"Well, I bet you a month's wage there wasn't more'n a hundred," said Bissell, glaring at the puncher.

"Won't take yer, boss," returned the other calmly. "Why?"

"Because practically the whole flock is beddin' down at Little Creek now. Chuck seen 'em. Now I want all you fellers to get supper an' then rope an' saddle a fresh hoss. There is shore goin' to be some doin's to-night."



CHAPTER IX

THE MAN IN THE MASK

As Bud Larkin jogged along on Pinte, apparently one of the group of men with whom he was riding, he wondered mechanically why his captors insisted on traveling ten miles to a tree sufficiently stout to bear his weight.

"I should think they'd stand me up and do the business with a bullet," he thought.

But a moment's reflection furnished the answer to this query. These men were cattle-rustlers and horse-thieves, than which no more hazardous existence ever was since the gentle days of West Indian piracy, and to them merely a single pistol shot might mean betrayal of their whereabouts, capture and death.

The character of the country through which they rode gave sufficient evidence of their care in all details, for it was a rough, wild, uninhabitable section that boasted, on its craggy heights and rough coulees, barely enough vegetation to support a wild mustang.

It was three o'clock of the afternoon and behind them the party could still see the place where they had camped. Joe Parker, fearful of stirring about much until the thoughts of range-riders were turning homeward like their ponies' steps, had delayed the departure beyond the hour first intended.

The rustlers really did not want to dispose of Larkin. Being plainsmen, their acute sense of justice told them that this man was absolutely guiltless of any crime deserving of death. Untoward circumstances had forced him into their hands, and, like the boy with the fly-paper, they were unable to get rid of him peaceably. Their abuse of his insane folly was colorful and vivid.

But Larkin had reasons for his stubborn attitude. With the arrogance of youth and the inexperience of real danger, he had resolved that as soon as his sheep should be safely up the range he would devote some time, money, and effort to the running down of these rustlers. Some of their faces were unforgetably stamped on his memory now, and he had no doubt that he could be of great service to Wyoming Territory, which was just at this time petitioning for the dignity of Statehood.

He had known the losses and insolence of rustlers on his own sheep ranch in Montana, and, like every sympathizer with justice and order, had sworn to himself many times that all of them should be run to earth.

The longer Bud remained with the rustlers the more nervous some of them became. Since morning a number had been wearing masks made of their neckerchiefs, and one man had not shown his face since the moment he rode into camp after the all-night drive. This man's peculiar actions piqued Bud's curiosity, and he tried a number of times to draw him into conversation. But the rustler refused to speak and moved away whenever he found himself in the prisoner's vicinity.

About five o'clock the cavalcade arrived at a point where, ahead of them, through the barren buttes and hogbacks, they could see the long, level expanse of the range; and, about half-way to the horizon, a line of trees that indicated the snake-like progress of a river. Here Joe called a halt and gave orders that the party should lie concealed until after dark, as the remainder of their business could then be conducted with less danger to themselves.

Accordingly the horsemen turned away from the trail they had been following and after fifteen minutes of tortuous riding, made camp on the other side of a particularly uninviting wall of rock.

After eating supper prepared around the little fires Larkin saw the rustlers all gather into a circle and start drawing lots. He shivered a little at the thought that this was his execution party being made up.

Four men had been designated as the number to see Larkin off on his long journey, and when at last the drawing was finished it was found that Joe Parker, the masked rider, and two others had been selected.

As darkness drew on Parker began to lose his patience with Bud.

"Look-a-here, Larkin," he drawled, "I don't love no sheepmen, noways, an' I never did, but you ain't no ordinary 'walker' an' I ain't ashamed to talk with y'u. Now the boys want to meet y'u half-way on this business, an' you won't do it. All you got to say is that you won't appear agin any of us in any court, an' won't ever say anythin' agin any of us. Now what in blazes you're actin' like a mule balkin' at a shadder for, I dunno. Be sensible."

But to all such entreaties Larkin remained unmoved.

"If you hang me," he said, "you'll only hang yourselves, for all the sheepmen in Wyoming as well as the men from my own ranch will come down here, join with the cattlemen, and clean you fellows out. And if my Basque herders start in on you don't imagine you will have the luxury of hanging. They'll take their skinning knives and work from the neck down. No, I'd advise you to let me go and take your chances rather than kill me and wait."

Such talk as this made a great impression on some of the rustlers and again opened up the subject of letting Larkin off. But the majority held firm and the sentence stood.

It was perhaps eight o'clock when the party of four approached Larkin and roused him up. This time his hands were bound behind his back and he noticed that the masked rustler was fastening them tightly but with a rotten rawhide. This peculiar circumstance caused a wild thrill to flash all through Larkin's being. Perhaps, after all, here was the weak link in the rustler's chain. The surmise became a certainty when the man, unobserved by his companions, sawed Bud's arms back and forth, showing him the quickest and easiest way to work them loose.

Then came the greatest surprise of all. The man, who had spoken no word the whole time, thrust a heavy .45 revolver into his trouser-pocket. To permit this being done the eight-inch barrel had been sawed off five inches short, ruining the gun for ordinary use, but making it particularly handy and light for close work.

This action convinced Larkin that the man in the mask was not only willing that he should escape, but was actually determined that the event should occur. He also knew that he could count on the support of this ally in the final moment when the four men must fight it out two and two.

Whether this sudden change of aspect was the result of a determination by a minority of the rustlers not to let the execution take place, or whether by some miraculous means one of his own friends had succeeded in joining the organization, he could not determine, although he tried to sound the man in the mask when the others were busy with their horses. His only reply was a low hiss commanding silence.

A quarter past the hour found them on their way, the ponies picking their path gingerly over the bad ground until they reached the range. Here the three rustlers drew up short, for in the distance could be seen the twinkling of a camp-fire.

"One of the Bar T punchers," said Joe; "but I reckon he won't hear us."

For half a mile further they walked their horses, and then urged them to a trot in the direction of the river whose tree-lined banks they had seen late in the afternoon. They paused only once in this place, and then to cross a small stream that lay in their path.

As he rode Larkin worked his arms cautiously back and forth until he felt the rotten rawhide give, and knew that a single violent motion would free him entirely. But he refrained from making that motion, feeling certain that the man in the mask would give the signal when the time was ripe.

At last they discerned the loom of the trees against the low northern sky and pulled their horses to a walk, until they arrived directly underneath a big cottonwood, which stood in sinister readiness.

"Here's your last chance," said Parker in a low voice. "If you swear as we have told you, you can go free now. We take a man's word out here."

"Never," replied Larkin firmly. "Don't waste time talking."

"Shore not," rejoined the other. "We always grant a man's last request. Come on, boys, let's finish this thing quick."

He had hardly spoken when from the distance came the sound of rapid revolver firing, mingled with the wild shouts of men. For a few moments the drama beneath the cottonwood came to an abrupt halt.

"By gum!" cried Joe, "the Bar T punchers have found the boys and there's the devil to pay back there. Lively, now."

One of the others took his lariat from the throng at the side of his saddle and heaved the coil over an outstretched limb of the cottonwood. He had hardly done so when another sound reached them, a low, menacing rumble that grew momentarily louder until it reached a dull roar.

"A stampede!" bawled one of the men; "and it's heading this way."

Joe and the man in the mask still on their horses led Pinte directly beneath the limb of the cottonwood, and the former reached down to take the noose of the rope from the one who had arranged it. Suddenly Larkin felt a hand fumbling with the rawhide about his arms, and a low voice in his ear whispered: "Now."

With the same motion Bud wrenched his hands free and dug his spurs into the sides of his horse. Pinte, startled, leaped forward just as Larkin drew the revolver from his pocket.

Joe, though caught by surprise, did not let go of the bridle that was wound about his right hand, but a blinding shot from the gun of the man in the mask did the work. With a groan Parker pitched forward out of his saddle and fell to the ground just as Larkin fired pointblank at the third man who appeared before him, still on foot.

The fellow went down, but not until a yellow stab of light flashed up from where he had been and Bud felt the wind of a bullet as it sped past his cheek. The fourth man was nowhere to be seen.

The stranger in the mask and the man he had rescued were now alone, but their thoughts were fully occupied. The sound of the distant stampede had become a veritable rumbling roar that told of its nearing proximity. Aside from this drumming of many feet, there was no sound, for the animals of the range when in the grip of panic are silent.

With glazed eyes and muscles strained to the utmost they thundered into the dark, unconscious and heedless of the sure destruction in their path. It was as though thousands of creatures, with their brains removed, had been turned loose to run at will.

"To the river!" cried the masked man, suddenly panic-stricken, spurring his horse in the direction of the stream.

But Larkin was at his heels, and in a moment had seized the other's bridle and thrown the horse back on his haunches.

"No!" bawled he at the top of his voice. "The bank here is twenty feet high, and at the bottom are rocks."

"Better a jump and a chance than sure death in the stampede," yelled the stranger, but Bud would not yield and drew the horse back.

"We can divide the herd," he cried. "Come, we haven't a moment to lose!"

They wheeled as one and dashed out of the brush into the open of the range. The earth was now trembling beneath them and the pounding feet sounded a low, steady note, ominous with warning. Occasionally there was a revolver shot, but this was the only other sound.

Straight toward the oncoming living avalanche the two men rode until they had left an open space a hundred yards wide behind them. Then they pulled up short and dismounted.

Now out of the threatening thunder sounded a single individual note, the rapid beating of a horse's feet—some horse that was bearing a desperate rider ahead of the stampede but powerless to avoid it.

