"Fifty," replied the other.

"Bully for you! I don't know what would become of me if it weren't for you and Hard-winter."

As they talked they were moving off toward the little river that wound past the Bar T house.

"Got a horse for me?" asked Bud.

"Yes," said Sims, "over here in the bottoms where the rest of the boys are."

"What do you plan to do now?"

Sims told him and Bud grinned delightedly at the same time that his face hardened with the triumph of a revenge about to be accomplished.

"Let's get at it," he said.

"Wait here and I'll get the rest of the bunch."

Hard-winter left them, and in a few minutes returned with a dozen brawny sheepmen, mostly recruited from Larkin's own ranch in Montana. When greetings had been exchanged they moved off quietly toward the ranch-house.

The corral of the Bar T was about fifty yards back of the cook's shanty and as you faced it had a barn on the right-hand side, where the family saddle horses were kept in winter, as well as the small amount of hay that Bissell put up every year.

To the left of the corral the space was open, and here the Bar T punchers had made their camp since leaving their former quarters. The bunk-house on the other hand stood perhaps fifty feet forward of the barn. It was toward this building that the expedition under Sims took its way.

Silently the rough door swung back on its rawhide hinges and ten men, with a revolver in each hand, filed quietly in. Sims and Larkin remained outside on guard. Presently there was a sound of muttering and cursing that grew louder. Then one yell, and the solid thud of a revolver butt coming in contact with a human skull. After that there was practically no noise whatever.

The men outside watched anxiously, fearful that the single outcry had raised an alarm. But there was no sound from either the house or the cowboys' camp. Presently Welsh stuck his head out of the door.

"How is she? Safe?" he asked.

"Yes, bring 'em out," answered Bud, and the next minute a strange procession issued from the bunk-house.

The cowmen, gagged, and with their hands bound behind them, walked single file, accompanied by one of the sheepmen. Without a word the line turned in the direction of the river bottoms, where the rest of the band and the horses were waiting.

To do this it was necessary to pass behind the cook-house. Bud leaned over and spoke to Sims.

"Can't we get Bissell in this party? He's the fellow that has made all the trouble."

"Sure, Jimmy and I will go in and get him. I had forgotten all about him."

But they were saved the trouble, for just as they were opposite the cook-house, Larkin saw a burly form outlined for an instant in the doorway of the cowboys' dining-room. With three bounds he was upon this form and arrived just in time to seize a hand that was vainly tugging at a revolver strapped on beneath his night clothes.

Had fortune not tangled Bissell's equipment that night Bud Larkin would have been a dead man. Snatching off his hat, he smashed it over the cattle king's mouth, and an instant later Bissell, writhing and struggling, but silent, was being half-carried out to join his friends.

Matters now proceeded with speed and smoothness. The prisoners were hurried to where the remainder of the band awaited them. Then, still bound and gagged, they were mounted on spare horses.

Only thirty of Welsh's raiders had come on this trip, the rest remaining to help with the sheep, but their horses had been brought so that there might be ample provision for everybody.

With a feeling of being once more at home, Larkin climbed into a deep saddle, and a wave of triumph surged over him. He was again free, and at the head of a band of brave men. He had the ascendency at last over his misfortune, and he intended to keep it. Then when everything was finished he could come back and he would find Juliet—

The remembrance of her brought him to a pause. Must he go away without as much as a word from her, the one for whom he cared more than all the rest of the world? Quietly he dismounted.

"Let Jimmie go on with the prisoners and the rest of the boys," he said to Sims. "You wait here with me. I must leave one message."

A minute later the cavalcade stole away, following the winding river bank for a mile before setting foot on the plain.

Then, with Sims crouching, armed, behind the nearest protection, Bud Larkin walked softly to the house. He knew which was her window and went straight there, finding it open as he had expected. Listening carefully he heard no sound from within. Then he breathed the one word, "Julie," and immediately there came a rustling of the bed as she rose.

Knowing that she had been awake and was coming to him, he turned away his eyes until he felt her strong little hand on his shoulder. Then he looked up to find her in an overwrap with her luxuriant hair falling down over her shoulders, her eyes big and luminously dusky.

