled. An' he ain't th' only one that knows things.

"Now we'll add it up: If we can scare Nelson away, or discourage him, he'll quit of his own accord; an' ​he won't talk because he knows that somebody knows he's been rustlin'." He turned on his heel. "Am I plain enough?"

"Wait a minute," called Ackerman. "That feller has got me worried. Mebby it would be reckless to let him disappear up here; but suppose I go on a spree in town when he's there? It's easy to start a fight with a gun-man, because he's got to toe th' mark. I can do th' job open an' above board, an' make it natural; an' that will keep us clear."

"Jim," smiled Quigley, "I don't want to lose you; an' if you pick a square fight with that man, th' even break that you demand in yore personal quarrels, we will lose you. I looked down his gun, an' I tell you that I didn't see him move. He's a gun man!"

Ackerman laughed. "We won't say anythin' about that. But if he did get th' worst of it in an even break an' a personal quarrel, would it hurt us up here? That's all I want to know."

Quigley thought deeply and made a slow and careful reply. "If it wasn't bungled I don't see how it could. You'd have to rile him subtle, make him declare war an' be th' injured party yoreself; an' you'd want witnesses. But don't you do it, Jim; not nohow. I got a feelin' that he's th' best man with a Colt in this section. Yo're a wizard with a six-gun; but you ain't good enough for him. When he's around yo're ​in th' little boy's class; an' I ain't meanin' no offense to you, neither."

Ackerman, hands on hips, stared at Quigley's back as he walked away. "Th' h—l you say!" he snorted wrathfully. "'Little boy's class,' huh?" He wheeled and turned a scowling face to his friend Fleming. "Did you hear that? I calls that rubbin' it in! I got a notion to take that feller's two guns away from him an' make Tom eat 'em! D—d if I don't, too; You ride to town with me an' I'll show you somethin' you won't never forget!"

It may not be out of place here to say that the time soon came when he did show Fleming something; and that Fleming never did forget it.

Mr. Quigley smiled grimly as he entered the house, for it was his opinion that Mr. Ackerman had no peer in his use and abuse of Mr. Colt's most famous invention. He hardly could ask Mr. Ackerman to sally forth and engage in a personal duel with a common enemy, for it would smack too much of asking a friend to do his fighting for him. He believed that leadership is best based when it rests upon the respect of those led. He had no doubt about the outcome of such a duel, for he implicitly believed that the stranger, despite his vaunting two guns, had as much chance against Mr. Ackerman's sleight-of-hand as an enraged rattler had against a cool and businesslike ​king snake. The appropriateness of the simile made him smile, because the rattler is heavily armed and calls attention to the fact, while the king snake is modest, unassuming, and sounds no war-cry. Two guns meant nothing to Mr. Quigley, because he knew that one was entirely sufficient in the hand of the right man.

He had carefully pointed out the way for Mr. Ackerman to proceed in such a situation, and then warned him in an irritating way not to go ahead. So now he sighed with relief at a problem solved, for his knowledge of Mr. Ackerman's character was based upon accurate observations extending over a long period of time.

CHAPTER VIII

FLEMING IS SHOWN

JOHNNY got up at noon, and when he saw the sign on his door its single word "Vamose" told him that the valley and the cabin were of no further use to him; that the time for subterfuge and acting a part was past. That the rustlers were not certain of his intentions was plain, for otherwise there would have been a bullet instead of a warning; and he was mildly surprised that they had not ambushed him to be on the safe side.

It now remained for him to open the war, and warn them further; or to pretend to obey the mandate and seek new fields of observation. Pride and anger urged the former; common sense and craftiness, the latter; and since he had not accomplished his task he decided to swallow his anger and move. Had he been only what he pretended to be, Nelson's creek would have seen some stirring times. As a sop to his pride he printed a notice on a piece of Charley's wrapping paper and fastened it on the door. Its three, short words made a concise, blunt direction as to a certain journey, popularly supposed to be the more heavily traveled trail through the spirit world. ​Packing part of his belongings on Pepper, he found room to sit in the saddle, and started off for an afternoon in Hastings, after which he would return to the cabin to spend the night and to get the rest of his effects.

When he rode into town he laughed outright at the sign on Pop's door, and he laughed harder when he saw another on Charley's door; and leaving his things behind Pop's saloon, he pushed on to Devil's Gap. At the ford he met the two happy anglers returning and they paused in mid-stream to hold up their catch.

"You come back with us," grinned Pop. "We'll pool th' fish an' have a three-corner meal. Where was you goin'?"

"To find you," chuckled Johnny. "I'm surprised at th' way you both neglects business."

"Comin' from you that makes me laugh," snorted Pop.

Charley grinned. "Did you see that whoppin' big feller I got? Bet it'll go three pounds."

"Lucky if it's half that," grunted Pop. "If I'd 'a' got that one I had hold of, we'd 'a' had a three-pounder, or mebby a four-pounder."

Charley snorted. "Who ever heard of a four-pound brook trout? Been a brown, now, it might 'a' been that big."

"Why, I caught 'em up to eight pounds, back East, when I was a kid!" retorted Pop.

​"Yo're a squaw's dog liar!" snapped Charley. "Eight-pound brook trout! You must 'a' snagged a turtle, or an old boot full of mud!"

"Bet you five dollars!" retorted Pop, bristling.

"How you goin' to prove it?" jeered Charley. "Call th' dead back to life to lie for you?"

"Reckon I can't prove it," regretted Pop. "But when a man hangs around with a liar he shore gets th' name, too."

"Nobody never called me a liar an' got off without a hidin'!" snapped Charley. "I may be sixty years old, but I can lick you an' yore whole fambly if you gets too smart!"

Pop drew rein, his chin whiskers bobbing up and down. "I'm older'n that myself; but I don't need no relations to help me lick you! Get off that hoss, if you dares!"

"Here! Here!" interposed Johnny. "What's th' use of you two old friends mussin' each other up? Come on! I'm in a hurry! I'm hungry!"

"I won't go a step till he says I ain't no liar!" snapped Charley.

"I won't go till he says I caught a eight-pound brook trout!"

"Mebby he did—how do I know what he did when he was a boy?" growled Charley, full of fight. "But I ain't no liar, an' that's flat!"

​"Who said you was, you old fool?" asked Pop heatedly.

"You did!"

"I didn't!"

"You did!"

"Yo're a liar!"

"Yo're another!"

"Get off that hoss!"

"You ain't off yore own yet!"

Johnny was holding his sides and Pop wheeled on him savagely. "What th' h—l you laughin' at?"

"That's what I want to know!" blazed Charley.

"Come on, Charley!" shouted Pop. "We'll eat them fish ourselves. It's a fine how-dy-do when age ain't respected no more. An' th' next time you goes around callin' folks liars," he said, shaking a trembling fist under Johnny's nose, "you needn't foller us to do it on!"

Down the trail they rode, angrily discussing Johnny, the times, and the manners of the younger generation.

When Johnny arrived at the saloon and tried the door he found it locked. He could hear footsteps inside and he stepped back, chuckling, to wait until Pop had forgiven him; but after a few minutes he gave it up and went around to try the window of a side room.

​"What you think yo're doin'?" inquired a calm voice behind him.

He wheeled and saw a man regarding him with level gaze, and across the street was a second, who sat on one horse and held fast to another.

"Tryin' to get in for a treat," grinned Johnny, full of laughter. "Had a spat with Pop an' Charley, an' cussed if they ain't locked me out!"

The stranger showed no answering smile. "That so?" he sneered. "Reckon you better come along with me, 'round front, till I hears what Hayes has to say about it. I don't believe he's home."

Johnny's expression changed from a careless grin to an ominous frown. "If you do any walkin' you'll do it alone."

Several people had been drawn to the scene and took in the proceedings with eager eyes and ears, but were careful to keep to one side. Jim Ackerman had a reputation which made such a location very much a part of discretion; and the two-gun man had been well discussed by Pop.

"I finds you tryin' a man's window," said Ackerman. "So I stopped to ask about it. As long as I've took this much trouble I'll go through with it. You comin' peaceful, or must I drag you around?"

"Mebby that's a job you'd like to tackle?" replied Johnny.

​"I'm aimin' to be peaceful," rejoined Ackerman, his voice as smooth as oil; "but I allus aim to do what I say. You comin' with me?"

"If yo're aimin' to be peaceful, yo're plumb cross-eyed," retorted Johnny, slouching away from the wall.

Quick steps sounded within the building and a frightened, high-pitched voice could be heard. "Couple of bobcats lookin' for holts," it said. "That feller Nelson is pickin' on somebody else."

The window raised and Pop stuck his angry face out to see what was going on; and his wrinkled countenance paled suddenly when he saw Ackerman, and the look in his eyes. He had a trout in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, and both fell to the ground.

"Jumpin' mavericks!" he whispered. "It's Ackerman! What's wrong, Jim?" he quavered.

"You saved us a walk," replied Ackerman, not taking his eyes from the flushed face of his enemy. "I caught him tryin' to open that window."

Charley thrust his head out as Pop replied. "We was playin' a joke on him. It's all right, Jim. Much obliged for yore unusual interest."