Instantly Larkin saw the picture of the yawning precipice toward which the frantic rider was hurrying at breakneck speed. He raised his revolver and fired into the air. The signal was instantly acted on, for in another moment a lathering, heaving pony dashed up to them, and the rider leaped to the ground.

"Oh, what shall I do? Hello! Who are you?" cried a female voice, and Larkin's heart leaped as though it had turned over in its place.

"Juliet!" he cried, seizing the girl with one arm and drawing her close.

"Bud!" For an instant she clung to him.

"Lead the horses together and shoot them!" he ordered, although the others could scarcely hear him.

Every instant was priceless now, for dimly at the edge of their vision the front wave of the living, leaping tide could be seen.

Larkin swung the girl's horse alongside Pinte, and without a thought or a pang shot them both. They fell one on top of the other. Then the stranger in the mask led his animal in front of the two that had fallen and put a bullet through its brain. All now leaped behind this still throbbing barricade.

"Got a gun, Julie?" demanded Bud.

"Yes."

"Give it to me and load mine from your belt." They exchanged weapons and the girl with practiced hand slipped the cartridges into their chambers. The unknown had drawn two guns from some place in his equipment, and now the three peered over their shelter.

The advance line of animals was scarcely twenty-five yards away, and, with a clutch of horror at his heart, Bud recognized that they were not cattle as he had supposed, but sheep—his own two thousand.

In the instant that remained he remembered the shots and shouting of a quarter-hour before, and realized that the animals had been stampeded deliberately.

"Let 'er go," he screamed above the tumult, "and yell like blazes!"

On the word yellow fire streamed out from the four guns and, accompanying it, a perfect bedlam of shrieks and cries. The sheep were now upon them, and the hail of bullets dropped some in their headlong career, piling them up against the horses and adding to the barricade. But it could not stop all, and a stream of the animals made its way over the bodies up to the very mouths of the spitting guns.

Now others stumbled and fell, to be instantly engulfed by the swirling flood behind; small, sharp feet were caught between the limbs of the struggling mass that eddied about the dead horses. Still the yellow fire stabbed out into the faces of the middlers—for now the leaders were already piling up mangled and dying in the rocky river-bed—but, past each side of this island of expiring creatures, thundered a vast, heaving stream, turbulent, silent, irrevocable.

The man in the mask with a revolver in each hand was firing steadily, and Larkin, thrilled at the sight of his apparent coolness, turned to look at him.

To his amazement he found that the mask had fallen or been snatched away. Again the man fired, and Bud Larkin's jaw fell as he gazed on the queer, unmistakable features of the man who had saved his life that night.

It was Smithy Caldwell.

The sheep mind has the power of tenacity, but not that of change. There was scarcely a shot left in the guns, and still the fear-blinded animals battered at the growing wall of dead and dying that divided them. But at last they began to push to each side, and gradually the idea of splitting took full hold.

Then the prisoners behind the dead horses sank down in almost hysterical relief, for there was no danger that any more would attempt to mount the barricade. In fact, had the obstacle to their progress been suddenly removed, the stampeded herds would have continued to split for an indefinite period.

Now, listening, Larkin could hear the crash of the animals through the underbrush and the horrid, sickening sounds of the writhing, half-dead mass in the river-bed as more and more, following their predecessors blindly, took the leap.

At last the stream on each side thinned, the rumbling thunder of pounding feet grew less, and the tail of the flock passed, leaving behind it a sudden, deathly silence. In the distance a faint murmur was heard, and Larkin found later that this was made by the two or three hundred which escaped death in the river.

As a matter of fact, the great number of the animals had filled the narrow gully, and the last few charged across the bodies of their fallen comrades to solid ground and safety beyond.

Now that the danger had passed, Larkin felt a certain miserable nausea in the pit of his stomach, and fought it down with all his might. Caldwell was not so successful, however, and stumbled from the shelter and his companions, furiously sick. Juliet began to weep softly, the tears of nervous reaction coming freely when neither pain nor fear could have brought them.

Bud passed his arm gently about her shoulders, and patted her with soft encouragement and praise for her bravery. Nor did the girl resent his action. Rather it seemed to steady her, and after a few minutes she looked up with an unsteady laugh.

"Isn't it funny for that other man to get seasick out here where we can't get enough water to drink?" she asked, with a sudden tangent of humor that made Bud laugh uproariously, and seemed to relieve the strain that oppressed them.

"Brave little girl!" he said, getting up. "That reminds me. I wonder where our friend is?"

He walked out in the direction Caldwell had taken and expected to find the other recovering from his attack. But he could see or hear nothing to indicate that the man was within a dozen miles. He called, and his voice sounded puny and hollow against the vastness of the sky. He heard no hails in answer, except the long, shrill one which the coyotes gave from a neighboring rise of ground.

Smithy Caldwell had disappeared.

Larkin returned to Juliet Bissell perplexed, mystified, and disturbed. What possible reason could there be for the quixotic actions of the man he hated more than any other in the world? How did he happen to be received and at perfect ease among a band of desperate rustlers?

How and why? Caldwell presented so many variations on those two themes that Larkin's head fairly swam, and he turned gladly to relieve the situation in which Juliet Bissell now found herself.



CHAPTER X

WAR WITHOUT QUARTER

He found her where he had left her, but now she was standing and looking out over the silent prairies, as though searching for someone.

"What are you trying to see?" Bud asked.

"I thought father and some of the cowboys would probably follow the sheep once they had started them. Oh, what have I said?"

"I imagined it was they who had done it," said Bud quietly, the full enormity of the thing not yet having sunk deep into his mind. "How did you get mixed up in it?"

"Simply enough," replied Julie. "Late in the afternoon Chuck, one of the men on the eastern range, came riding in and said that your sheep were directly east of the ranch house. Father and Mike Stelton talked a lot about it at supper, and figured up then that the easiest way—well, to teach you a lesson, they called it—was to run them over the bank of the Little River.

"I don't like sheep, Bud, as you know; but that was going too far for me, and I protested, with the result that father took Mike outside with him, quite upset that I said anything at all. Both of them looked black as a silk hat."

"Good little girl!" cried Bud gratefully, and she turned her face directly toward him and smiled; just such a smile, Larkin remembered, as he had seen her use on other soft nights years before, in circumstances so totally different.

"After supper," she continued, "there was a great bustle of getting away, and I grew curious to see what they would do and how. So as soon as they left I saddled my calico and set out after them, keeping about abreast but a couple of miles to the north. The next thing I heard was a terrific lot of shooting and yelling, and the business was done. I don't wonder the sheep were in a panic!

"Then I heard the sound of the stampede, but I did not realize it was driving straight at me. I must have been confused in my idea of where the Little River was. Anyway, before I had time to think about it I realized I was directly in their path and with a very small advantage. I could escape neither to right nor left, for the wings of the running flock were wide, and all I could do was to run my pony as hard as he could go.

"He seemed to know the danger; all cow ponies do, I guess, for I never saw him travel like that in all my life; he stretched so flat along the ground that it almost seemed as though I could reach down and touch it with my hand. You know what such speed as that is at night with the gopher-holes and other ankle-breakers! Well, we took the chance, and Billy actually drew away from the sheep, panicky as they were.

"But I couldn't gain enough to dare to turn to right or left, and I had just about given up hope because the trees were ahead, when I saw the flash and heard the report of your gun. Thank God it was you, Bud. I've never known you to be a coward or to fail in any situation. I can't say how grateful I am for what you have done to-night."

"I assure you I didn't do it, Julie; it was that man who got sick and left us. He's disappeared now."

"Who was he? One of the Bar T punchers?"

"No, it was that fellow, Caldwell. Perhaps you don't remember him—he came to the Bar T for supper the same night I did."

"Yes, I remember him," said Julie in a tone out of which all the impetuous warmth had gone. Suddenly in this strange situation she found herself face to face with another chapter in the mystery that baffled her.

"Well, he saved my life to-night, and, though I can't say I admire the fellow very much, I am mighty grateful to him."

"It is strange you two should be together out here when your sheep were somewhere else," hazarded Juliet, looking full at Larkin and expecting some action or word to betray his fear of her suspicions.

"Not at all strange when you know the circumstances," he replied. "Just listen to this tale of adventure. But first I think we had better start walking toward the Bar T ranch house. We ought to meet some of the cowboys. Br-r—it's cold!" and Bud shivered in the piercing chill of the spring night.

To the plainsman walking is the most refined form of punishment. Your real cowboy slouches miserably along in his tight-fitting, uncomfortable high-heeled boots, looking about as much in his element as a stranded whale. In cowboy parlance his "feet don't track," his backbone wilts, and his knees bow naturally as a result of early horseback riding. On solid earth the cowboy is a crestfallen and dejected object.

As the two trudged along beneath the calm stars that had seen a thousand stampedes since the millions of buffalo roared up and down its length, Larkin told Juliet of the events that had occurred since they had said farewell at the fork of Grassy Creek. At the mention of the rustlers and the activities they were carrying on the girl gave a little, low cry.

"Father must hear that," she said. "He would give a lot to have descriptions of those men."

"He couldn't give me back two thousand sheep and lambs," rejoined Bud bitterly.

"No, but I think he would give you their value."

"Yes, and stampede it into another gully when I brought it across his range. Juliet, I'm not done with this thing. I'll fight your father or any other man that ever heard a calf bawl for milk, until I get my rights on the free range."

Larkin's voice was deep and full-throated with the righteous anger that surged through him over the outrage that had been wrought that night.