"Darling," she said, "I have heard everything, and I am so glad."

"Then you could have given the alarm at any time?"

"Yes."

"God bless your faithful little heart!" he said fervently, and, reaching up, drew down her face to his and kissed her.

It was their second kiss and they both thrilled from head to foot with this tantalization of the hunger of their love. All the longing of their enforced separation seemed to burst the dam that had held it, and, for a time, they forgot all things but the living, moving tide of their own love.

At last the girl disengaged herself from his eager hands, with hot cheeks and bright, flame-lit eyes. Her breath came fast, and it was a moment before she could compose herself.

"Where are you going now, Bud?" she asked.

"Back to the sheep."

"Can I do anything to help you?"

"I can only think of one thing, and that is to marry me."

"Everything in time, sir!" she reproved him. "Get your muttons out of the way and then you can have me."

Larkin groaned. Then he said:

"If anything comes for me or anybody wants me, I want you to do as I would do if I were here. Things are coming to a climax now and I must know all that goes on. Watch Stelton especially. He is crooked somewhere, and I'm going to get him if it takes me the rest of my life."

Suddenly there was a loud knock from outside the girl's bedroom door, and they both listened, hardly daring to breathe.

"Julie, let me in!" cried Mrs. Bissell's querulous voice. "Where's your father?"

"Run, dear boy, for your life!" breathed the girl.

Larkin kissed her swiftly and hurried back to the underbrush, where Sims was awaiting him in an access of temper.

"Great Michaeljohn, boss!" he growled as they rode along the bank, "ain't yuh got no consideration fer me? From the way yuh go on a person'd think yuh were in love with the girl."



CHAPTER XVI

A MESSAGE BY A STRANGE HAND

What were the feelings of Mr. Mike Stelton that dawn had better be imagined than described. The first he knew of any calamity was when Mrs. Bissell, unable to find her husband near the house, shook him frantically by the shoulder.

"Get up, Mike," she cried into his ear. "Somethin's wrong here. Henry's nowhere around."

Dazed with sleep, unable to get the proper focus on events, the foreman blundered stupidly about the place searching cursorily, and cursing the helplessness of Beef Bissell.

Presently he got awake, however, and perceived that dawn was coming up in the east. Then he reveled in the delightful anticipation of what was to occur out under the old cottonwood along the river bank. Mentally he licked his chops at the prospect of this rare treat. He intended if possible to make Juliet witness her lover's degradation.

After vainly hunting some valid excuse for Bissell's untimely departure, Stelton thought he would call the boys, which he did. Then he turned his attention to the bunk-house, for he knew the cowmen were in a hurry to get away and would want to be called early.

"All out!" he bawled jovially, thrusting his head in at the door.

Not a sound came in response. Then for the first time Stelton had a premonition of trouble. He walked into the bunk-house and took quick note of the ten tumbled but empty bunks. Also of the ten belts and revolvers that hung on wooden pegs along the wall—the sign of Western etiquette.

In those days, and earlier, if a man rode by at meal-time or evening he was your guest. He might take dinner with his hat on, and get his knife and fork mixed, but if he hung up his belt and revolver he was satisfied that all the amenities had been observed, whether you thought so or not.

The one other unspoken law was that every man's business was his own business and no questions were allowed. You might be entertaining a real bad man like Billy the Kid, and you might suspect his identity, but you never made inquiries, and for three reasons.

The first was, that it was bad plains etiquette; the second, that if you were mistaken and accused the wrong man, punishment was sure and swift; and the third was, that if you were right the punishment was still surer and swifter, for an escaping criminal never left any but mute witnesses behind him.

Looking at these ten indications of good-will along the bunk-house wall, Stelton's alarm was once more lulled. Perhaps the men had all gone for a paddle in the stream before breakfast, he thought. If so, they would take care of themselves, and turn up when the big bell rang. He couldn't waste any more time this way.

Now to relieve the man who was guarding Larkin outside the window.