"Well, I'm glad of that," smiled Ackerman; "but he looked suspicious an' I reckoned I ought to drag him around an' show you what I found tryin' to bust in. But if you say it's all right, why I reckon it is!"

"I reckon it ain't!" snapped Johnny, enraged at ​his humiliating position and at the way Ackerman accented his words. "An' if that itchin' trigger-finger of yourn wants to get busy it has my permission," he mimicked. "Pop," he said, sharply, "who is this buzzard?"

"No need to get riled over a thing like that," faltered Pop.

"Shut yore trap!" snapped Charley, battle in his eyes. "That's Ackerman, relative of Quigley's; th' best six-gun man in th' country."

"Thanks," growled Johnny, staring through narrowed lids at Ackerman, who stood alert, his lips twitching with contempt. "When a dog pesters me I kick him; if he snaps at me I shoot him. I'm goin' to kick you to yore cayuse an' yore friend." He had been sliding forward while he spoke and now they stood face to face, an arm's length apart.

Ackerman suddenly made two lightning-like movements. His left hand leaped out to block his enemy's right in its draw, while his own right flashed down to his gun. As his fingers closed on the butt, Johnny's heavy Colt by some miracle of speed jabbed savagely into the pit of the scheming man's stomach with plenty of strength behind it, and Ackerman doubled up like a jackknife, his breath jolted out of him with a loud grunt. Johnny's right hand smacked sharply on his enemy's cheek, left vivid finger marks, which flashed ​white and then crimson, and continued on down; and when it stopped a plain, Frontier Colt peeked coyly from his hip at the surprised and chagrined gentleman across the street, who had been instructed to remain a noncombatant; and had no intention, whatsoever, of disobeying Ackerman's emphatic order. To reveal his status he quickly raised his hands and clasped them on the top of his hat, which is a more comfortable position than holding them stiffly aloft.

Ackerman was dazed and sick, for the solar plexus is a peculiarly sensitive spot, and his hands instinctively had forsaken offense and spasmodically leaped to the agonized nerve center.

"Turn around!" snapped Johnny viciously. "Pronto! There's dust on th' seat of yore pants."

Ackerman groaned and obeyed, and the hurtling impact of a boot drove him to his hands and knees.

"Get agoin'!" ordered Johnny, aflame with anger, slipping the right hand gun back into its holster and motioning with the other.

Ackerman, his eyes blazing, started on his humble journey, assisted frequently by the boot; and having crossed the street, he paused.

"Get up on that cayuse!" crisply ordered Johnny, making motions which increased the mounted man's uneasiness.

The further Ackerman had crawled the angrier he ​had become, and tears of rage streaked the dust on his face. At Johnny's last command and the kick which accompanied it, his good sense and all thought of safety left him. He arose with a spring, a berserker, trembling with rage, and reached for his gun with convulsive speed while looking into his enemy's weapon with unseeing eyes. There was a flash, a roar, and a cloud of smoke at Johnny's hip, and a glittering six-shooter sprang into the air, spinning rapidly. Ackerman did not feel the shock which numbed his hand, but leaped forward straight at his enemy's throat. Johnny swerved quickly and his right hand swung up in a short, vicious arc. Ackerman, too crazed to avoid it, took the blow on the point of his jaw and dropped like a stone.

Johnny stepped back and looked evilly at the man on the horse.

"Gimme yore gun, butt first. Thanks. You work for Quigley?"

The other nodded slowly.

"Friend of this hombre?"

"Yes; sort of."

"Then why didn't you cut in?"

"Why, I—I—" the other hesitated, and stopped.

"Spit it!"

"Well, I wasn't supposed to," coldly replied the horseman.

​"Then it was talked over?"

"Not particular. Jim does his own fightin', hisself."

"Good thing for Jim, an' you, too," retorted Johnny. "When it's crowded I can't allus be polite. Who put that sign on my door?"

"What sign?"

"I'm askin' you questions!" snapped Johnny, his eyes blazing anew.

"Dunno nothin' about it," answered the other.

"I reckon yo're a practiced liar," retorted Johnny. "But it don't make no difference. I'm leavin' th' valley, for I can't fight pot-shooters an' do any work at th' same time. Quigley don't own this country, an' you tell him that while he's boss of that little valley, I'm boss in this town. If him or any of his men come to town while I'm here I'll shoot 'em down like I would a snake. That means one at a time or all together; an' if he don't believe me, you tell him I'll be here all day tomorrow. There ain't no bushes in town, an' none of yore gang can fight without 'em. Now you say to him that I don't want no remarks made about what I was doin' up there—you savvy that? If I hear of any I'll slip up there some night an' blow him all over his shirt. An' d—n you, I mean it!"

Ackerman stirred and sat up, looking around in a dazed way. When his eyes fell on Johnny they lost ​their puzzled look and blazed again with rage. He reached swiftly to his holster, found it empty, and shrugged his shoulders.

Johnny regarded him coldly. "Get on that cayuse, an' start goin'. This town ain't big enough for both of us at once."

Ackerman silently obeyed, but his face was distorted with passion. When he had clawed himself into the saddle he looked down on the grim master of the situation.

"Words are foolish," he whispered. "We'll meet again!"

Johnny nodded. "I reckon so. Everybody plays their cards accordin' to their own judgment. Just now I got a high straight flush, so you hit th' trail, pronto!"

He stepped aside to get out of the dust-cloud which suddenly swirled around him, and watched it roll northward until the dim figures in it were lost to sight around a bend. The slouch went out of his bearing as he straightened up and slid his gun into its holster, and walking over to Ackerman's glittering six-shooter he picked it up and sneered at it.

"I ain't surprised," he laughed, eying the ivory handle and the ornate engraving. Wheeling abruptly he glanced carelessly at the grinning audience and strode to the door of Pop's saloon.

​"I'll be d—d!" sputtered Pop, his eyes still bulging.

"Reckon you will," laughed Johnny, "unless you mends yore sinful ways."

"What you been doin' to make Jim Ackerman pick a fight with you?" demanded Pop, recovering his faculties and his curiosity at the same instant.

"Here's his gun; an' here's his friend's," said Johnny. "Keep 'em for 'em. They plumb went off without 'em."

Pop openly admired Ackerman's weapon. "Bet that cost a heap," he remarked. "Ain't she a beauty?" He rubbed energetically at a leaden splotch on the cylinder.

"It was in good company," replied Johnny.

"You got to look out for him," Pop warned. "He's a bad Injun." Then he grinned suddenly. "But he come d—d near bein' a good Injun!"

"Hey!" called a peeved voice from within. "If you reckon I'm goin' to clean all these fish myself, you better copper yore bets." Footsteps approached the door and Charley roughly elbowed Pop aside. "That means you, too, Nelson," he growled. "What you mean, hangin' back at th' ford? Figger we'd have 'em all cleaned before you arrove? Well, if you aim to eat any of 'em, you grab holt of a knife an' get busy!" He shuffled back into the room again, ​muttering "Cripes! I'm fish from my head to my heels, an' bloody as a massacre. An' what's more, I ain't goin' to clean another d—d one, not nohow!"

CHAPTER IX

A SKIRMISH IN THE NIGHT

SAYING good night to his two friends, Johnny rode north along the trail, but he had not ridden more than half way to the mouth of his valley when he swung Pepper into an arroyo which he knew led to the south side of the butte behind his cabin. While heavily fringed with brush and trees it was open enough along the dry bed of the stream to permit him to push on at fair speed, and while there were rocks and bowlders in plenty, Pepper easily avoided them in the soft moonlight and went on with confidence. At last, reaching a fork, he chose the right-hand lead and pushed on more slowly for a few minutes, and then, picketing the horse, he slipped out of his chaps and boots and put on the pair of moccasins which had been hidden under the saddle flaps. Taking the rifle from the long scabbard, he slung it across his back and slipped noiselessly up the ravine.

Half an hour later he stopped suddenly and sniffed, and then glanced quickly around him. The smoke was very faint, but it was something to think about because it meant either men close at hand or a forest fire. Going on again, even more slowly, he began ​to take advantage of cover, and as he proceeded the smoke became steadily stronger. A sudden suspicion made him set his jaws, for he was going straight up wind and toward his cabin. Stopping a moment to consider, he turned sharply to his left and went on again, a Colt swinging loosely in his left hand. Anything close enough to be seen plainly would be near enough for the Colt, and in such poor light the six-shooter was more accurate in his hands than a rifle.

The only things about him which he could hear were the holsters, which rubbed very softly as he walked, but the sound would not carry for any distance. Having gone around the little valley near his cabin, he crawled along below the ragged skyline of the ridge and reached a point close to the cabin, when he suddenly dropped to his stomach and flattened himself to the earth.

Some restless, gambling soul could not do without a cigarette and he had detected its faint odor in time. Turning his head slowly, he sniffed deeply and swore under his breath, for he was going partly with the wind, which meant that the smoker must be somewhere behind him. Then a gentle breeze, creeping along the ridge in a back-draft, brought to him the strong and pungent odor of the fire; and he nodded in quick understanding.