As for the girl, she did not recognize this Bud Larkin. The man she had known had been one of gay pleasantries, but rather ineffectual endeavors; this man who spoke was one to whom his will was his law, and obstacles merely helps because of their strengthening of his determination. For the first time she saw the Bud Larkin that had developed in the last year, and a kind of admiring thrill at the mental stature of the man went through her.

And yet she knew that war—hard, tenacious, ugly war—war without quarter, mercy, or respite, was irrevocably declared between Larkin and her father; and, even in her instinctive loyalty to her house, she had to admit that Bud was justified.

"Oh, I wish you would give the whole thing up!" she said plaintively. "It will only result in ruin to everybody."

Larkin laughed harshly.

"I'll never give it up until I am either dead or haven't a dollar left," he replied. "I am determined to have my rights in this matter, and I shall have them whatever the cost."

For a time there was silence between them, each realizing that further discussion could only prove unhappy.

They had gone about two miles from the scene of the stampede when suddenly a man appeared close in front of them and commanded them to halt.

"Hello, Sims!" cried Larkin joyfully, recognizing the other's voice, but at the same time hoisting his hands above his head.

"Well, chief," said the herder imperturbably, returning his revolver to its holster, "I allow your vacation has cost you a lot of money."

Bud then outlined his experiences briefly, concluding with his story of the stampede, and Sims whistled in amazement, his one method of expressing astonishment.

"Well, what's the story now?" Bud asked.

Juliet had walked ahead when the two men met, and now Larkin dropped far enough behind to be out of ear-shot and yet keep the girl dimly in sight.

Hurriedly, for him, Sims related the story of the ill-fated expedition up to the time of the stampede. He and the herders had put up what defense they could, he said, and, as a result, two of his men were dead and the others scattered. However, he expected they would return to the now deserted camp.

"I want you to take them back south to the Badwater River," ordered Larkin. "The second flock ought to be there by this time, but I want you to hold them there. In two days the boys from Montana ought to be down, and when you're ready to start north you will have force enough to fight any bunch of cowboys old Bissell can scrape together."

"But if we don't move that flock out right away the others will come and pile up there, and then we shore will have our hands full."

"All right, let 'em pile up. We'll get 'em through just the same. Now, Sims, we are in this thing for blood from now on, and don't you forget it for a minute."

"Trust me, boss," drawled the herder. "Are you comin' down to join us?"

"Yes, if I can. As soon as I get Miss Bissell into safe hands I'll come. But don't count on me; I may never get there. Do whatever you think best, but bring those sheep through. And tell the herders and the boys from the north that while this trouble is on I'll pay them five dollars a day apiece."

"Shore, they'd rassle the devil himself for that," commented Sims.

"And you get ten," supplemented Larkin. "Now go ahead and make all preparations the way you think best. Everything is in your hands."

Sims faded from sight noiselessly, and Larkin hurried forward to overtake Juliet. They had not been together five minutes when the rapid trotting of horses was heard ahead and Larkin, taking the chance of falling into evil hands, called out to the travelers.

"Who's there?" came a gruff voice, accompanied by the click of hammers drawn back.

"Oh, father, it's I—Juliet!" cried the girl, recognizing the speaker and running toward him.

There was a surprised exclamation out of the darkness, and the sound of a man vaulting from the saddle. The next moment and he had clasped his daughter in his arms.

Larkin, his mission completed, started to back away from the scene, but the girl herself wrecked this intention.

"It was Mr. Larkin who called out," she said, evidently in answer to a question. "He saved my life, father, and he has brought me safely back. He is standing right over there."

At this Bud turned and ran, but the sound of a pony closing in on him brought him to a stop.

"Well, what do you want?" he demanded angrily.

"Bissell wants to see you," said the rider whose voice the sheepman recognized as that of Stelton.

Not deigning to enter an argument with the foreman, Bud walked back to where Bissell stood beside his horse.

"Now the sheep are out of the way, if you want to learn anything about rustlers I guess our friend here can tell you," remarked Stelton suddenly, in a voice exultant as it was ugly.

"Oh, yes, father," added Juliet, "he's been with them for almost two days."

"Is this so, Mr. Larkin?" asked Bissell.

"Yes."

"Well, we won't discuss it now," said the cowman. "Let's go back to the ranch house and get something to eat. I have an extra horse here, Larkin, if you care to ride."

"I don't care to, thanks," answered Bud dryly. "Since you have ruined me, you will do me a favor by letting me go."

"I allow I'd like to do you a favor," rejoined Bissell with equal courtesy, "but I've got to find out about them rustlers. We won't keep yuh long."

"Come on, get up on that horse," said the voice of Stelton close beside him, and Bud turned to look into the long barrel of the foreman's gun that was stuck under his nose.

Trembling with suppressed fury, he did as he was told, but on the ten-mile ride to the Bar T ranch said nothing, and only revolved in his mind one question: How did Stelton know he had been with the rustlers before Julie had said anything about them?



CHAPTER XI

MADE PRISONER

At three o'clock the next afternoon Beef Bissell felt better than he had for some time, this condition being a result of his vindictive triumph over Bud Larkin, and the fact that that young man was in his hands. He felt that the back of the sheep business had been broken as far as his range and his county were concerned.

I have put the opening of this chapter at three o'clock, because that was the hour at which life began to be manifest at the Bar T ranch after the stirring events of the night before. Bud Larkin himself, worn out with his nights and days of vigil, had gone to sleep on his bed almost in the act of taking his boots off. Vague ideas of escape had coursed through his mind only to be overtaken and killed by the slumber he had evaded for so long.

His window faced southwest, and when he awoke it was to find the dazzling gold of the sun warming his face. For a moment he did not realize where he was, staring thus into the blinding radiance; but memory is only a few seconds sleepier than its master, and shortly everything came back to him.

A sinking sensation came over him as he remembered the wanton slaughter of his sheep, more because of the helpless agony of the poor dumb brutes than because of the monetary loss, although the latter was no trifling consideration, since nearly eight thousand dollars had been wiped out in less than half an hour.

Added to this sickening sensation was one of dull, choking rage that Bissell, a man of wealth and certain prominence in the State, should suggest and pursue a course that the most despised sheep-herder would never countenance. That, Larkin told himself, showed the real man; the rough, crude product of a rough and bitter country.

For the slogan of the earlier West was selfishness.

"All this is mine and don't you come a-nigh me!" bawled the cowman when the nesters or grangers began to make their appearance.

The cowboy himself was the chief exponent of this philosophy. Restraint was unknown to him—his will was his law, and he tried to make it everyone else's. When thousands of men have the same idea the result is trouble; hence the practice of cluttering up one's person with artillery.

The one person for whom the cow-puncher had no respect and for whom the cow country was no fit abiding place was the man who allowed himself to be domineered. For that man convict-labor on a coral road would have been paradise compared to his ordinary existence.

Thus was the West the supreme abode at that time of the selfists or anarchists who have no thought or consideration outside their own narrow motives and desires.

Though Bud Larkin could not have analyzed his feelings in words, perhaps, yet he felt this keenly, and knew that now or never must he take his stand and keep it. He labored under the double handicap, in this country, of having gone in for sheep and having been beaten at it the very first thing. Consequently, if he ever expected to gain any caste, or at least a hearing, he must turn the tables and that as soon as possible.

At the present moment, as he washed his face in the thick white wash-bowl that made the guest-room of the Bar T celebrated for leagues around, he had nothing but the remotest ideas of how this might be done. The fact, in brief, was that his sheep were and would continue piling up in the hills north of the Badwater, ready to enter the hazardous stretch of dry territory that had so nearly been disastrous to his first flock.

Until he should be free and could reconnoiter his chances and resources he would hesitate to order them sent north. And yet they could not stay forever near the Badwater. Neither could they be halted on their march north, because they were crossing the range of Wyoming sheepmen at the time and common plains courtesy demanded that they be removed as fast as possible.

But for the fact that Sims was in personal charge Bud Larkin would have been in utter despair. Such was his confidence in his indolent herdsman that he felt that though ultimate failure attended their efforts no blame could ever be attached to Sims.

Leaving the guest-chamber, Larkin immediately stepped into the dining-room and the gloomy thoughts fled, for there sat Juliet near the window, sewing. She greeted him with a smile and immediately rose.

"Well, Mr. Man, I thought you would never wake up," she remarked in mock reproof. "I've been waiting here since dinner to see that you had something to eat when you came out. You must be wild hungry."

"I could eat a saddle," said Larkin.

"Sorry, but the saddles are all out," she replied with a smile. "However, we have some nice fresh broiled quirts, garnished with rawhide."

"Bring me a double order," said Bud, laughing, as he seated himself.

When he was almost through with his meal Juliet remarked:

"Father asked me to say that he would like to have a talk with you on the veranda when you were ready."

"I'll go right out," he answered, thanking her for the trouble she had taken.

He found Bissell seated in one of the big chairs outside, and took the other. Both men rolled a cigarette and then Bissell spoke.

"I owe you a great deal, Larkin, for saving my daughter last night," he said with genuine emotion in his voice. "Under the circumstances I am sorry for what I did, and wish I had it to do over again."

"As for the first, I don't deserve much credit. Juliet really saved her own life by coming to us when I fired the warning shot. As to the sheep, it's too late to think about them now; we'll come to another reckoning in that matter later on. I'd hardly expect a horse-thief to do a trick like that."

Bissell's tanned face turned a deep mahogany hue under the sting of this remark, and his eyes lost the soft look they had held when he spoke of Juliet.