He hurried around the house and came upon the prone figure of a cow-puncher, rolled close against the house. The man's head was bloody, his hands were tied behind him, and his neckerchief had been stuffed into his mouth and held there by another. He was half-dead when Stelton, with a cry of surprise, bent over him and loosened his bonds.

With a prolonged yell the foreman brought all hands running to him and, giving the hurt man into the care of a couple of them, ran along the house to Bud's window. The bent bars showed how the bird had flown. Stelton was about to give way to his fury when another cry from the rear of the cook-house told of the discovery of the second watchman's body, that had lain hidden in the long grass which grew up against the walls.

Then didn't Stelton curse! Never had he been so moved to profane eloquence, and never did he give such rein to it. He cursed everything in sight, beginning with the ranch house; and he took that from chimney to cellar, up and down every line and angle, around the corners and out to the barn. Then he began on the barn and wound up with the corral. The cowboys listened in admiration and delight, interjecting words of approval now and then.

But once having delivered himself of this relief, the foreman's face set into its customary ugly scowl, and he snapped out orders to saddle the horses. Presently a man rode up from the river bottoms and told of the discovery of many hoof tracks there, and the place where they had waited a long while.

"I've got it!" bawled Stelton, pounding his thigh. "Larkin's men have been here and carried off all the owners. Oh, won't there be the deuce to pay?"

Then he picked out the cowboys who had come with their bosses and added:

"Crowd yore grub and ride home like blazes. Get yore punchers an' bring grub for a week. Then we'll all meet at the junction of the Big Horn and Gooseberry Creek. If yuh punchers like a good job you'll get yore owners out o' this. And I'm plumb shore when we get through there won't be a sheepman left in this part of the State. To-morrer night at Gooseberry!"

Then was such a scene of hurry and bustle and excitement as the Bar T had seldom witnessed. The parting injunctions were to bring extra horses and plenty of rope, with the accent on the rope, and a significant look thrown in.

By seven o'clock, the time that Larkin, bloody, humiliated and suffering, would already have paid his penalty, there was scarcely a soul at the Bar T ranch, for the cowboys had disappeared across the plains at a hard trot.

The Bar T punchers were sent out on the range to scour for tracks of the fugitives, but, after following them some distance from the river bottom, gave up in despair when a night herder admitted that the Bar T horses had been feeding in the vicinity the night before, thus entangling the tracks. Meantime the cook was preparing food for the punchers to carry, guns were being oiled and overhauled, knives sharpened, and ropes carefully examined.

Yet as the men went about their duties there was a kind of dazed, subdued air in all they did, for it was, indeed, hard to realize that the ranch owners of nearly a quarter of Wyoming's best range had disappeared into the empty air apparently without a sound or protest.

The following afternoon the entire Bar T outfit, excepting a couple of punchers who were incapacitated from former round-up injuries, swept out of the yard and headed almost directly east across the plain.

Julie and her mother watched them go and waved them farewell, the former with a clutch of fear at her heart for her lover and the latter in tears for her husband, thus unconsciously taking opposite sides in the struggle that they knew must ensue.

It must not be thought that Juliet had turned against her father since their final difference. After her first outbreak against his narrow views and unjust treatment of Larkin, the old love that had been paramount all her life returned, and with it a kind of pity. She knew that in a man of her father's age his nature could not be made over immediately, if ever; the habits of a rough lifetime were too firmly ingrained. But at the same time there was something gone from the sweet and intimate affection that had formerly characterized their relations.

Lovers or married folk who declare for the efficacy of a quarrel as a renewer of love are wrong in the last analysis. Loss of control always entails loss of respect, and fervent "making up" after such an outbreak cannot efface the picture of anger-distorted features or remove the acid of bitter words. Thus it was with Juliet and her love for her father.

As to his safety she was not worried, for she knew that Bud would not allow any harm to come to him as he was in command of the men who had effected the taking-off. What Larkin's plans were she did not fully realize, but she knew this sudden coup had been executed to further his own ends in the imperative matter of getting his sheep north. And of this she finally convinced her mother, although that lady wept copiously before the thing was accomplished.