The back-draft told him that the smoker was in ​front of him and cleared up one danger; but it also had blotted out the odor of the cigarette, and as he started forward again he put his faith in his eyes and ears. Slowly he moved along, a few feet at a time, and then he caught the brief and fragrant odor again. Worming around a great, up-thrust slab of lava he stopped suddenly and held his breath. A speck of fire, faint through the clinging ashes, moved in a swift, short arc, became brighter and moved back again, a gleaming dot of red. He could see the hand and part of the arm of the man who had just knocked the ashes from a cigarette in a characteristic and thoughtless gesture. He was sitting just around the corner of a huge bowlder not far away, his back to it, and a dull gleam of reflected moonlight revealed the end of his rifle.

From where he now lay Johnny could see the smoldering ruins of his cabin, where the flames were low and the flying sparks but few. A little current of air fanned the ashes for a few minutes and sent the sparks swirling and dancing, and the flickering, ghostly flames licking upward with renewed life. The increased light, fitful as it had been, brought a smile to his face; for he had caught sight of a pair of spurred boots projecting beyond a rock not far from the glowing embers.

"Ah, th' devil!" muttered the man near him. "I'm goin' home. He's scared out."

​The speaker arose and stretched, and grumblingly leaned over to pick up his sombrero, the moon lighting his hair; and he suddenly crumpled forward and sprawled out without a groan as Johnny's Colt struck his head.

The owner of the spurred boots, down behind the rock near the cabin, wriggled backward and looked up to see what had made the noise, caught sight of a dim, ghostly figure moving past a bowlder and called up to it.

"Come on, Ben; let's get goin'. Where's Fleming?"

"Thanks to my fool idea of strategy," said a peeved voice high above the cabin, "which I borrowed from our doughty friend, Mr. Ackerman, I'm up here, smoked up like a ham. I ain't stuck on this. Shootin' a good man from ambush never did set well on my stummick. Reckon Ben's asleep, like a reg'lar sentry; he didn't have th' cussed smoke to make things interestin' for him. Hey, Ben!" he called, wearily.

"No use yellin'," warned Spurred Boots earnestly. "He ain't asleep. I just saw him move. Up to some of his fool jokes, I reckon; an' it's a d—d poor time to play 'em. I'm a little nervous, an' might shoot without askin' any questions. Comin' down?"

"Yo're just whistlin' I am," growled Fleming. "It's all fool nonsense, us three watchin' an' waitin' to ​shoot that feller. When he finds his shack burned an' his rustlin' business busted up, he'll move out without us pluggin' him. D—n it! Didn't he say he was done? But you just listen to th' mockin' bird: If there's any shootin' to be done, he'll do his little, two-handed share. I've been eddicated today; done had a superstition knocked sprawlin'. An' so did Jim get eddicated. He made his play for that feller's right hand, when d—d if he ain't left-handed. It made Jim near sick; for a minute I was scared he'd lose his dinner. An' I allus believed left-handed men came in third by two lengths; but lawsy me! What? I'm insulted! I said lawsy."

"You shore can talk!" admired Spurred Boots. "Sometimes a cussed lot too much. What in blazes is Ben doin'?" he asked petulantly, stiffly arising and working his arms and legs.

"Fixin' to jump out on us from behind a rock, an' yell 'Boo!'" grunted Fleming. "Ben, he's an original feller; allus was, even as a kid. D—n these thorns." A thin stream of profanity came from the crevice and Fleming slid down the rest of the way and rolled out into the circle of illumination. "Just like water down a chute, or a merry-hearted bowlder down a hill. Roll, Jordan, roll. Was you askin' about Benjamin, th' catcher of lightning? Benjamin Franklin Gates, his name is; an' he's done gone home. He's ​a sensible feller, B. F. G. is; but only in spots, little spots, widely spaced."

"You talk as much as Jim Howard's wife," grumbled Spurred Boots. "Jim he said—"

"Of course he did! wasn't it awful?" interposed Fleming. "It was just like a man. But I think it was me that told you that story; so we'll let it keep its secret. As I was sayin', getting in my words edgeways like, but shore gettin' 'em in: Ben has pulled th' picket stake, an' like th' Arabs, done went."

"You mean Arapahoes."

"Did I? I allus call 'em that for short. Have mercy, Jehovah!"

"I saw him move just before I spoke," replied Spurred Boots positively. "But that was a long time ago, before th' deluge, of words," he jabbed ironically.

"Cease; spare thy whacks. An' where th' h—l did you ever hear of th' deluge? Some Old Timer tell you about it?" responded Fleming. "I been seein' things, too. All kinds of things. Some had tails but no legs; some had legs but no tails; an' to make a short tale shorter, that was a ghost what you saw. A wild, woopin', woppin' ghost. Come on, Nat; let's flit."

"Then my ghost lit a cigarette a long time back," retorted Nat Harrison. "An' then it said 'flop.' Do ​they smoke cigarettes?" he demanded with great sarcasm.

"Some does; an' some smokes hops; an' some smokes dried loco weed," grinned Fleming. "That was a spark what you saw, an' th' musical flop was a trout fish turnin' cartwheels on th' water. One of them sparks plumb lit on th' back of my neck, an' I cussed near jumped over th' edge an' made a 'flop' of my own for myself. An' it's a blamed long walk home," he sighed.

"There's th' lightnin's play-fellow now! See him, up there?" demanded Harrison. "Must 'a' been off scoutin'. Hey, Ben! Wait for us—be right up."

Fleming glanced up as another vagrant breeze fanned the embers, and he forthwith did several things at once, and did them quite well. Sending Harrison plunging down behind a rock by one great shove, he jumped for another and fired as he moved. "Ben h—l!" he shouted, firing again. "I've seen that hombre before today. Keep yore head down, an' get busy!"

Two alert and attentive young men gave keen scrutiny to the ridge and wondered what would happen next. Thirty minutes went by, and then Harrison rolled over and over, laughing uproariously.

"Cussed if it ain't funny!" he gurgled. "'Some smoke cigarettes, some smokes hops, an' some smokes ​dried loco weed!' Ha-ha-ha! An' I reckon yo're still seein' them woopin' woops."

"You'll see somethin' worse if you moves out into sight," retorted Fleming. "That ghost that I just saw was a human that ain't got to th' ghost state yet. If you don't believe me, you ask Ackerman, if you've got th' nerve."

Harrison rose nonchalantly and sauntered over toward the embers. "Come on, Art; I'm cussed near asleep," he yawned.

"You acts like you was plumb asleep, an' walkin' in it," snapped Fleming angrily. "But it's a good idea," he admitted ironically. "You stay right there an' draw his fire, an' I'll pull at his flash. You make a good decoy, naturally; it comes easy to you. A decoy is an imitation. Stand still, now, so he can line up his sights on you. I'm all ready."

Harrison grinned and waved his hand airily. "There ain't no human up there," he placidly remarked. "An' I don't care if Benjamin F. is there: she goes as she lays. What you saw was a bear or a lobo or a cougar come up to see th' fire, an' hear you orate from th' mountain top. They'll go long ways to see curious things. In th' book, on page eighteen, it says that they has great streaks of humor, an' a fittin' sense of th' ridiculous. Animals are awful curious about little things. An' on page thirty-one it says ​they has a powerful sense of smell; an' you know you was up purty high. An' I ain't lookin' forward with joy unconfined to gropin' along no moonlit trail with th' boss of th' wolf tribe, or other big varmits sneakin' around. I might step on a tail an' loosen things up considerable. They're hell on wheels when you steps on their tails, poor things."

"La! La!" said Fleming sympathetically. "Just because you have got yore head out of th' window it don't say you ain't goin' to get no cinder in yore eye. A lead cinder. Lemme tell you that animal wore pants an' a big sombrero. I tell you I saw him!"

"It was one of them sparks," grunted the other, enjoying himself. "One of 'em that plumb lit on th' back of yore neck. A spark is a little piece of burnin' wood which soars like th' eagle, an' when it comes down makes sores like th' devil. Te-de-dum-dum! Howsomeever, if yo're goin' with me, yo're goin' to start right now—I've done it already," and he walked slowly toward the creek.

Fleming arose and hesitated, scanning the ridge with searching eyes. Then he stepped out and followed his friend, who already was across the creek and climbing the steep bank.

After reaching the top of the steep part of the ridge he glanced about over the great slope and then paused for breath and reflection, peering curiously ​toward the tree-shaded hollow where he had seen the much-debated movement. Obeying a sudden impulse he drew his gun and went cautiously forward, bent low and taking full advantage of the cover. A deep groan at his side made him jump and step back. Cautiously peering over a large rock he started in sudden surprise, swearing under his breath. Benjamin Franklin Gates, neatly trussed and gagged, lay against the rock on its far side, and his baleful eyes spoke volumes. There came a soft step behind Fleming and he wheeled like a flash, his upraised gun cutting down swiftly, and came within an ace of pulling the trigger at Harrison, who writhed sideways and snarled at him. Then Harrison also saw the bound figure on the ground and swore with depth, feeling, and vigor.

"Smokes dried loco weed!" he jeered sarcastically, his voice barely audible. "I feels uncomfortable, entirely too present," he whispered, sinking quietly to the ground.