"I'm willing to pay yuh the money loss," he replied, still anxious to make amends.

"On guarantee, I suppose, that I don't try to bring the rest of my sheep north."

"Yes."

"That's impossible, as you might know."

"I allow you're right foolish, Mr. Larkin; better think it over."

"I did that last night when the sheep went into the river," said Bud dryly.

"I suppose so, but a night's sleep sometimes changes a man's mind."

"Not mine. The first night I was here I told you that I would bring my sheep north, and I still intend to do it. I am always willing to meet a man half-way; but you wouldn't meet me. Instead of that you started in to ruin me. I have no objection to that, but you'd better take care that your schemes don't work two ways."

Bissell shrugged his shoulders. He still had the upper-hand of the situation, and his temper, in that case, was not hard to control.

"I allow I can look out for myself," he said.

"No doubt, but you had better look out for me," was the retort.

"I reckon I'll manage," remarked Bissell contemptuously. "But all this isn't what I wanted to ask you. I'd be some pleased if you'd tell me about them rustlers you were with."

"Why do you want to know about them?" countered Bud.

"Because they're ruinin' the cattle business. I dunno how many head they run off last year, but I do know that profits were cut in half by 'em. You was with 'em long enough to know some of 'em again, I allow?"

"Yes. I would know nearly all of them. What's left of three is out there near the cottonwoods along Little River, but I don't believe there's enough to bury."

"How is that?" inquired Bissell, who had evidently not heard of Larkin's narrow escape from death at the rustler's hands.

Bud told him briefly.

"You shore were lucky," remarked the cowman with a Westerner's appreciation of the situation. "Now, I'm the head of the cattlemen's association in this part of the State, and o' course it's our business to clear the country of those devils. You're just the man we want, because you've seen 'em and know who they are. You tell me what yuh know and there'll be the biggest hangin' bee this State ever seen."

As has been said, Bud Larkin had the legitimate owner's hatred of these thieves who preyed on the work of honest men, and had sworn to help run them out of the country as soon as his own business was finished. Now, in the flash of an eye he saw where he could turn the knowledge he had gained to good account.

"You have rather queer ideas of me, Mr. Bissell," he said. "First, you fight me until I am nearly ruined, then you expect I will turn around and help you just as though nothing had happened."

"But in this," cried the cowman, "you've got to help us. This is all outside of a war between the cows and the sheep. This is a matter of right and justice."

"So is the matter of my sheep. The range is free and you won't let me use it. Do you call that right or just, either one?"

Bissell choked on his own reply, and grew red with anger. Suddenly, without exactly knowing how, the tables had been turned on him. Now, instead of being the mighty baron with the high hand, he was the seeker for help, and this despised sheepman held the trump cards.

Furthermore, Larkin's direct question was capable of a damaging reply. Bissell sought desperately for a means of escape from the trap in which he found himself.

"Do you mean, young feller, that you won't tell me about them rustlers?"

"That's about it. But I might on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That your cattlemen's association give the rest of my sheep undisturbed passage north across the range to Montana."

"By gosh!" yelled the cowman, beside himself, springing out of his chair and glaring at the other with clenched hands on his hips. "That's your game, is it? Yuh pull our teeth an' then offer us grub, eh? Why, tan my hide—" he gagged with wrath and stood speechless, a picture of impotent fury.

Larkin laughed quietly.

"The shoe's on the other foot, but it doesn't seem to feel any too good," he sneered. "Better be reasonable now, hadn't you?"

"Reasonable? Sure, I'll be reasonable!" cried the other vindictively, almost suffocated with his emotion. "Let me ask yuh something. Do you absolutely refuse to tell about them rustlers if I don't do as you want and let your sheep through?"

"Well, not exactly," replied Bud, grinning. "I'll tell you this: they're going to run off a hundred head or so of your stock yet this week for the railroad camps up the State. I think it's fair to give you warning beforehand."

"Darn you and your warning! What I want is the names and descriptions of them men. Will yuh give 'em to me?"

"No, not unless we can strike a bargain. You talk about right and justice. Now let's see a little of it," answered Larkin.

"All right, young feller, you've said your say. Now listen to me. I'm a deputy sheriff in this county"—he ripped open his vest and showed the badge pinned to the inside lining—"an' I hereby arrest yuh for bein' a party to them rustlers. Yer either a criminal or yuh ain't, accordin' to our notions out here, an' if yuh wun't help us catch yer friends there ain't nothin' more to be said. Now roll that into a cigarette an' eat it alive if yuh want to."

He glared defiantly down on Larkin, whose brows had drawn together as he went into executive session with himself.

In five seconds the situation between these men was once more reversed. It was not that Larkin had overreached himself; he simply had encountered a circumstance of which he was unaware. The possibility of Bissell being a deputy sheriff had never occurred to him, and now he sat balked and perplexed, balancing his chances on either hand.

It was not in the man to yield supinely to this new danger. He could not even think of the possibility without shame. He was right, he told himself over and over again, and, listen as he would, he could detect no contradictory reply from the still, small voice we are all credited with possessing.

His mission in life was to get his sheep through. In that circumstance the rustlers were unexpected allies and he hoped they would put burs under the tails of every steer on the range and drive them to the Gulf of Mexico. Once his merinos and angoras were safe across the line Bud would gladly return and help round them up.

The idea that he, clipped, helpless, and harmless as he was, should now turn in and assist his despoilers to better their own fortunes was so maddening that he grinned with fury as he thought of it. No, the thing was impossible!

Bissell had not changed his menacing position during all of Bud Larkin's ponderings and was waiting patiently for some outbreak from his victim. But at last he could stand it no more.

"Well," he snarled, "say something! What's your answer?"

"That bargain goes as she stands," said Bud, after a moment's thought. "You help me and I'll help you. Otherwise you won't get a word out of me, and you can do whatever you like."

"You're under arrest," snapped Bissell. "Give me your gun!" and he covered Bud with a single swift motion of his hand.

The younger man did as commanded and rose.

"Now go into that room; you're a prisoner," ordered Bissell.



CHAPTER XII

JULIET ASSERTS HERSELF

Now that the owner of the Bar T ranch had succeeded again in a match of wits with Larkin, he put sheep out of his mind and turned his attention to the more-immediate danger of rustlers. It had been a matter of a couple of years since the last determined attempt of the cowmen to oust these poachers by force of arms, and Bissell thought that the time was ripe for another and, if possible, final expedition.

With Larkin in his power, he had no doubt that the necessary information could be procured from him in one way or another, and, after talking matters over with Stelton, dispatched cowboys at top speed to the ranches in his district, asking that the owners and as many men as they could spare should come at once to a conference at the Bar T.

Having got them there, it was his intention to sweat Larkin for names and descriptions, and then let him go. Should the sheepman refuse all information, then his case could be acted upon by the members of the association without any further delay.

All these plans Larkin learned from Juliet and her mother, who looked after most of his wants. The latter, good woman, quite flustered at having what she termed a "regular boarder," became rather fond of the patient young man from the East who never failed to listen attentively to her narrative of the famous trip to St. Paul.

The regular boarder, for his part, could not but sympathize with this homely, hard-working, lonely woman. One rarely connected Martha Bissell with old Beef Bissell except in an impersonal way, as one would have connected the corral, or the barn, or the brand. In fact, the cowman seemed hardly cognizant of her existence, long since having transferred all the affections his hard life had left him to the daughter he worshiped.

But Martha, as is so often the case with women who grow old slaving for their husbands, had not changed in her devotion to Bissell since the proud day they had eloped on one horse and been married by a "sky pilot" in the nearest cow town.

Mrs. Bissell had come to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention—which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought.

Loving her daughter as she loved her husband, she derived a certain negative happiness from the fact that their exclusive companionship brought them pleasure.

For herself she asked nothing, and, as is the way of the world, she got it.

For Bud Larkin, who had only known her as an angular, uninteresting addendum of the Bar T, she took on a certain pathetic interest, and he went out of his way to talk with her about the glories of Chicago, since her one dissipation seemed to be mental journeys back East.

Larkin was not strictly a prisoner at the Bar T ranch-house, for this had been found impracticable from a number of standpoints. He had the run of the ranch, an old, decrepit cow pony to ride, and could go in any direction he chose under the supervision of a cowboy who carried a Winchester and was known to have impaled flies on cactus spines at thirty yards.

Occasionally Bud and Juliet rode out together, with this man in the rear, and renewed the old friendship that had lain dormant for so long. During one of these rides the girl, after debating the matter with herself, opened on a delicate subject.

"That Caldwell man is a strange-looking fellow, Bud. Who is he?"

Larkin looked at Juliet closely before replying, but could find nothing in her face to indicate any but a natural curiosity.

"He is a Chicago character I used to know," he returned shortly. "But what brought him out here is a puzzle to me."

"You seemed to want to see him pretty badly," said she, assuming a pout. "I was really jealous of him taking you off the way he did that first night you came."

"That's the first time I have been flattered with your jealousy," Bud returned gayly. "I'll ask him to come again."

And that was the closest she could come to a discussion of Caldwell's connection with Larkin. The fact, although she would not admit it, gave her more concern than it should have, and kept her constantly under a cloud of uneasiness. Bud's evasion of the subject added strength to the fear that there was really something horrible in Bud's past.

It was on one of his rides alone that Bud suddenly came to a very unflattering solution of another problem in regard to Caldwell. Ever since the stampede he had been giving time to the consideration of Smithy's strange actions that night. There was no love lost between the two, that was certain, and why the blackmailer should risk his life to defeat the rustlers and save the man he hated was beyond Bud's comprehension.