The evening following the departure of Mike Stelton and his punchers was made notable by the arrival of a man on horseback, who carried across his saddle a black box, and in thongs at his side a three-legged standard of yellow wood. His remaining equipment was a square of black cloth.

Without invitation he turned his dejected animal into the Bar T corral and made himself at home for the evening. At the supper table he revealed his identity and explained his purpose.

"I'm Ed Skidmore," he announced, "and I take photographs. This thing I've got is a camera." He had already mounted the instrument on his tripod. "I've been going around from ranch to ranch and the pictures have been selling like hot cakes."

Juliet, listening, noted that his conversation was that of a comparatively well-educated man and that he had none of the characteristic drawl or accent of the plainsmen. To her a camera was nothing out of the ordinary, although she had not seen one since her final return West, but her mother was vastly interested.

In those days photography was not a matter of universal luxury as it is now, and the enterprising Skidmore was practically the first to introduce it as a money-maker in the widely scattered ranches of the cow country.

"How do yuh sell 'em?" asked Martha Bissell, fluttering with the possibilities of the next morning, the time the young man had set for his operation. Martha had not been "took" since that far-off trip "East" to St. Paul, when she and Henry had posed for daguerreotypes.

"Five dollars apiece, ma'am," said Skidmore, "and they're cheap at the price." And they were, since the cost of something universally desired is dependent on the supply rather than the demand.

After supper Martha retired to her bedroom to overhaul her stock of "swell" dresses, a stock that had not been disturbed in fifteen years except for the spring cleaning and airing. This left Skidmore and Juliet alone. She civilly invited him out on the veranda, seeing he was a man of some quality.

"I had a queer experience to-day," he remarked after a few commonplaces. "I was riding to the Bar T from the Circle-Arrow and was about twenty miles away, rounding a butte, when a man rode out to me from some place of concealment.

"When he reached me he suddenly pulled his gun and covered me.

"'Where are you goin'?' he said. I told him I was on my way here and why. He examined my outfit suspiciously and let me go. But first he said:

"'Take this letter to the Bar T and give it to Miss Bissell.'" Skidmore reached inside his shirt and pulled forth a square envelope, which he handed to Juliet. "The whole thing was so strange," the photographer went on, "that I have waited until I could see you alone so that I could tell you about it."

Juliet, surprised and startled, turned the missive over in her hands, hopeful that it was a letter from Bud and yet fearful of something that she could not explain. When Skidmore had finished she excused herself and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

On the envelope was the simple inscription, "Miss Bissell," written in a crabbed, angular hand. This satisfied her that the message was not from Bud, and with trembling fingers she opened it. Inside was an oblong sheet of paper filled with the same narrow handwriting. Going to the window to catch the dying light, she read:

Miss:

This is to tell yuh that Mr. Larkin who yuh love is already merried. It ain't none of my biznis, but I want yuh to no it. An' that ain't all. The U. s. oficers are looking for him on another charge, tu. Nobody noes this but me an' yuh, an' nobody will as long as the monie keeps comin' in. If yuh doant bileeve this, axe him.

Yurs Truly, A Friend.

In the difficulty of translating the words before her into logical ideas the full import of the statements made did not penetrate Juliet's mind at first. When they did she merely smiled a calm, contemptuous smile.

With the usual fatuous faith of a sweetheart, she instantly consigned to limbo anything whatever derogatory to her beloved. Then in full possession of herself, she returned to the veranda, where Skidmore was smoking a cigarette.

"No bad news I hope?" he asked politely, scrutinizing her features.

"Oh, no, thanks," she replied, laughing a little unnaturally. "Not really bad, just disturbing," and they continued their interrupted conversation.

But that night when she was in bed the crude letters of that missive appeared before her eyes in lines of fire. Of late the old mystery of Bud's past life had not been much in her thoughts; love, the obliterator, had successfully wiped away the last traces of uneasiness that she had felt, and like all true and good women, she had given him the priceless treasure of her love, not questioning, not seeking to discern what he would have shown her had it seemed right in his mind that she should see.