"Which is unanimous," remarked Fleming, with simple emphasis. "Ben, he ain't sayin' nothin'," he added cheerfully.

An angry gurgle came from the bound figure and it rolled over to face them. Harrison grinned at it. "Under other circumstances I could enjoy this unusual situation," he remarked softly.

"Face to face with Ben, an' him not sayin' a word," ​marveled Fleming, his eyes busy with the rock-strewn slope. "But I can almost hear him think. Twinkle, twinkle, little star—wonder where Mr. Two-gun Nelson is located at this short, brief, an' interestin' second?"

Another gurgle slobbered from the bound man and his heels thumped the ground.

"Hark!" said Harrison, tensely. "I hears me a noise!"

"I hears me it, too," said Fleming. "But not a word; not a soft, harsh, lovin', long, short, or profane word. Not even a syllable. Not even th' front end of a syllable. All is silent; all but that mysterious drummin' noise. An' if it was farther away I'd be quite restless."

A coughing gurgle and a choked snort came from the base of the rock, and then a louder, more persistent drumming.

"An' you said Benjamin had done snuk home," accused Harrison. "I'm surprised at you. He's been here all th' time. How could he snuk when he's hogtied, which is appropriate? Gurgle, gurgle, little man—I'll untie you if I can." He bent over, cut loose the gag, slashed the belt from the trussed feet and severed the neckerchief from the crossed wrists. "There! There! Not so loud!" he gently chided.

"Blankety dashed blank blank!" said Ben Gates. ​"Dashed blankety dashed blank blank! What th' h—l you want to cut that belt for, you dashed dashed blankety blank of a dash! Three dollars done gone to th' devil! Just because you got a blankety-blank knife do you have to slash every dashed-dashed thing you see!"

"Sh!" whispered Fleming. "We know yo're grateful; but what happened?" he breathed, too busy to look around.

"Shut yore face!" ordered Harrison, trying in vain to stare through a great, black lava bowlder which lay on the other side of a small clearing.

"Dashed blank! " said Benjamin. "It's been shut enough, you d—d pie-faced doodle-bug! "

"Yes; yes; we know," soothed Fleming; "but what happened?"

"Leaned over to get my blankety-blank hat and a dashed tree fell on my blank head!" He felt of the afore-mentioned head with a light and tender touch; and the generous bump made him swear again.

"It's that prospectin' rustler," enlightened Fleming, gratis, as he peered into the shadows behind him.

"No!" said Gates. "I reckoned it was General Grant an' th' Army of th' Potomac! Dead shore it wasn't Columbus?" he sneered.

"It was not Columbus, Benjamin," said Fleming. "Columbus discovered America in 1492 or ​1942—some time around there. Ain't you heard about it yet? An' somehow I feels like a calf bein' drug to th' brandin' fire. I feels that I'm goin' to get somethin' soon; an' I ain't shore just what it's goin' to be."

"You'll get it, all right," cheered Harrison, anger in his voice withal. "It'll be a snub-nosed .45, if you don't shut up yore trap. You ain't openin' no Fourth of July celebration, or runnin' for Congress."

Ben felt for his gun and cursed peevishly. "My guns are gone: lend me one of yourn!" he said.

"Th' gentleman has quite a collection," chuckled Harrison. "Three Colts an' a Winchester. Good pickin', says he. Good enough, says I. True, says he; but, he says, I have hopes of more. Ta-ta! jeers I."

"Shut yore face!" growled Fleming, writhing.

"I want a gun, an' I wants it now!" blazed Gates, pugnaciously.

"Fair sir, how many guns do you think we pack?" demanded Harrison.

"You got a rifle an' a Colt!" snapped Gates. "I wants one of 'em!"

"He only wants one of 'em," said Fleming.

"I was scared you'd be a hog," said Harrison. "Here; take this Winchester, an' keep it. Bein' generous is all right; but it has its limits."

Gates gripped the weapon affectionately and sat up. "No use of stayin' here like we done took root," he ​said, rising to his feet. "We wants to spread out. Mebby he's still hangin' around."

"Yes; an' shoot each other," growled Harrison. "I'm goin' to spread out, all right; an' when I quits spreadin' I'll be in my little bunk. He's a mile away by now; but if he ain't, don't you let him have that gun; he's got enough now."

He stopped suddenly, and their hair arose on their heads as a long-drawn, piercing scream rang out. It sounded like a woman in mortal agony and it came from the ridge above them. From the upper end of the rock-walled pasture below came a howl, deep, long-drawn, evil, threatening. They turned searching eyes toward the nearer sound and saw a crescent bulk silhouetted against the moon. It lay in the top of a blasted pine, and as they looked, it raised its chunky head and neck and screamed an answering challenge to the lobo wolf in the canyon.

Ben moved swiftly, and a spurt or flame split the night, crashing echoes returning in waves. The crescent silhouette in the tree-top leaped convulsively and crashed to the ground, breaking off the dead limbs in its fall, and then there ensued a spitting, snarling, thrashing turmoil as the great panther scored the earth in its agony.

Ben's friends forsook him as though he were a leper and melted into the shadows, cursing him from A to Z. ​They wanted no ringing notice of their presence broadcasted, and the flash and roar of the heavy rifle had done just that.

As they faded into the darker shadows farther back a crashing sounded in the brush and they peered forth to see the great panther plunging and writhing through the bushes, smashing its way through the oak brush in desperate plunges. Reaching the edge of a small clearing it gave one convulsive leap, another harrowing scream and thudded against a bowlder, where it suddenly relaxed and lay quiet.

"There's near a quart of corn juice up in my bunk, an' I'm goin' for it," said Harrison, moving swiftly up the rough trail. "I need it, an' I need it bad!"

"That cat's mate ain't fur away," remarked Fleming thoughtfully. "It's due hereabouts right soon. I'm stickin' closer than a brother, Nat. Lead me to th' fluid which consoleth, arouseth anger and dulleth pain; blaster of homes, causer of—of—headaches, d—n it! Ben, he's a great hunter, a wild, untamed, ferocious slayer of varmints; he can stay here an' argue with th' inquirin' mate, if he wants, while we wafts yonder an' hence. It won't be draped up in no tree, neither; somehow I can just see it sniffin' at th' beloved dead an' then soft-footin' through th' brush, over th' ridges an' around th' bowlders, its whiskers bristlin', its wicked little ears pointed back, an' its long, generous ​tail goin' jerk-jerk, tremble-tremble. Lovely picture. Fascinatin' picture. It is lookin' real hard for th' misguided son-of-a-gun that killed its tuneful mate. Nice kitty; pretty kitty; lovely kitty! I votes, twice, for that whiskey. I votes three times for that whiskey. Lead th' way, Nat; an' for my sake keep yore eyes peeled."

Quick, heavy steps behind them made them jump for cover, turning as they jumped, and to peer anxiously back along the trail.

Ben walked into sight, the rifle held loosely in front of him as he peered into the shadows. "You acts like you has springs in yore laigs," he derisively remarked.

"An' you acts like you had sour dough for brains," courteously retorted Harrison. "An' it's so sour it's moldy. Go away from here!"

"Yo're a great little, two-laigged success," sneered Fleming. "Reg'lar Dan'l Boone. I hopes if any gent ever trails me for my scalp it will be you. You wants to buy yoreself a big tin whistle an' a bass drum when you go out ambushin'!"

"I claims that was a good shot," complacently replied Ben. "What with it bein' near dark, an' a strange gun, an' my head most splittin', I holds it was. Must 'a' been to make you long-winded ijuts so d—d jealous."

"Trouble is, yore head didn't split enough," grumbled Harrison pleasantly. "It should 'a' been split ​from topknot to chin. Next time I goes man-huntin', you stays home with yore pretty picture books."

"Suits me," grunted Ben placidly. "Yore company hurts my ears, offends my nose, an' shocks my eyes. An' as for th' excitement, why I done got enough of that to—look out!" he yelled, firing without raising the gun to his shoulder.

An answering flash split the darkness between two bowlders further up the slope and Ben pitched sideways. His companions fired as if by magic; the instant return fire sent Harrison reeling backward. He tripped on a root and fell sprawling, the gun flying from his hand. Fleming leaped toward a huge rock, firing as he jumped, and slid behind the cover, where he sighed, and groped for his gun with trembling hands. Groans and muttered curses came from the trail, and Fleming, raising himself to a sitting position, his back against a rock, saw Harrison dragging himself toward his gun and a clump of brush.

"You stay where you are," said an ominous voice, "an' put up yore hands!"

Lying in a patch of moonlight, Harrison could do nothing but obey; but Fleming nerved himself and picked up his gun, still able to fight and only waiting for his enemy to show himself. Several minutes passed and then a hand darted over the rock and wrenched Fleming's gun out of the weak hand that held it.

​"You ain't goin' to get hurt no more if you acts sensible," said the new owner of the gun. "Where you hit?"

"Thigh an' shoulder," muttered Fleming weakly.