But at last he arrived at a solution that removed all his doubts, and this was that Smithy Caldwell had saved him for the same reason that the old lady in the fairy story was told to preserve the goose.

"Kill the goose and there will be no more golden eggs," remarked the fairy sagely, and evidently Caldwell was ready to heed her advice.

It certainly was worth the effort on Smithy's part, and even when Larkin had finally discovered the man's sordid motives he felt a species of admiration for the man's coolness and bravery. He felt, too, that, if he could not get a grip on the blackmailer before another payment was demanded, he could part with the money for the first time with the feeling that Caldwell had partially earned it.

As to Caldwell's presence among the rustlers, that was another matter entirely, and Larkin could not fathom the mystery. How Smithy, a low Chicago tough, whose only knowledge of a horse had been gained by observation, could so quickly become a trusted member of this desperate gang of cattle-thieves he could not conceive. Was there some occult power about the man—some almost hypnotic influence that passed his crossed eyes and narrow features in that company?

Larkin gave it up. But he knew that, should he ever again get his full liberty, his sheep safely across the range, and the leisure to pursue rustlers, Mr. Smithy Caldwell of Chicago would be his especial prey. And he grinned with anticipation at the glory of that moment when he should have the blackmailer in his power with enough evidence to swing him.

Stelton was the one man of the whole Bar T outfit who had suffered from the boomerang of his evil plans. It had been through him that Larkin was forced to accompany Bissell home after the stampede; and now he passed days and nights of misery, watching the progress of Bud's very evident suit. Chained down by his daily round of duties, his time was not his own, and with a green venom eating at his heart he watched the unfettered Bud ride off across the plains with Juliet, laughing, care-free, and apparently happy.

So greatly did this irk Mr. Stelton that his morose melancholy increased to a point where his own cowpunchers entertained fears for his sanity, and made him acquainted with the fact in their well-known tender manner. This did not serve to buoy his spirits, and he cursed himself roundly for the ridiculous position into which he had led himself.

As to Juliet, he hardly dared pass a civil time of day with her, so terrible a trial had his thwarted desires in regard to her become.

The fourth day after Bud's arrest old Beef Bissell called for his horse and rode away to the Circle Arrow ranch. Old man Speaker had not seen fit to rally to the cowmen's gathering, and Bissell valued his counsel very much; he had, therefore, gone to fetch him.

During the three days of his absence Mike Stelton suffered another of those reverses which are so exasperating because they are brought about by our own ugly spirits.

All the time he had continued to eat at the ranch table, and had been accorded his share of the conversation and attention. Now, with old Bissell out of the way, his status immediately changed. Mrs. Bissell, Juliet, and Bud were the best of friends, and presented a solid front of uniform but uninterested politeness to the foreman against which he was helpless. On the second day, for the first time in ten years, he moved his seat down into the punchers' dining-room and ate with them.

Such a defeat as this could not pass unnoticed among the punchers, who had never been accorded the pleasure of their gloomy foreman's presence at meal times, and Stelton suffered keenly from the gibes of the men.

Stelton endured all this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet. Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the character of Larkin.

"Why, boss, yuh shore wouldn't want a darned sheepman breakin' Julie's heart," he said, "an' him a Eastern dude at that. You should 'a' seen that feller. Yuh no more'n got yore back turned than he carried on with Juliet all the time. It made me plenty mad, too; but what could I do about it? I just moved my grub-pile down with the boys an' thought I'd tell yuh when yuh came home."

A half an hour of this was sufficient to work Bissell up into a furious rage, and, in something the same temper, he sent for Juliet an hour before dinner.

Now, a man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation. Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the longer he looked at her.

"There is somethin' I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell," he began. "Yuh won't mind?"

"No, dear," she answered. "What is it?"

"This sheepman Larkin—is it true yuh been courtin' with him while I been away?"

"I've been riding with him a good deal, and I've seen him every day, if that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don't you, father?"

"Yes, Julie, o' course I do; but I'm just thinkin' of yerself—and of me. Dunno what people'd say if they knowed ol' Bissell's daughter was traipsin' around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An' you—I allow it'd break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He's a bad lot."

"I can't agree with you in any of those things," said the girl, with just the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. "To anyone who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any way. Lastly, I don't care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr. Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require."

During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence, Bissell's jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow darkened.

"Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie," he accused her severely. "That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don't know it, but he can't answer for everything in his life. O' course, you can't understand these things, but I'm just tellin' yuh. Now, I'm plumb sorry to have to do it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won't go out with him any more."

"I don't think you should ask me that, father," said the girl quietly. "I am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl."

To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended purpose—that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument. Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter with his small, piercing eyes.

"Do you defy me?" he thundered, amazed at the girl's temerity. "All I do is try to think up ways of makin' yuh happy, an' now yuh insist on havin' this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this, Julie, are you in love with him?"

"I've never met another man I cared as much for," she returned with calm frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.

"Great Heavens!" cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his clenched fists above his head. "That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh know what yore sayin'? Do yuh know what yore doin'?"

"Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?"

"Yes."

"Because I think the things that have been done to Mr. Larkin are contemptible and mean." There was no placidity in those brown eyes now. They flashed fire. Her face had grown pale, and she, too, had risen to her feet. "I'm a cowman's daughter, but still I can be reasonable. Our range is free range, and he has a perfect right to walk his sheep north if he wants to. And even if he hadn't, there is no excuse for the stampede that took place the other night.

"And last of all, you have no right to keep Mr. Larkin here against his will so that he does not know what is happening to the rest of his flocks. I consider the whole thing a hideous outrage. But that isn't all. You have talked to me this afternoon in a suspicious manner that you have no right to use toward me. I am not a child, and shall think and act for myself."

"What do you mean by that? That you will help this scoundrel?"

"Yes, if I think it is the right thing to do."

Bissell started back as though someone had struck him. Then he seemed to lose his strength and to shrivel up, consumed by the flame of his bitterness and disappointment. At the sight, the girl's whole heart melted toward the unhappy man, and she longed to throw her arms around him and plead for forgiveness. But the same strain that had made her father what he was, in his hard environment, was dominant in her, and she stood her ground.

For a minute Bissell looked at her out of dull, hurt eyes. Then he motioned toward the door.

"Go in," he said gently; "I don't want to see yuh."



CHAPTER XIII

THE HEATHEN CHINEE

Hard-winter Sims, lying at full length on the grass, indulging in another of his frequent siestas, was rudely awakened by one of his herders.

"More sheep they come," said the man.

"Great Michaeljohn!" swore Sims, heaving his long length erect. "More?"

"Yes; it is Rubino with the third flock."

Sims cast a practiced eye over the sides of the swelling hills, where already two thousand animals, the second consignment, were feeding. It was now a week since he had met Bud Larkin after the stampede, and he was worried over the non-appearance of his chief. Here, in the hills of the southern hook of the Big Horn Mountains, he had fed the second flock up one valley and down the next, waiting for Larkin's arrival or some word from him.

Hurrying south after that midnight meeting, he had reached his destination just in time to check the advance of the second two thousand that had come the night before. Knowing the hard march north, but ignorant of the conditions now prevailing on the Bar T range, he had hesitated to expose more of Larkin's animals to ruin.

The arrival of this third flock complicated matters in the extreme, since the feeding-ground became constantly farther away from the original rendezvous.

He looked in the direction indicated by the herder and saw the cloud of dust that betokened the advance of the new flock. Soon the tinkle of the bells and the blethering of the animals themselves reached him, and he started leisurely back to meet Rubino.

He found the sheep in good physical shape, for they had been traveling at a natural pace, a condition not always easily brought about, and totally dependent on the skill of the herder. If the dogs or men follow constantly behind the animals, they, feeling that they are being constantly urged, will go faster and faster, neglecting to crop, and so starve on their feet in the midst of abundant feed. For this reason herders often walk slowly ahead of their flock, holding them back.

"Where are the next two thousand?" Sims asked Rubino.

"Two days behind, and coming slowly."

"And the last?"

"Three days behind them, but farther to the east."

Sims whistled. He realized that in five days, if nothing were done, he would have eight thousand sheep on his hands, scattered over the hills in every direction and subject to heavy loss both by wild animals and straying.

With the aplomb of a general disposing his forces, Sims indicated the rising hill on which Rubino should bed his flock down, and watched critically as they went through this evolution.

Sheep are the most unresponsive to human affection of any domesticated animal. Never, in all the thousands of years of shepherding, have they come to recognize man as an integer. They still cling to the flock life. Even when attacked by wild animals at night they do not seek the shepherd, but stand and bawl to the valiant (?) rams to beat off the enemy. On the march, the dogs do the actual herding, so that the "muttons" do not look to man for their orders.

The only occasion that they appeal to a human being is when their bodies crave salt. Then they run to him with a peculiar guttural cry, and, having been supplied, forget the herder immediately. Some people have tried to prove that this trait predicates a recognition of the human being as such, but it seems far more likely that they regard him with the same indifference as a giver that they do the water-hole which quenches their thirst.

Without intelligence, or the direct appreciation of man, they are entirely unattractive, ranking far below the dog, horse, or even cow. Consequently but few men in the sheep business have any affection for them. Of these few, Hard-winter Sims was probably the leader. Something closely akin to a maternal obligation was constantly at work in him, and the one thing that brought instant response was the cry of distress of a lamb or ewe.