But this scrawled letter to-night brought back with stunning force all the distress and doubts that had formerly assailed her. She guessed, and rightly, that Smithy Caldwell was the author of it, but she could not analyze the motives that had inspired his pen.

She told herself with fatal logic that if all this were a lie, Caldwell would not dare write it; that Larkin had paid this man five hundred dollars on another occasion not so far gone; and that it was avowedly a case of impudent blackmail. She knew, furthermore, that Bud carefully avoided all references to Caldwell even when she had brought forward the name, and that in the conversation overheard by Stelton there had been mention of someone by the name of Mary.

What if this money were going to another woman!

The thought overwhelmed her as she lay there, and she sat up gasping for breath, but in a moment the eternal defense of the man, inherent in every woman who loves, came to the rescue, and she told herself vehemently that Bud was honorable, if nothing else. Then the sentence concerning the United States officers wanting him on another charge recurred to her, and she found her defense punctured at the outset. If he were honorable, how could it be that the officers were after him?

In despair at the quandary, but still clinging to her faith, she fell back on the unanswerable fact of feminine intuition. Bud seemed good and true; it was in his eyes, in his voice, in his very manner. He looked at the world squarely, but with a kind of patient endurance that bespoke some deep trouble.

Then for the first time the thought came to Juliet that perhaps he was shielding someone else.

But who? And, if so, why did Caldwell write this letter?

Unable to answer these questions, but confronted by the thought that Bud's love was the sweetest thing in the world to her, she at last fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.



CHAPTER XVII

A BATTLE IN THE DARK

"Everything ready?"

Bud Larkin sat his horse beside Hard-winter Sims and looked back over the white mass that grew dimmer and dimmer in the dark.

"Yes." Sims lounged wearily against the horse's shoulder. It had been a hard day.

"Get 'em on the move, then."

Sims, without changing his position, called out to the herders. These in turn spoke to the dogs, and the dogs began to nip the heels of the leader sheep, who resented the familiarity with loud blatting and lowering of heads. But they knew the futility of resisting these nagging guardians and started to forge ahead. Other dogs got the middlers in motion, and still others attended to the tailers, so that in five minutes from the time Larkin gave the word the whole immense flock was crawling slowly over the dry plain.

Eight thousand of them there were; eight thousand semi-imbecile creatures, unacquainted with the obstacles they must encounter or the dangers they must face before they could be brought to safety or lost in the attempt. And to guard them there were nearly seventy men whose fear lay not in the terrors to be met, but in the sheep themselves: for there is no such obstacle to a sheep's well-being as the sheep himself.

The last flock had arrived the night before, well-fed and watered. The preceding six thousand were in good condition from days and weeks of comfortable grazing in the hills; all were in good shape to travel.

In moving them at this time Larkin had seized the psychological moment.

The disgruntled cattle-owners, under a guard of ten men, were resting quietly far from anything resembling excitement in one of the untracked places among the mesas and scoria buttes. Bud had ascertained, by spies of his own that scoured the country, that the great posse of rescuing cowpunchers had gone safely off on a wild-goose chase, misled by one of the sheepmen who was unknown in the country.

For the present, therefore, the range was clear, and Bud reckoned on its remaining so until the cattlemen had been rescued from their durance vile. In such a time the sheep-danger shrank into insignificance, and Larkin counted on having his animals across the Bar T range before the finding of the cattlemen, after which, of course, the men would be turned loose with much commiseration and apology.

Of the seventy men guarding and driving the sheep not more than thirty were regular herders. Forty were mounted and belonged to Jimmie Welsh's fighting corps, which was composed mostly of owners and superintendents from the north country.

Your usual Western shepherd is not a fighting man and cases have occurred in the bitter range wars where a herder has been shot down in cold blood unable to make a defense because of the grass growing out of his rifle.

Years alone in the brooding silence of the Sierra slopes or the obscure valleys of the northern Rockies take the virulence out of a man and make him placid and at one with nature. Into his soul there sinks something of the grandeur of cloud-hooded peaks, the majesty of limitless horizons and the colors of sky-blue water and greensward. With him strife is an unknown thing except for the strife of wits with another herder who would attempt to share a succulent mountain meadow.