The stranger fell to work swiftly and deftly and in a short time he arose and moved toward the two men in the clearing. "You'll be all right after yore friends get you home," he said over his shoulder. Reaching the two figures on the trail he first took their guns and then looked them over.

"This feller with th' lump on his head is my old friend, th' smoker," said Johnny. "He's got a crease in his scalp. Barrin' a little blood an' a big headache, he'll be all right after a while. Where'd I get you?" he demanded of Harrison.

"Arm," grunted Harrison. "Through th' flesh. I done tripped an' fell—must 'a' near busted a rock with my fool head when I lit," he said, as if to explain his subsequent inaction. "We reckoned you'd left th' country till we found th' package you tied up an' left."

"I come back for th' rest of my stuff," replied Johnny. "I was scared to come up th' valley."

"You acts like you'd scare easy," admitted Harrison. "I'm sorry you ain't got more nerve," he grinned despite the pain in his arm.

"Here," said Johnny, squatting beside him, "lemme tie up that arm. I wasn't aimin' to shoot nobody till I ​was cornered," he grinned. "I heard what you fellers said, back in th' valley, an' that's why. I was plumb peaceful, tryin' to slip away, when that gent up an' let drive at me. Bein' in a pocket made by them fool bowlders I couldn't get out, so I had to cut down on you with both hands. Th' dark shadows helped me a lot; you couldn't see what you was shootin' at. An' anyhow, I owe him somethin'. I was under that tree when he up an' dumped that pleasant cougar down on top of me, right in my arms. Never was more surprised in all my life. An' to make matters worse, this is my best pair of pants."

"Show 'em to me!" begged Harrison.

Johnny stepped back for inspection and waved his hands at the trousers; and Harrison had to laugh at what he saw. What was left of them formed a very short kilt, and the underwear was torn into bloody strips.

Harrison wept.

"I'm pullin' my stakes," continued Johnny pleasantly. "This layout is too excitin' for a man of my bashful an' retirin' disposition. You can tell Quigley he don't have to set no more ambushes in that valley, an' also that th' first time I meet him I'm goin' to smoke him up with both hands. I'm honin' for to get a look at him, just a quick glance. Give my regards to yore friend Ackerman; his gun, an' that other feller's, is with Pop Hayes; ​but mebby they ought to wait till I leave th' country before they go in for 'em."

He turned on his heel and walked slowly away, with a pronounced limp, a present from the cougar. When he reached the edge of the clearing he paused and faced about.

"You two fellers will be all right in a little while, an' if you can't get yore friend home, you can send them that can. I'll take yore six-guns along with me so there won't be no accidents; but I'll leave this rifle over here on this rock, empty. Th' cartridges are on th' ground on th' other side of th' rock. That cougar's mate is some het up about now, I reckons, an' you may need it. Better not come for it for a couple of minutes. There's been enough shootin' already. Adios," and he was gone as silently as a shadow.

Harrison sat cross-legged and waited considerable more than two minutes and then walked slowly toward the rifle. As he picked it up there came a haunting scream and a rolling fusillade of shots from the south. Then a distant voice called faintly.

"I got th' mate, an' lost th' rest of my pants. Adios!"

"I'll be d—d!" grunted Harrison, going toward his friend at the rock. "That feller is one cheerful hombre; an' a white man, too. If I was Quigley, I'll bet four bits I wouldn't show my face in Hastings till he ​was a long way off. No, ma'am; not a-tall. Here, Art; you take th' gun till I go back an' see how Dan'l Boone is comin' along. He's a rip-snortin', high-class success, he is! I'll bet you he'll brag about droppin' that cougar, you just wait an' see. Hello, you wild jackass! How you feel!"

"You can go to h—l" snorted the man with the creased scalp, sitting up. "An' I don't care a cuss when you starts, or how you goes. I'm fond of excitement, thrive on it an' get fat; but I serves notice, here an' now, that I'm quittin'. Any man that takes th' trail with you two fools is a bigger fool. Great guns! I won't have no head left after a while!"

"You never did have one that amounted to anythin'," said Harrison cheerfully. "I admit that it's a handy place to hang a hat, but when that is said, th' story is ended. Amen. You set right where you are till you are able to walk, an' then we'll get Art home."

"Takin' Art home is what we should 'a' done long ago; we're doin' this thing backwards, th' d—n fool!" moaned Ben. "We'd 'a' been home long ago if it wasn't for him."

"Huh?" muttered Harrison. "Well, I'll be d—d! Say! If it wasn't for you pluggin' that cat we'd 'a' been home, whole an' happy, sleepin' th' sleep of th' innercent, When you got that bright idea, you shore touched off a-plenty. He was pullin' his stakes, aimin' to get ​out peaceful, when you dumped that panther right down plumb around his neck! Man! Man! But I wish I'd 'a' seen that! Benjamin, if you only knowed what I'm thinkin' about you! Words ain't capable of revealin' my thoughts; they fall far short; an' if I used enough words I'd strain my vo—vocabulary, till it never would be any good any more. An' I can only swear in English, Spanish, Navajo, an' Ute. An education must be a grand thing."

"Th' breaks was ag'in us," explained Benjamin.

"Lord, please hold me back!" prayed Harrison.

Well to the south of them a limping cow-puncher, with no trousers at all now, and blood-soaked strips of underwear pasted to his torn and bleeding legs, pushed doggedly toward his horse, swearing at almost every painful step and avoiding all kinds of brush as he painstakingly held to the middle of the dried bed of the creek. His shirt tail, cut into ragged strips, flapped in the cold breeze where not held down by the weight of the sagging belts and holsters; and in his hands he carried the captured Colts.

Reaching his horse he fastened the extra weapons to his saddle, carefully drew on his chaps, coiled up the picket rope and climbed gingerly astride.

"Come on, Pepper!" he growled "Pull out of this. I got a pair of pants wrapped up in that tarpaulin at th' mouth of th' valley; an' I wants 'em bad. You ​shore missed somethin' this evening you lucky old cow!"

When day broke it revealed a shivering, grumbling cow-puncher washing his cuts and gashes in the cold, pure water of Nelson's creek. Retiring to the pebbly bank, he tore up a clean shirt and used it all for bandages, after which he carefully drew on a pair of clean underdrawers and covered them with a pair of well-worn trousers. The chaps came next as a protection against whipping branches and clinging brush. Rolling up the tarpaulin he fastened it behind his saddle and, mounting stiffly, started for Hastings.

Some hours later he lolled at ease and related to the grinning proprietor the strange and exciting occurrences of the night. Pop was swung from one extreme to the other as the tale unfolded, while Andrew Jackson chuckled, whistled, and laughed until the narrator's scratching fingers lulled him into a deep and soul-stirring ecstasy.

"You shore started some fireworks," chuckled Pop when the tale was finished. "An' yo're cussed lucky, too. When Ackerman showed his hand yesterday I knowed trouble was fixin' to ride you to a frazzled finish. Now what d—d fool thing are you goin' to do?" he demanded anxiously.

"I'm goin' to keep out of that valley," reluctantly answered Johnny. "It ain't got no charms for me no ​more. They've burned my cabin, an' I reckon I got all th' gold there was, anyhow. When my legs get well I'm goin' to try it again somewhere else. Twin Buttes are too unlucky for me."

"Now yo're shoutin'," beamed Pop. "You just set around here an' take things easy for a few days, while me an' Charley fixes that tarp so it'll be a pack cover an' a tent that is one. No prospector wants to build a shack unless winter ketches him in th' hills or he finds a rich strike. Me an' you an' Charley will go fishin' a few days from now an' have a reg'lar rest. I'm all tired out, too. Business is shore confinin'." He looked Johnny over and chuckled. "Cussed if I wouldn't 'a' give six pesos, U. S., to 'a' seen that cougar a-fannin' you! He-he-he!"

CHAPTER X

A CHANGE OF BASE

JOHNNY, upon leaving Hastings, struck south from it and spent the night west of the Circle S after a journey of twenty miles on foot. Pepper was again a pack horse, and the diamond hitch which held the bulging tarpaulin in place would have dispelled any doubt as to Johnny's abilities to cut loose from civilization and thrive in the lonely places. And he had cut loose when he placed a note under a rock behind a certain tree near the ford; for when "Hen" Crosby, riding for the mail, saw the agreed-upon sign on the tree, it would not be long before Logan had the note.

Following the line of least resistance, the second day found him bearing westerly, and the next three days found him crowding the pack on Pepper's back and riding due north through a country broken, wild, and without a trail. The way was not as difficult as it might have been because the valleys joined one another, and through them all flowed creeks, which made a trail that left no tracks. To an experienced man who had plenty of time the difficulties were more often avoided than conquered.

At noon of the fifth day he drove Pepper slantingly ​up the wall of a crumbling butte, and, reaching the top, looked around for his bearings. They were easily found, for Twin Buttes looked too much alike, even from the rear, to be easily mistaken; and they loomed too high to be overlooked. Almost on a direct line with the Twins lay Quigley's cabins, a matter of fifteen miles from him; which he decided was too far. That distance covered twice daily would take up too much time. Returning to the valley he built a fire, had dinner, and, hanging the edible supplies on tree limbs for safety, whistled Pepper to him and departed toward the Twins.