Now, as Rubino's flock dotted itself over the hillside in the sunset, Sims watched what was to him the most beautiful thing in the world. The sounds were several—the mothering mutter of the ewes, the sharp blat of some lamb skipping for dinner, the plaintive cries of the "grannies"—wethers who, through some perverted maternal instinct, seek to mother some stray lamb as their own—and the deeper, contented throating of the rams.

The dogs, panting and thirsty with the long day's march, saw that their charges were finally settled, except for the few lone sentinels against the cobalt sky. Then they trotted with lolling tongues to the little stream that trickled down the valley and waded in to drink. After that they sought out their masters and sat beside them with pricked ears, wondering why no preparations for supper were going forward.

To the herders after the long trail the luxury of a cook wagon was appreciated. Only the first and last detachments carried one, and Rubino's men had cooked their meals over tiny fires made in the barren places, as the herdsmen have done since time immemorial.

The cook, a sullen man at best, grumbled audibly at the increase of his duties. Where before he had cooked for six men, now he must cook and clean up for twelve. All things considered, it was a "helluva" note, he declared, until Sims, overhearing his remarks, booted him a couple of times around the cook wagon, so that he much preferred the arduous duties of his calling.

"If yuh could only make every man love his job by contrast with somethin' else a lot worse, what a peaceful world this would be," thought Sims. "Now, sheep-herdin' ain't so plumb gentle yuh could call it a vacation, but when I think of cows an' a round-up I shore do bless them old blackfaces for bein' alive."

Finally the long-drawn yell of the cook gave notice that the meal was ready and all hands fell to with a will. They had hardly got started, however, when there came a sound of galloping feet from the north that brought them all upstanding and reaching for their weapons.

Over a near-by hill swept a body of perhaps fifty horsemen, each with a rifle across his saddle and a revolver at hip. They were typical plainsmen, and as the last radiance of the sun lighted them up, Sims could see that they wore the regular broad-brimmed white Stetsons of the cattle men.

"Put down yore guns, boys," said Sims after a moment's thought. "Let's get out o' this peaceable if we can."

The men put away their weapons and waited in silence. The horsemen swept up at the tireless trot of the plains until they recognized the tall, gaunt figure of the chief herdsman. Then, with a yell, they galloped into camp, drew rein abruptly, and dismounted.

Sims recognized the leader as Jimmie Welsh, the foreman of Larkin's Montana sheep ranch, and a happy, contented grin spread over his face.

"Glory be, boys!" he yelled, going forward to meet the horsemen. "Rustle around there, cookee," he called back over his shoulder, "yuh got company fer supper!"

The riders after their long journey were only too glad to see a permanent camp, and dismounted with grunts of pleasure and relief. They had come a distance of nearly two hundred and fifty miles in four days, and their horses were no longer disposed to pitch when their riders got upon them in the morning. The party was composed of all the available men from Larkin's ranch and others from the neighboring places.

In these men the hatred of cowmen and their ways was even more intense than vice versa, this being a result, no doubt, of the manifold insults they had suffered, and the fact that, as a rule, cowboys far outnumber sheep-herders and run them off the country at will. The call to arms taken north by Miguel had met with instant and enthusiastic response, and these men had come south to wipe out in one grand melee their past disgraces.

During supper Sims told of Larkin's offer of five dollars a day, and the riders nodded approvingly; it was the customary hire of fighting men in the range wars.

"But how did you get down over the Bar T range?" asked the chief herder.

"We done that at night," replied Jimmie Welsh, who was a little man with a ruddy face, bright eyes and a crisp manner of speech. "Tell me what's that ungodly mess up in Little River; it was night an' we couldn't see?"

"Two thousand of Larkin's sheep," replied Sims, laconically, and an angry murmur ran through the men. "Old Bissell, of the Bar T, stampeded 'em when we were just a-goin' to get 'em through safe. Shot up one herder, lammed cookee over the head an' raised ructions generally. Yes, boys, I'm plumb shore we have one or two little matters to ask them Bar T punchers about."

"But what's your orders, Simmy?" asked Welsh.

"I'm in charge o' the hull outfit till the boss shows up an' can do whatever I want. I'm gettin' real concerned about him though, not hearin' a word for a week. I 'low if he don't turn up to-morrow I'll have to send you boys lookin' fer him."

But the morrow brought its own solution of the problem.

In the middle of the morning a lone horseman was seen approaching over the hills, and the restless sheepmen, eager for any sport, spread out into a veritable ambuscade, taking position behind rocks and in depressions along the hills on either hand.

The horseman was very evidently a poor rider, for, instead of holding the reins easily and jauntily in his upturned right hand, he was clinging to the pommel of the saddle, while the pony slipped and slid along the difficult path.

Within a furlong of the camp, the man's nationality was made apparent by the flapping shirt and trousers he wore, as well as the black, coarse cue that whipped from side to side.

Among the secreted sheepmen a grin spread from face to face at the sight of this distressful figure, evidently in real wo from hours in the hard saddle. About a hundred yards from camp a single shot rang out, and then there arose such a wild chorus of reports and yells as would have terrified a stone image.

The cow pony (which of all horses loathes a bad rider) showed the whites of his eyes wickedly, laid his ears back into his mane and bucked madly with fright. The Chinaman, chattering like a monkey, described a perfect parabola and alighted right side up on the only tuft of grass within ten yards.

In an instant he bounced to his feet, took one look at the surrounding society, and made a bolt for the cook-wagon, the one place that was familiar to him.

At the door he encountered the sheepmen's regular cook coming out to see what the trouble was, and the next moment witnessed the near-annihilation of the yellow peril.

Sims and Jimmie Welsh pulled the burly cook off in time to save the Oriental, and the latter sat up with a dazed, frightened air.

"Yah! Makee much damee hellee!" he announced.

"Too much damee hellee," said Sims sententiously. "John, you good fighter. Me like you. What you do here?"

"Me bling message," and he reached into his blouse and drew out a piece of paper folded and pinned.

This he handed to Sims, who promptly opened it and started to read. In a minute he stopped and yelled for everyone who was not in the immediate circle to gather round and listen. Then, haltingly, he read aloud the following:

Dear Sims:

Ah Sin who brings you this is a bang-up cook, and I am sending him to you to get a job. Pay him fifty dollars on the spot in advance for his first month. I told him you would. He was the Bar T cook, I am sorry to say, but there was no other way of getting a message to you than to send him.

For the last few days I have been a prisoner in the "guest room" of the Bar T ranch-house. This is the middle room on the northwest side. After a certain row here I was clapped into confinement, and the Chinaman had to do the honors for me at all meals. I got friendly with him and found he was getting only thirty a month.

When he told me he owned one of the horses in the corral the whole thing was easy. I offered him fifty, gave him exact directions how to find your camp, and told him the best time to start.

If he ever reaches you, you will know where I am, and I want some of you to come and get me out of this. The cattlemen from all over are here, and they accuse me of standing in with the rustlers. What will happen to me I don't know, but I'm sure of this, it won't be healthy.

I should think the boys would be down from the north by this time.

Now, Simmy, keep everything under your hat and work quietly. Let the sheep pile up if you have to. Things aren't ripe here yet to move 'em north.

I'll be looking for you any day.

Bud.

When Sims had read the entire note twice, a puzzled silence ensued. Men lifted their hats and scratched their heads meditatively. Here among fifty men there was plenty of energy for action once the action was suggested, but very little initiative.

"I allow we'll shore have to get 'im out o' there," seemed to be the consensus of opinion.

"Shore, boys, shore," said Sims impatiently; "but how? That's the question. There's about a dozen real smart shooters on that ranch, and I'm plenty sure they don't all sleep to once. Besides, the worst part of it'll be gettin' near the dum place. If a hoss squeals or whinnies the rescuin' party might as well pick out their graves, 'cause yuh see only two or three can make the trip."

"Mebbe they can an' mebbe they can't," broke in Jimmie Welsh, his little, bright eyes twinkling with suppressed merriment. "I should think the hull outfit, cook-wagons, an' all, could make the visit to the Bar T."

"Yeah?" remarked Sims politely scornful but inquisitive. "Tell us about it."

And Welsh did.



CHAPTER XIV

SENTENCED

Everybody at the Bar T ranch house was laboring under suppressed excitement. It was now the middle of June when the yearly round-up should be under way, yet, owing to the invasion of the sheep and the recent rustler troubles, the cowboys had not been free to undertake this task.

On other ranches this spring work was well advanced, and the fact that the Bar T had not yet begun was a source of constant worry to Bissell and Stelton. The former, when he had sent out his call for other cowmen of the region, had encountered great difficulty in getting his neighbors to give up their time to the disposal of Bud Larkin's case.

At last, however, ten owners, impatient at the summons and anxious to return as quickly as possible to their work, had ridden in, some of them alone and others with a cowboy taken from the round-up.

Since the Bar T ranch house was incapable of accommodating them all, the punchers had been ousted from their bunk-house and the structure given over to the visitors.

The sudden disappearance of the Chinese cook had added to Bissell's troubles and shamed the hospitality of his home. This situation had been relieved temporarily by the labors of Mrs. Bissell and Juliet until an incompetent cowboy had been pressed into service at an exorbitant figure.

Therefore it was with short temper and less patience that Bissell began what might be called the trial of Larkin. The meeting-place of the men was under a big cottonwood that stood by the bank of the little stream curving past the Bar T.