Common report has it, and such writers as Emerson Hough put it in their books, that a sheep-herder can scarcely follow his calling for seven years without going mad. On the other hand, those who have lived for years among the sheep declare that they have never seen a sheep-herder even mentally unbalanced.

Probably both are right, as is usual to a degree in all discussion; but the fact remained that, sane or insane, the herder was not a fighting man—something had gone out of him. Therefore in bringing men other than herders south with him, Jimmie Welsh had shown his cleverness. To fight riders he had brought riders, and these men now helped to direct the river of animals that flowed along over the dry plain.

There were two cook outfits to feed the men, one of which contained the incomparable Ah Sin, who had amply revenged himself on the herders for his warm reception at the camp.

That first night they marched ten miles, and, as before, found the water-holes polluted by the cattle which take delight in standing in the mud, and thus in a dry country work their own destruction by filling the springs.

The next day the sheep cropped fairly well, although the sun was terrific and no more water was discovered. Nightfall found them becoming nervous and uneasy. They milled a long while before they bedded, and more of them than usual stood up to watch.

Not a rider had been seen all day. Through the baking glare there had moved a cloud of suffocating dust, and under it the thirsting, snorting, blethering sheep, with the dogs on the edges and the men farther out at regular intervals along the line.

After supper some of the men slept, for it was not planned to start the sheep until midnight, as they needed the rest, being footsore with long traveling. It was calculated also that they would reach the ford at the Big Horn by shortly before dawn.

But the sheep would have none of it, and moved and milled uneasily until, in order to save the lambs that were being crushed in the narrowing circle, Sims gave the order to resume the march.

The night "walk" of sheep is a strange thing. First, perhaps, rides a shepherd, erect and careless in his saddle, the red light glowing from the tip of his cigarette; and beside his horse a collie-dog, nosing at objects, but always with ears for the sheep and the voice of his master.

Then come the sheep themselves, with cracking ankle-joints, clattering feet, muffled blethering, a cloud of dust, and the inevitable sheep smell. Perhaps there is a moon, and then the herders must watch for racing cloud-shadows that cause stampedes.

Such was the picture of the Larkin sheep that night, only there was no moon. They started at ten, and Sims sent Miguel forward to walk before them, so they would not exhaust themselves with too fast traveling. On the move the sheep seemed more contented.

It was perhaps one o'clock in the morning that Larkin, in company with his chief herder, spurred out far in front of the advancing flock to reconnoiter. The sheep would be within approaching distance of the ford in a couple of hours, and Bud wished everything to be clear for them.

Nearing the Big Horn, Sims suddenly drew up his horse, motioning Bud to silence. Listening intently, they heard the voice of a man singing an old familiar plains song. The two looked at each other in amazement, for this was one of the "hymns" the cowboys use to still their cattle at night, the time of the most dreaded stampedes. It was the universal theory of the cow country that cattle, particularly on a "drive," should not be long out of hearing of a human voice.

So the night-watchers, as they rode slowly about the herd, sang to the cattle, although some of the ditties rendered were strong enough to stampede a herd of kedge-anchors.

"Cows here?" said Sims. "What does this mean, boss?"

"It means that we're beaten to the ford and will have to hold the sheep back."

"Yes, but who's driving now? This is round-up and branding season."

"I don't know, but between you and me, Sims, I'll bet a lamb to a calf that the rustlers are running their big pickings north. There are some mighty good heads at the top of that crowd, and they have taken advantage of the deserted range, just as we have, to drive their critters."

"By George! You've hit it, boss!" cried Sims, slapping his thigh. "Now, what do yuh say to do?"

For a long minute of silence Bud Larkin thought. Then he said:

"Here's my chance to get those rustlers and at the same time benefit myself. There can't be more than a dozen or fifteen of them at the outside. Ride back to the camp, Simmy, and get twenty men, the best gun-rollers in the outfit. Tell anybody that's afraid of his hide to stay away, for the rustlers are top-notch gun-fighters."