Two hours later he left the horse in a deep draw and crawled up the eastern bank. Crossing a bowlder-strewn plateau he not long afterward wriggled to the edge of Quigley's valley and looked down into it.

The size of the enclosed range amazed him, for it was fully thirteen miles long, eight miles across at its widest, the northern end, and three miles wide at the middle, where massive cliffs jutted far out from each side.

The more he saw of it the better he liked it. The grass was better and thicker than even that in the prized and fought-for valley of the old Bar-20. He judged it to contain about eighty square miles and believed that it could feed two hundred cows to the mile. The main stream, which he named Rustler Creek, flowed through ​a deep ravine and was fed, in the valley alone, by six smaller creeks. There was a sizable swamp and six lakes, one of them nearly a mile long. It was singularly free from bowlders and rocks except at a place near the upper wall, where a great collection of them extended out from a broken cliff.

Except at three places the canyons which cut into the cliffs were blind alleys and he could see that two of them had narrow waterfalls at their upper ends. The three open canyons were the only places where cattle could leave the great "sink," as Johnny called it; and they were strongly fenced. The first was the entrance canyon, near the houses; the second was a deep, steep walled defile at the northwest corner of the range, and it led into another, but smaller valley, also heavily grassed. Through it ran a small stream which joined Rustler Creek at the swamp. The third canyon, at the northeast corner of the valley, was wide enough to let Rustler Creek flow through it and leave room for the passing of cattle; and judging by the gates in the heavy fence which crossed it, Johnny knew this to be the exit through which the drive herds went. Where that drive trail led to he did not know, but he believed it to pass well to the west of Hope.

Taking it all in all, it was the most perfect range he ever had seen. Rich in grass so heavy and thick as to make him wonder at it, naturally irrigated, ​blessed with natural reservoirs, surrounded by a perpendicular wall of rock which at some places attained a height of three hundred feet, the water courses lined with timber, its arroyos and draws heavily wooded, and with but three places, easily closed and guarded, where cattle could get out, it made the Tin Cup and the Bar-20, large as they were, look like jokes. Its outfit could laugh at rustlers, droughts, and blizzards, grow fat and lazy and have neither boundary disputes nor range wars to bother them. There were no brands of neighboring ranches to complicate the roundups and not a cow would be lost through straying or theft.

Having located the valley, he slipped away, mounted his horse and rode back the way he had come, looking for a good place to pitch his camp. Five miles from the valley he found it—a cave-like recess under the towering wall of a butte, half way up the wooded slope which lay at the foot of the wall. From it he could command all approaches for several hundred yards, while his tarpaulin would be screened by bowlders and trees. It was high enough for purposes of observation, but not so high that the smoke from his fire would have density enough when it reached the top of the butte to be seen for any distance. A spring close by formed pools in the hollows of the rocks below him. The great buttes lying to the east of the fire would screen its light from any wandering member of Quigley's outfit

​"This is it," he grunted "We'll locate here to-morrow."

The following day, having put his new camp to rights, he rode up the western slope of the great plateau which hemmed in Quigley's ranch, picketed his horse in a clearing, and after a cautious reconnaissance on foot he reached the edge of the cliffs, and the valley lay before him. Cattle grazed near a little lake, but at that distance he could not read the brands. He first had to find out if any of the outfit ever rode along the top of the cliffs, and he struck straight back to cross any such trails. By evening he had covered the western side of the ranch without finding a hoof-print, or a way up the sheer walls where a horseman could reach the top. There were several places where a cool-headed man could climb up, and at one of these Johnny found several burned matches.

The next day was spent on the plateau north of the ranch, and the third and fourth days found him examining the eastern side; and it was here that he found signs of riders. There were three blind canyons on this side, and the middle one had a good trail running up its northern wall, and it appeared to be used frequently. At the top it divided, one branch running north and the other south. It was the only place on that side of the valley where a horseman could get out.

Now that he had become familiar with his ​surroundings he began his real work. If Quigley had rustled, the operations could be divided into two classes: past operations, now finished; or present operations which were to continue. It was possible that enough cattle had been stolen in the past so that the natural increase would satisfy a man of modest ambitions. In this case his danger would decrease as time passed and eventually he would have a well-stocked range and be above suspicion. If he were avaricious the rustling would continue, if only spasmodically, until he had made all the money he wanted or until his operations became known.

Johnny early had discovered that Quigley's brand was QE and this increased his suspicions, for the E could not be explained. Logan's brand was childishly simple to change: The C could become an O, Q, G, or wagon-wheel; the L would make an E, Triangle, Square, or a 4.

Satisfied that the foundation of Quigley's brand had been the CL, Johnny had to discover if Logan's cattle still were being taken to swell the Quigley herds. Logan's inaction and his easy-going way of running his ranch jarred Johnny, for the foreman had confessed that for the last few years the natural increase, figured in the fall roundups, had not tallied with the number of calves branded each preceding spring. But Logan was not altogether to blame, because the Barrier had ​given him a false security and there was nothing to fear from other directions. It was the last spring roundup and its tally sheets which had stirred him; and a close study of his drive-herd records and the use of a factor of natural increase suddenly brought to his mind a startling suspicion. Even then he wavered, fearing that he was allowing an old and bitter grudge to sway him unduly; and before he had time to make any real investigations, Johnny had appeared and demanded a job.

Among Quigley's cattle the proportion of calves to cows was so small that Johnny could not fail to notice it. He was satisfied that the QE, so prominently displayed, originally had been CL, but when he caught sight of a crusty old steer near the mouth of the second canyon all doubts were removed. While the mark was an old one, the rebranding had been done carelessly. The segment which closed the original C had not been properly joined to the old brand, and there was a space between the ends of the two marks where they overlapped. A look at the ears made him smile grimly, for Logan's shallow V notch had become a rounded scallop; and there was no honest reason why Quigley should notch the ears of his cows when there was no chance of them getting mixed up with the cattle of any other ranch, The scallop had been made simply to cut out the tell tale V notch.

CHAPTER XI

NOCTURNAL ACTIVITIES

LIGHT gleamed from Quigley's ranch-houses and an occasional squeal came from the corral, suggesting that "Big Jake" was getting up steam for more deviltry. Occasionally a shadow passed across the lighted patches of ground below the windows and the low song of Rustler Creek could be heard as it swirled into the long, black canyon. Save for the glow of the windows and the rectangles of light below them everything was wrapped in darkness, and the canyon, the range, and the rims of the cliffs were hidden.

"A miner, 'forty-niner, and his daughter, Clementine," came from the middle house as Art Fleming dolefully made known the sorrowful details of Clementine's passing out. He put his heart into it because he had troubles of his own, for which he frankly and profanely gave Ben Gates due discredit.

Ben, tiring of the dirge, heaved a boot with a snap-shooter's judgment and instantly forsook the heavy inhospitality of the house for the peace and freedom of the great outdoors. He plumped down on a bench and immediately arose therefrom.

"Look where yo're settin', you blunderin' jackass!" ​snarled a hostile voice from the same bench. "Yo're as big a nuisance as a frisky bummer in a night herd!"

"A bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," chanted the man inside.

"You two buzzards are about as cheerful an' pleasant as a rattler in August," snapped Gates belligerently. "Like two old wimmin, you are, both of you! Settin' around in everybody's way, tellin' yore troubles over an' over again till everybody wishes Nelson had done a better job. How'd I know you was sprawled out, takin' up all th' room? You reminds me of a fool dog that sets around stickin' its tail in everybody's way, an' then howls blue murder when it's stepped on. Think yo're th' only people on this ranch that has any troubles?"

"A miss for Mr. Gates," said the irritated voice within the house. "An' if he will stick his infected head in that door, just for one, two, three, he'll have more troubles," prophesied Mr. Fleming, facing the opening with a boot nicely balanced in his upraised hand. "If it wasn't for him, we—"

"Shut up! Shut up!" yelled Gates, enraged in an instant. "If you says that much more I'll bust yore fool neck! For G—d's sake, is that all you know, Andrew Jackson?"

"If it wasn't for you," said the man on the bench very deliberately as his hand closed over a piece of ​fire-wood, "I said, if—it—wasn't—for—you, we'd be ridin' with the boys tonight, instead of stayin' around these houses like three sick babies."

"Another bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," said the man inside.

Gates wheeled with an oath. "An' if it wasn't for you sound asleep in th' valley; an' Fleming sound asleep up on that butte, I wouldn't 'a' been lammed on th' head an' tied up like a sack! It's purty cussed tough when a man with nothin' worse than a scalp wound has to lay up this way!"

"Bull's eye for Mr. Gates," announced the man in the cabin, with great relish.

"If you'd been wide awake yoreself," retorted Harrison, "you wouldn't 'a' been tied up! You didn't even squawk when he hit you, so we'd know he was around. Was you tryin' to keep it a secret?" he demanded with withering sarcasm. "An' as for them bandages, how did I know th' dog had been sleepin' on 'em? Cookie gave 'em to me!"

"Bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," said Fleming. "But he was awake," he continued with vast conviction. "He was wide awake. He ain't got no more sense awake than he has asleep. When he's got his boots on, his brains are cramped an' suffocated."