As each man arrived from his home ranch he was made acquainted with the situation as it stood, and one afternoon Larkin was brought out from his room to appear before the tribunal. The owners were determined to end the matter that day, mete out punishment, and ride back to their own ranches in the morning.

It was a circle of stern-faced, solemn men that Larkin faced under the cottonwood tree, and as he looked at one after another, his heart sank, for there appeared very little of the quality of mercy in any of them. Knowing as he did the urgency that was drawing them home again, he feared that the swiftness of judgment would be tempered with very little reason.

Bissell as head of the organization occupied a chair, while at each side of him five men lounged on the grass, their guns within easy reach. Larkin was assigned to a seat facing them all, and, looking them over, recognized one or two. There was Billy Speaker, of the Circle-Arrow, whom he had once met, and Red Tarken, of the M Square, unmistakable both because of his size and his flaming hair.

"Now, Larkin," began Bissell, "these men know what you've been tryin' to do to my range—"

"Do they know what you did to my sheep?" interrupted Bud crisply.

Bissell's face reddened at this thrust, for, deep down, he knew that the stampede was an utterly despicable trick, and he was not over-anxious to have it paraded before his neighbors, some of whom had ridden far at his request.

"Shut yore mouth," he snarled, "an' don't yuh open it except to answer questions."

"Oh, no, yuh can't do that, Bissell," and blond Billy Speaker shook his head. "Yuh got to give 'im a chance to defend himself. Now we're here we want to get all the facts. What did yuh do to his sheep, Beef? I never heard."

"I run a few of 'em into the Little River, if yore any happier knowin'," snapped Bissell, glowering on Speaker.

Larkin grinned.

"Two thousand of 'em," he volunteered. There was no comment.

"These gents know," went on Bissell, after a short pause, "that yuh were two days with them rustlers and that yuh can tell who they are if yuh will. Now will yuh tell us how you got in with 'em in the first place?"

Bud began at the time of the crossing of the Big Horn and with much detail described how he had outwitted the Bar T punchers with the hundred sheep under Pedro, while the rest of the flock went placidly north. His manner of address was good, he talked straightforwardly, and with conviction and, best of all, had a broad sense of humor that vastly amused these cowmen.

Sympathetic though they were with Bissell's cause, Larkin's story of how a despised sheepman had outwitted the cattle-king brought grins and chuckles.

"I allow yuh better steer clear o' them sheep, Bissell," suggested one man drolly. "First thing yuh know this feller'll tell yuh he's bought the Bar T away from yuh without yore knowin' it. Better look up yore land grant to-night."

By this time Bissell had become a caldron of seething rage. His hand actually itched to grab his gun and teach Larkin a lesson. But his position as chairman of the gathering prevented this, although he knew that plains gossip was being made with every word spoken. Among the cowmen about him were some whose ill success or smaller ranches had made them jealous, and, in his mind, he could see them retailing with much relish what a fool Larkin had made of him. He knew he would meet with reminders of this trial during the rest of his life.

However, he stuck to his guns.

"Now what we want to know, young feller, is this: the names an' descriptions of them rustlers."

"I will give them to you gladly and will supply men to help run them down at my own expense if you will let the rest of my sheep come north on your range. Not only that, but I will not ask any damages for the animals you have already killed. Now, men," Larkin added, turning to the others and with a determined ring in his voice, "I want peace. This fighting is cutting our own throats and we are losing money by the hour.

"The range is free, as all of you know; there is a law against fencing it, and that means that no grangers can settle here and make it pay—the animals would eat all their unfenced farm truck. I have a ranch in Montana with about three thousand sheep on it. I tried to buy more there, but couldn't.

"Therefore, I had to come down south and 'walk' them north. Now I don't like to fight anybody, chiefly because it costs too much; but in a case like this, when I find a dog in the manger"—he looked directly at Bissell—"I make it a principle to kick that dog out of the manger and use it.

"I am just as much of an American as any of you, and Americans never had a habit of letting other people walk all over them. Now you men can do anything with me you want—I can't prevent you. But I can warn you that if I am judged in any way it will be the worst job the cowmen of Wyoming ever did.

"Understand, this isn't a threat, it's just a statement. Because I refuse to turn in and help that man, who has done his best to ruin me, he wants me to suffer the same penalty as a criminal. Now I leave it to you. Has he much of a case?"

Bud, who had risen in the fervor of his speech, sat down and looked at his hearers. Never in his life had he pleaded for anything, but in this moment necessity had made him eloquent. He had hardly taken his seat when Mike Stelton strolled over and sat down on the grass.

For a few minutes there was silence as the men, slow of thought, revolved what Larkin had said. Bissell, ill-concealing his impatience, awaited their comments anxiously. At last Billy Speaker remarked:

"I can't see your bellyache at all, Bissell. It seems to me you've acted pretty ornery."

"I have, eh?" roared Beef, stung by this cool opinion. "Would yuh let sheep go up yore range? Tell me that, would yuh?"

"I allow I might manage," was the contemptuous retort. "They're close feeders on the march, an' don't spread out noways far."

Bissell choked with fury, but subsided when another man spoke.

"I figure we're missin' the point, fellers," he said. "This here association of our'n was made for the purpose of doin' just what Bissell has been tryin' to do—that is, keep the range clear for the cows. We don't care what it is that threatens, whether it's sheep, or wolves, or rustlers, or prairie fires. This association is supposed to pertect the cows.

"Now I 'low that Mr. Larkin has had his troubles right enough, but that's his fault. You warned him in time. I'm plumb regretful he's lost his sheep, but that don't let him out of tellin' us where them rustlers are. It's a pretty mean cuss that'll cost us thousands of dollars a year just for spite or because he can't drive a hard bargain.

"Up on my place I've lost a hundred calves already, but I'd be mighty glad to lose a hundred more if I could see the dirty dogs that stole 'em kickin' from a tree-limb. An' I'm in favor of a tree-limb for anybody who won't tell."

"Yore shore gettin' some long-winded, Luby," remarked a tall man who smoked a pipe, "an' likewise yore angry passions has run away with yore sense. Yuh can't string a man up because he won't talk; 'cause if yuh do we'll sick the deputy sheriff on yuh an' mebbe you'll go to jail."

The speaker rolled a droll, twinkling eye at Bissell and the whole gathering burst into a great guffaw at his expense. This was all the more effective since Bissell had decorated the outside of his vest with the nickel-plated star of his authority.

At this sally he nearly had apoplexy and bawled out for a drink, which somebody accommodatingly supplied from a flask, although such things were rarely carried.

When the merriment had subsided a fourth man volunteered the opinion that, although there was nothing that could force Bud to tell what he knew, still, such a defiance of their organization should not go unpunished. The fact that the cowmen were opposed to the entrance of sheep into the territory was enough excuse, he thought, to make an example of Bud Larkin and thus keep other ambitious sheepmen away from the range in this section.

One after another of the men gave their opinions and finally lined up in two camps, the first resolved on punishing Larkin in some manner, and the second in favor of letting him go with a warning that he must take the consequences if he ever attempted to walk any more sheep over the Bar T range or any other range of the association.

As has been said, the right of justice and fair-dealing was the very backbone of the cattle-raising industry, and owners depended almost entirely upon other men's recognition of it to insure them any profits in the fall.

For this reason six of the eleven men were in favor of letting Larkin go. The matter rested with the majority vote and was about to be put to the final ballot when Mike Stelton got on his feet and asked if he might put a few questions.

Bissell, only too eager for any delay or interruption that might change the sentiment of the majority, granted the request.

Stelton's dark face was illumined for a moment with a crafty smile, and then he said:

"Yuh know a man by the name of Smithy Caldwell, don't yuh?"

"Yes," said Bud, cautiously, not seeing quite where the question might lead.

"He was in that stampede with yuh, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"He was one of the party sent out to string yuh up, wasn't he?"

This time there was a long hesitation as Bud tried vainly to catch the drift of the other's interrogation.

"Yes," he answered slowly at last.

"Well, then, he must have been one of the rustlers," cried Stelton in a triumphant voice, turning to the rest of the men, who were listening intently.

"All right, I admit it," remarked Larkin coolly. "I don't see where that is taking you."

"Just keep yore shirt on an' yuh will in a minute," retorted Stelton. "Now just one or two more questions.

"Do you remember the first night Caldwell came to the Bar T ranch?"

Larkin did not answer. A premonition that he was in the toils of this man concerning that dark thing in his past life smote him with a chill of terror. He remembered wondering that very night whether or not Stelton had been listening to his talk with Caldwell. Then the recollection suddenly came to him that, even though he had heard, the foreman could not expose the thing that was back of it all. Once more he regained his equilibrium.

"Yes, I remember that night," he said calmly.

"All right!" snapped Stelton, his words like pistol-shots. "Then yuh remember that Smithy Caldwell got five hundred dollars from yuh after a talk by the corral, don't you?"

"Yes," replied Larkin, in immense relief that Stelton had not mentioned the blackmail.

"Well, then, gents," cried the foreman with the air of a lawyer making a great point, "yuh have the admission from Larkin that he gave money secretly to one of the rustlers. If that ain't connivance and ackchul support I'm a longhorn heifer."

He sat down on the grass triumphantly.

It seemed to Bud Larkin as though some gigantic club had descended on the top of his head and numbed all his senses. Careful as he had been, this wily devil had led him into a labyrinthic maze of questions, the end of which was a concealed precipice. And, like one of his own sheep, he had leaped over it at the leader's call!

He looked at the faces of his judges. They were all dark now and perplexed. Even Billy Speaker seemed convinced. Bud admitted to himself that his only chance was to refute Stelton's damaging inference. But how?