"You got him figgered wrong," said Harrison "His brains are only suffocated when he sets down."

​While the little comedy was being enacted at the bunk-houses, the main body of rustlers followed Quigley down the steeply sloping bottom of a concealed crevice miles north of the ranch-house of the CL. The five men emerged quietly and paused on the edge of the curving Deepwater, and then slowly followed their leader into the icy stream. The current, weakened by a widening of the river at this point, still flowed with sufficient strength to make itself felt and the slowly moving horses leaned against it as they filed across the secret ford. Reaching the farther bank the second and third men rode quietly to right and left, rapidly becoming vague and then lost to sight. The three remaining riders sat quietly in their saddles for what, to them, seemed to be a long time. Suddenly a low whistle sounded on the left, followed instantly by another on the right; and like released springs the rustlers leaped into action.

Vague, ghostly figures moved over the open plain, finding cows with uncanny directness and certainty. Two riders held the nucleus of the little herd, which grew steadily as lumbering cows, followed inexorably by skilled riders, pushed out of the darkness. There was no conversation, no whistling now, nor singing, but a silence which, coupled to the ghost-like action and the dexterous swiftness, made the drama seem unreal.

There came an abrupt change. The two men riding ​herd saw no more looming cattle or riders, which seemed to be a matter of significance to them, for they faced southward, guns in hand, and pushed slowly back along the flanks of the little herd. Peering into the shrouding gray darkness, tense and alert, eyes and ears straining to read the riddle, they waited like sooty statues for whatever might occur, rigid and unmoving.

A sudden thickening in the night. A figure seemed to flow from indefinable density to the outlines of a mounted man. A low voice, profanely irritant, spoke reassuringly and grew silent as the rider oozed back into the effacing night.

"Shore," muttered a herder, relaxing and slipping his gun into its holster. He moved forward swiftly and turned back a venturesome cow. His companion, growling but relieved, shrugged his shoulders and settled back to wait.

Minutes passed and then another lumbering blot emerged out of the dark, became a cow, and found reassurance in numbers as it willingly joined the herd. The escorting rider kept on, pushed back his sombrero and growled: "They're scattered to h—l an' gone to-night; but," he grudgingly admitted, "they acts plumb do-cile. S'long."

Another wait, long and fruitless, edged anew the nerves of the herders. Then Quigley, Ackerman, and Purdy moved out of the obscurity of the night and took ​up positions around the herd, urging it forward. When they had it started on its way, Ackerman dropped back and became lost to sight, engaged in his characteristic patroling, suspicious and malevolent.

The little herd, skilfully guided over clean patches of rock which led deviously to the water's edge and left no signs on its hard surface, at last reached the river, where a shiver of hesitancy rippled through it and where the rear cows pushed solidly against the front rank, which appeared to be calling upon its inherent obstinacy. The craft and diplomacy of Quigley's long experience won out and the uncertain front rank slowly and grudgingly entered the stream, the others following without noticeable hesitation. As the last cow crossed and scrambled up the western bank, Ackerman rode down to the water's edge, pushed in and crossed silently, only the lengthening ripple on the black surface telling of his progress. As he climbed out he squirmed in his wet clothes and swore from sudden anger, which called forth a low ripple of laughter from the base of the Barrier, where the others took their discomforts lightly.

"Scared you'll shrink, Jim?" softly said an ironic voice.

"Or dissolve, like sugar?" inquired another scoffingly.

"Sugar?" jeered a third. "Huh! He's about as sweet as a hunk of alum!"

​Ackerman's retort caused grins to bloom unseen, and the miseries of wet clothes and chilled bodies were somewhat relieved by the thought that Ackerman felt them the most.

Up the crevice in orderly array, docile as sheep, climbed the cattle, and when they reached the top of the plateau they moved along stolidly under guidance and finally gained the outer valley leading to the QE by a trail west of and parallel to the one which showed the way to Hastings.

Back on the QE, Fleming and his friends, having awakened the cook at an unseemly hour by their noise, finally turned in and found some trouble in getting to sleep, thanks to the energetic efforts of the boss of the kitchen, who most firmly believed in the Mosaic Law, and had the courage of his convictions. But things finally quieted down and peace descended upon the ranch.

Outside the bunk-house and behind it, a blot on the ground stirred restlessly and slowly resolved itself into a man arising. He moved cautiously along the wall toward the lighted cook shack and then sank down again, hand on gun, as the door opened.

Cookie threw out a pan of water, scowled up at the starry sky and then peered intently at a chicken-coop, visible in the straggling light from the door, from ​which a sleepy cackle suddenly broke the silence. Muttering suspiciously he reached behind him and then slipped swiftly toward the shack, a shotgun in his hands. Going around the coop he stood up and shook his fist at the darkness.

"You can dig up my traps, an' smell out my strychnine, but you can't dodge these buckshot if ever I lays th' sights on you. Dawg-gone you, I owes you a-plenty!" he growled. Striking a match he looked in the coop and around it. "Had two dozen as nice pullets as anybody ever saw, only three weeks ago; an' now I only got sixteen left. There, blast you!" he swore, as the second match revealed the telltale tracks. "There they are! O, Lord! Just let me get my gun on that thievin' ki-yote! Just once!"

He stared around belligerently and went slowly back to the house, swearing and grumbling under his breath. It is the cook's fate to be the sworn enemy of all coyotes, and let it be said without shame to him that he seldom is a victor in that game of watchfulness and wits. And also let it be said that often with tears of rage and mortification, and words beyond repetition, he pays unintentional tribute to the uncanny cunning of the four-legged thieves. With guns, dogs, traps, and poison is he armed, but it availeth him naught. And as bad as the defeat are the knowing grins of the rest of the outfit who, while openly cheering on the doughty ​cook, are ready to wager a month's wages on the coyote.

The man on the ground moved again, this time toward the canyon, and soon was feeling his way along the great eastern wall. Reaching the other end, he stopped a moment to listen, and then went on again, groping along by the edge of the stream until he stumbled over a dead branch, which he picked up. Then feeling for and finding a certain rock, he stepped on it and with his foot felt for and found another, which was partly submerged in the creek; and by means of this and others he crossed dry-shod to the opposite bank, using the branch as a staff.

Daylight was near when Johnny wriggled to the edge of the cliff opposite the houses and hid behind a fringe of grass on the rim. An hour passed and then his keen ears caught distant sounds. Below him the cook was rearranging his traps and swearing at the cleverness of his four-footed enemy. Suddenly he arose and hastened to the kitchen to serve a hot breakfast to the men who soon drove a bunch of cattle out of the canyon and into the small corral.

While the others hastened in for their breakfast, Quigley and Ackerman loitered at the corral.

"Purty good for five men, with one of 'em playin' sentry," said Quigley. "We'd do better if we didn't have to scout around first."

​"Scoutin's necessary," replied Ackerman. "It's too wide open. This bunch ain't worth gettin' wet for. That river's cussed cold!"

Quigley chuckled. "Huh! I've swum it when th' ice was comin' down."

"You did," retorted Ackerman. "That was th' night Logan burned our houses. You had to swim an' freeze, or stay out an' get shot. You went in pronto, that night!"

"You beat me in by forty yards, an' out by sixty!" snapped Quigley.

Ackerman ignored the remark. "Not satisfied with nestin' on a man's range, you had to start a little herd. We didn't bring no cows with us, nor buy any afterward—but what's th' use? Let's eat," and he led the way toward the cook shack.

Johnny waited a few minutes and then, returning to his horse, started for his camp. He was puzzled, for no place near Big or Little Canyons was devoid of shelter, and he knew of no other places where cattle could pass the Barrier. He had noticed that the backs of the cows were dry, which meant that they had forded the river, and he was certain that the crossing had not been made at the ford near Devil's Gap. He had to learn the location of the place they visited and that unknown ford; and he wanted to learn the date of their next raid.

​"We'll have to trail 'em, Pepper," he growled. "An' then bust all runnin' records to get Logan an' th' boys. Get agoin'; I'm sleepy."

CHAPTER XII

YEASTY SUSPICION

ACKERMAN walked to the small corral, where two straight irons were in a fire and where three men were cinching up in preparation. Fleming, Harrison, and Gates, lolling on the ground, kept up a running fire of comment, and Ackerman stopped and looked down at them.

"Three cheerful fools," he grinned.

"Here's Little Jimmy," remarked Fleming; "an' by all th' Roman gods, he's actually grinnin'! Look, fellers! Behold an' ponder! Mr. Ackerman wears a smile!"

"Sick?" solicitously inquired Harrison.

"Drunk?" suspiciously questioned Gates.

"Three children," grunted Ackerman. "An' scabby. Two sentries an' a hunter."

Holbrook poked the fire. "Kit Carson, Dan'l Boone, an' Californy Joe. Three scouts. Th' ambushin' trio."

"Faith, Hope, an' Charity," chuckled Purdy.

"You called it," grinned Holbrook.

"If Custer had only had 'em," said Ackerman, "there'd been no massacre."

​"Huh!" grunted Gates. "What could I do, with them two fools herdin' with me?"