The cowmen were beginning to talk in low tones among themselves and there was not much time. Suddenly an idea came. With a difficult effort he controlled his nervous trepidation.

"Men," he said, "Stelton did not pursue his questions far enough."

"What d'yuh mean by that?" asked Bissell, glaring at him savagely.

"I mean that he did not ask me what Caldwell actually did with the money I gave him. He made you believe that Smithy used it for the rustlers with my consent. That is a blamed lie!"

"What did he do with it?" cried Billy Speaker.

"Ask Stelton," shouted Bud, suddenly leaping out of his chair and pointing an accusing finger at the foreman. "He seems to know so much about everything, ask him!"

The foreman, dazed by the unexpected attack, turned a surprised and harrowed countenance toward the men as he scrambled to his feet. He cast quick, fearful glances in Larkin's direction, as though attempting to discover how much of certain matters that young man actually knew.

"Ask him!" repeated Bud emphatically. "There's a fine man to listen to, coming here with a larkum story that he can't follow up."

"Come on, Stelton, loosen yore jaw," suggested Billy Speaker. "What did this here Caldwell do with the money?"

Stelton, his face black with a cloud of rage and disappointment, glared from one to another of the men, who were eagerly awaiting his replies. Larkin, watching him closely, saw again those quick, furtive flicks of the eye in his direction, and the belief grew upon him that Stelton was suspicious and afraid of something as yet undreamed of by the rest. Larkin determined to remember the fact.

"I don't know what he done with the money," growled the foreman at last, admitting his defeat.

"Why did you give Caldwell five hundred in the first place, Larkin?" asked Bissell suddenly.

"That is a matter between himself and me only," answered Bud freezingly, while at the same time he sat in fear and trembling that Stelton would leap before the cowmen at this new cue and retail all the conversation of that night at the corral.

But for some reason the foreman let the opportunity pass and Bud wondered to himself what this sudden silence might mean.

He knew perfectly well that no gentle motive was responsible for the fellow's attitude, and wrote the occurrence down on the tablets of his memory for further consideration at a later date.

After this there was little left to be done. Stelton's testimony had failed in its chief purpose, to compass the death of Larkin, but it had not left him clear of the mark of suspicion and he himself had little idea of absolute acquittal. Under the guard of his sharpshooting cow-puncher he was led back to his room in the ranch house to await the final judgment.

In an hour it was delivered to him, and in all the history of the range wars between the sheep and cattle men there is recorded no stranger sentence. In a land where men were either guilty or innocent, and, therefore, dead or alive, it stands alone.

It was decided by the cowmen that, as a warning and example to other sheep owners, Bud Larkin should be tied to a tree and quirted, the maximum of the punishment being set at thirty blows and the sentence to be carried out at dawn.



CHAPTER XV

COWLAND TOPSY-TURVY

To Bud Larkin enough had already happened to make him as philosophical as Socrates. Epictetus remarks that our chief happiness should consist in knowing that we are entirely indifferent to calamity; that disgrace is nothing if our consciences are right and that death, far from being a calamity is, in fact, a release.

But the world only boasts of a few great minds capable of believing these theories, and Larkin's was not one of them. He was distinctly and completely depressed at the prospect ahead of him.

It was about ten o'clock at night and he sat in the chair beside his table, upon which a candle was burning, running over the pages of an ancient magazine.

The knowledge of what the cowmen had decided to do with him had been brought by a committee of three of the men just before the supper hour and since that time Larkin had been fuming and growling with rage.

There seems to be something particularly shameful in a whipping that makes it the most dreaded of punishments. It was particularly so at the time in which this story is laid, for echoes of '65 were still to be heard reverberating from one end of the land to the other. In the West whippings were of rare occurrence, if not unknown, except in penitentiaries, where they had entirely too great a vogue.

Larkin's place of captivity was now changed. Some enterprising cowboy, at Bissell's orders, had fashioned iron bars and these were fixed vertically across the one window. The long-unused lock of the door had been fitted with a key and other bars fastened across the doorway horizontally so that should Larkin force the lock he would still meet opposition.

Since Juliet's unpleasant episode with her father Bud had seen her just once—immediately afterward. Then, frankly and sincerely, she had told him what had happened and why, and Larkin, touched to the heart, had pleaded with her for the greatest happiness of his life.

The realization of their need for each other was the natural outcome of the position of each, and the fact that, whatever happened, Juliet found herself forced to espouse Bud's cause.

In that interview with her father she had come squarely to the parting of the ways, and had chosen the road that meant life and happiness to her. The law that human intellects will seek their own intellectual level, providing the person is sound in principle, had worked out in her case, and, once she had made her decision, she clung to it with all the steadfastness of a strong and passionate nature.

It was Bissell's discovery of a new and intimate relation between his daughter and the sheepman that had resulted in the latter's close confinement, and from the time that this occurred the two had seen nothing of each other except an occasional glimpse at a distance when Bud was taken out for a little exercise.

To-night, therefore, as Larkin sat contemplating the scene to be enacted at dawn, his sense of shame increased a hundredfold, for he knew that, as long as she lived, Julie could not forget the occurrence.

It should not be thought that all this while he had not formulated plans of escape. Many had come to him, but had been quickly dismissed as impracticable. Day and night one of the Bar T cowboys watched him. And even though he had been able to effect escape from his room, he knew that without a horse he was utterly helpless on the broad, level stretches of prairie. And to take a horse from the Bar T corral would lay him open to that greatest of all range crimes—horse-stealing.

To-night his guards had been doubled. One paced up and down outside his window and the other sat in the dining-room on which his door opened.

Now, at ten o'clock the entire Bar T outfit was asleep. Since placing the bunk-house at the disposal of the cowmen from other ranches, the punchers slept on the ground—rolled in their blankets as they always did when overtaken by night on the open range.

At ten-thirty Bud put out his candle, undressed, and went to bed. But he could not sleep. His mind reverted to Hard-winter Sims and the sheep camp by the Badwater. He wondered whether the men from Montana had arrived there yet, and, most intensely of all, he wondered whether Ah Sin had got safely through with his message.

He calculated that the Chinaman must have arrived three days before unless unexpectedly delayed, and he chafed at the apparent lack of effort made on his behalf. The only explanation that offered itself was—that Sims, taking advantage of the events happening at the Bar T, had seized the opportunity to hurry the gathering sheep north across the range. If such was the case, Larkin resigned himself to his fate, since he had given Sims full power to do as he thought best.

At about midnight he was dimly conscious of a scuffling sound outside his window, and, getting softly out of bed, went to the opening. In a few minutes the head of a man rose gradually above the window-sill close to the house, and a moment later he was looking into the face of Hard-winter Sims.

Controlling the shock this apparition gave him, Larkin placed his finger on his lips and whispered in a tone so low it was scarcely more than a breath:

"Did you get the fellow outside?"

Sims nodded.

"There's another one in the dining-room just outside my door. He ought to be relieved at one o'clock, but he'll have to go out and wake up his relief. He'll go out the kitchen door, and when he does nab him, but don't let him yell. Now pass me a gun."

Without a sound, Sims inserted a long .45 between the clumsy bars, and followed it with a cartridge belt.

"How'll we get yuh out?" he whispered.

"After fixing the man inside come out again and loosen these bars; the door is barred, too."

"Where are the cowmen?" asked Sims.

"All in the bunk-house, and the punchers are sleeping out near the corral."

"Yes, I seen 'em. Now you go back to bed an' wait till I hiss through the window. Then we'll have yuh out o' here in a jiffy."

The herder's form vanished in the darkness, and Larkin, his heart beating high with hope and excitement, returned to his bed. Before lying down, however, he dressed himself completely and strapped on the cartridge belt and gun.

The minutes passed like hours. Listening with every nerve fiber on the alert, Bud found the night peopled with a multitude of sounds that on an ordinary occasion would have passed unnoticed. So acute did his sense of hearing become that the crack of a board in the house contracting under the night coolness seemed to him almost like a pistol shot.

When at last it appeared that Sims must have failed and that dawn would surely begin to break, he heard a heavy sound in the dining-room and sat bolt upright. It was merely the cow-puncher there preparing to go out and waken his successor. Although the man made as little noise as possible, it seemed to Bud that his footsteps must wake everybody in the house.

The man went out of the dining-room into the mess-room of the cowboys, closing the door behind him softly, and after that what occurred was out of the prisoner's ken.

After a while, however, Bud's ears caught the faintest breath of a hiss at the window, and he rolled softly out of bed on to the floor in his stocking feet. Sims was there and another man with him, and both were prying at the bars of the window with instruments muffled in cloth.

"Did you get him?" asked Bud.

"Shore! He won't wake up for a week, that feller," answered Sims placidly.

For a quarter of an hour the two worked at the clumsy bars, assisted by Bud from the inside. At the end of that time two of them came loose at the lower ends and were bent upward. Then the combined efforts of the three men were centered on the third bar, which gave way in a few minutes.

Handing his boots out first, Larkin crawled headforemost out of the window and put his arms around the shoulders of his rescuers, resting most of his weight upon their bent backs. Then they walked slowly away from the house and Bud's feet and legs came out noiselessly. Still in the shadow of the walls they set him down and he drew on his boots.

It was not until then that Sims's assistant made himself known.

"Hello, boss," he said and took off his broad hat so that Larkin could see his face.

"Jimmie Welsh, by George!" whispered Bud joyfully, wringing his hand. "Did you bring many of the boys down with you?"