"Not so much herdin' with you, as tryin' to herd you," said Harrison blithely.

Gates sought escape by creating a diversion, and shouted: "Hey, look at him!" and pointing at the cook, who staggered past under a great load of saplings and poles.

"Hey, Cookie!" he shouted stentoriously. "Why don't you put them birds in th' house nights, an' sleep in th' coop, yoreself?"

"Or give him some of that there strych-nine that we got for you?" yelled Sanford. "There's a lot of it left," he chuckled, remembering the cook's futile rage when he had found the poisoned carcass half covered over with dirt.

The cook, his glistening face crimson, carefully lowered the forward end of the poles to the ground, eased them upright with his shoulder and wiped the perspiration from his face with a grimy sleeve. Turning a red countenance toward his grinning friends he started to speak, muttered something, spat forcibly, shouldered carefully under his load again and staggered away with as much dignity as he could command.

"That's right, Cookie," commended Gates. "Don't you waste no words on 'em a-tall. They're a lazy, worthless, shiftless lot. If they wasn't they'd help you ​tote them trees. But I wish you'd tell me what yo're aimin' to do, because if yo're goin' to rig up a scaffold for that ki-yote, I want to be around when he's hung." He turned and surveyed the group. "You ought to be ashamed of yoreselves, lettin' him tote that load hisself. He works harder than any man on this ranch, an' I can prove it. I can prove it by him. What with buildin' stockades an' scaffolds, diggin' holes for his traps, poisonin' baits, an' settin' up nights with his shotgun, he's a hard workin' member of this outfit. He ain't got no time to set around an' loaf all day like some I could name if I had a mind to."

"Hard workin'!" snorted Purdy. "That ain't work; that's fun! He's as happy doin' that as others is playin' cards or somethin'. He'd get mopey if that ki-yote died. A man allus works harder at his fun than he does at his work. Allus!"

"Shore!" grunted Holbrook. "I've seen men so lazy that they growled because th' sun kept 'em movin' to stay in th' shade; but show 'em a month's good huntin' an' they'd come to life quick! They'll climb an' hoof it all day to get a shot at somethin'; but if their wife asked 'em to rustle a bucket of water you could hear 'em holler, clear over in th' next county."

"Would you look at him settin' them poles!" chuckled Gates. "He's shore goin' down to bedrock!"

​Holbrook pulled an iron out of the fire, glanced at it, shoved it back again and arose. "Let her go," he said.

At the word two men vaulted into their saddles and rode into the corral. A cow blundered out and was deftly turned toward the fire, and at the right instant a rope shot through the air, straightened and grew taut; and the cow, thrown heavily, was hog-tied, branded, its ears cut to conform to the QE notch, and released in a remarkably short time. Arising it waved its lowered head from side to side and started to charge Holbrook. Gates stepped quickly forward, kicked a spurt of dirt in its face and a clever cow-pony sent it lumbering out through the gate in the fence and onto the range.

"Maverick," grunted Holbrook, waiting for the next. "Logan shore is careless in his calf roundups. That's four of 'em we got in th' last two raids. Reckon he thinks brandin' is more or less unnecessary, th' way he's located. An' d—d if here don't come another! Nope; it's a sleeper. Somebody took th' trouble to cut th' notch."

Ackerman did his share of the work, silent and preoccupied, and when the last cow had been turned onto the range he wheeled abruptly, looked around, and walked over to Quigley, who was approaching.

"I reckon I better go off on a little scout," he said. ​"I ain't satisfied about Nelson; an' th' more I mills it over, th' less satisfied I am. You can grin; but I'm tellin' you it ain't no grinnin' matter!" he snapped, eying the group. "I'm tellin' you what I'm goin' to do, an' that's all."

"That's for you to say," smiled Quigley. "Nobody's goin' to try to stop you; but we reckon yo're only makin' trouble for yoreself. He's quit th' Twin Buttes country. I understand he's prospectin' south of town."

"He ain't prospectin' none," retorted Ackerman. "An' he wasn't prospectin' up here, neither; he was runnin' a bluff, an' makin' it stick. I looked into that gravel bed!"

Fleming laughed. "He was coverin' his rustlin' operations. His real prospectin' was to be done with a rope an' a runnin' iron."

"Yes," grunted Sanford; "an' now he's doin' th' same thing down south, I'll bet. Th' Circle S has got a lot of sleepers an' mavericks runnin' on their outlyin' range. Holmes has been threatenin' for two years to round 'em all up; but when he's ready, th' Long T ain't; an' t'other way around."

"Our friend is goin' to set right down on a rattler if he starts rustlin' down there," grinned Purdy. "Them two ranches are wide awake. I know, because I've looked 'em over."

​He'll tackle th' job," said Harrison; "because he's somethin' of a pinwheel hisself."

"That's how I figger it," said Holbrook quickly. "A burned child loves th' fire, if it's stubborn. Let him alone; don't stir him up. We don't want him up here, an' that's our limit. What he does down there ain't no game for us to horn into. Let 'em fiddle an' dance an' be d—d."

Ackerman regarded them pityingly and shrugged his shoulders. "I pass! Ain't there no way to get it through yore heads that I don't believe he's interested in anythin' but us? It's like drillin' in granite. I hammer an' hammer, twist th' drill an' hammer some more; an' after hard work all I got is a little hole, with a cussed sight more granite below it! I feel like rammin' in a charge of powder an' blowin' it to h—l an' gone. Look at me! Listen! Put away yore marbles, an' think!"

"Why don't you fellers listen?" grinned Fleming.

"Just because he went south don't say he stayed there," hammered Ackerman. "He wasn't scared away; not by a d—d sight. I know that. Fleming, Gates, an' Harrison know it. We all know it. He went south. But he can turn, can't he? If he can't, lie's in a h—l of a fix! No tellin' where he'll end up—Patagonia, mebby. All right, he can turn. It's only a question of where! He's goin' to turn; an' when he ​does, I'm goin' to be there an' see him do it. I'm goin' to make it my business to find him, watch him, an' trail him. If he turns north I'm goin' to get him. An' if you'll take any advice from me, you'll all begin to take long rides, north, east, south, an' west; mostly southwest an' west. You'll ride in pairs, an' you'll keep yore fool eyes open. Th' time has passed for loafin' around here, shootin' craps an' swappin' lies. Yo're smokin' on an open powder keg; an' d—n you, you ain't got sense enough to know it!" He raised his clenched fists. "I mean it! D—n—you—you—ain't—got—sense—enough—to—know—it!"

Quigley laughed, although uneasily; for Ackerman's earnestness carried unrest with it. "Jim, Jim," he said kindly, "we've been up here a long time; an' we've given these hills a name that guards 'em for us. Them that bothered us disappeared; an' th' lesson was learned."

"Was it?" shouted Ackerman. "He didn't learn it! He come up here, plump in th' face of yore warnin', in spite of what he had heard in Hastings! Why? Because it's his business to come! Because he's paid to come! He ain't one of them Hastings loafers! He ain't no sleepy puncher, satisfied to draw down his pay, an' th' h—l with th' ranch! I tell you you never saw a man like him before. Can't you see it? Logan found out that he was a real man, a gun man, an' not scared ​of h—l an' high water. Then he quits Logan, an' comes up here. Can't you see it? Can't you? Think, d—n it; THINK!"

"I did; have been, an' am," snapped Quigley angrily. "Thinkin' is one thing; goin' loco, another. I think yo're a d—d fool!"

Ackerman threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. "All right; have it yore own way. I give it up. I pass before th' draw. But I ain't swallerin' no pap an' gazin' at th' moon. I'm goin' to keep my eyes on Nelson."

"You want to; he's a bad hombre," said Fleming uneasily.

Ackerman wheeled and smiled at the speaker. "He is; an' he's a d—d good man. I takes off my hat to him; an' I wish to heaven we had a few Nelsons up here; this ranch would hum. An' you'd 'a' done better if you'd follered yore own advice. I won't make th' same mistake twice. Th' minute he makes a false move I'll plug him. I underrated him before; now I'm goin' to overrate him, to be on th' safe side. But you ain't got a thing to say: three to one, an' you let him make fools out of you!"

"I admits it," said Fleming. "An' that's why I'm tellin' you to look out for him. He's as quiet as a flea; an' as harmless as blastin' powder. I wish you luck."

"I ain't so harmless myself," retorted Ackerman. ​"An' now I know what I'm buckin'. You'll see me when you see me; I'm preparin' to be gone a month or more."

They watched him enter the bunk-house, and when he came out again he had his saddle and a blanket roll; and when he rode into the canyon without a backward glance or a parting word he had his slicker, a generous supply of food, and plenty of ammunition.

Quigley watched him until he rode out of sight beyond the canyon, and turned toward his outfit, shaking his head. "He's so all-fired set on it that I'm gettin' a little restless myself. Jim ain't no fool; an' he don't often shy at a shadow. It won't do us no harm, anyhow; an' we can take turns at it. I'll start it off by takin' one side tomorrow, an' Holbrook can take th' other. Later on we'll figger it out an' arrange th' shifts. Mebby he's right."

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