"But what'll yuh do with a thousand cattle on yore hands?" demanded Hard-winter in amazement.

"I'll tell you that if we get 'em," was Bud's reply. "As I see it, we can't do without them."

The plan of campaign was somewhat indefinite. The last intention in the world was to frighten away the cattle by a grand charge and a salvo of young artillery. With great caution the sheepmen approached near enough to discern the white cover of the cook-wagon, when it was seen that the whole herd was slowly moving toward the ford, the singing rustlers circling around it.

Bud told off a dozen of his riders and instructed each to pick a man and to ride as near in to him as possible without being seen. Then, at the signal of a coyote's howl twice given, to close in and get the drop on the rustlers, after which the remainder of the body would come along and take the direction of things.

Sims was put in charge of this maneuver, and was at liberty to give the signal whenever he thought circumstances justified it. It was a strange procession that marched toward the ford of the Big Horn—first fifteen hundred head of calves and young steers, guarded by unsuspecting rustlers; then the knot of sheepmen and the dozen riders closing in on their quarry, and, last of all three miles back, eight thousand sheep clattering through the dust.

For what seemed almost half an hour there was silence. Then suddenly came the far-off, long-drawn howl of a coyote, immediately followed by another. Bud set spurs into his horse, revolver in hand, the remaining eight men at his heels, and made directly for the cook-wagon, where he knew at least one or two of the outfit might be sleeping.

The drumming of the horse's hoofs could now be plainly heard from all sides, and a moment later there was a stab of light in the dark and the first shot rang out.

After that there were many shots, for the rustlers, keyed up to great alertness by the hazardness of their calling, had opened fire without waiting for question or answer.

Bud, as he dashed up to the cook-wagon, saw two men crawl out and stand for a minute looking. Then, as their hands moved to their hip-pockets like one, he opened fire. At almost the same instant the flames leaped from their guns, and Bud's hat was knocked awry by a bullet that went clean through it.

Meantime the man who had been riding beside him gave a grunt and fell from his saddle. One of the rustlers doubled up where he stood.

Larkin, to avoid crashing full into the cook-wagon, swerved his horse aside, as did the others. The horse of the man who had been shot stood still for a moment, and in that moment the rustler who remained standing gave one leap and had bestridden him.

Bud saw the maneuver just in time to wheel his horse on a spot as big as a dollar and take after the man in the darkness, yelling back, "Get the others!" as he rode.

It was now a matter between the pursuer and the pursued. Pounding away into the darkness, heedless of gopher-holes, sunken spots, and other dangers, the two sped. Occasionally the man ahead would turn in his saddle and blaze away at his pursuer, and Bud wondered that none of these hastily fired bullets came near their mark. For his part he saved his fire. It was not his idea to shoot the rustlers, but rather to capture them alive, since the unwritten law of that lawless land decreed that shooting was too merciful a death for horse- or cattle-thieves.



But Larkin found, to his dismay, that the horse of the other was faster than his own, and when they had galloped about a mile he had to strain his eyes to see the other at all. He knew that unless he did something at once the other would get away from him.

He lifted his revolver and took careful aim at the barely perceptible form of the horse. Then, when the other fired again, Larkin returned the shot, and almost immediately noticed that he was creeping up. At fifty yards the fleeing man blazed away again, and this time Bud heard the whistle of the bullet. Without further delay he took a pot-shot at the rustler's gun arm and, by one of those accidents that the law of chance permits to happen perhaps once in a lifetime, got him.

After that the rustler pulled up his failing animal to a walk and faced him around.

"Hands up!" yelled Larkin, covering the other.

The answer was a streak of yellow flame from the fellow's left hand that had been resting on his hip. The bullet flew wide as though the man had never shot left-handed before, and Bud, furious at the deception, dashed to close quarters recklessly, not daring to shoot again for fear of killing his man.

This move broke the rustler's courage, and his left hand shot skyward. His right arm being broken, he could not raise it. Larkin rode alongside of him and peered into his face.

It was Smithy Caldwell.

Quickly Bud searched him for other weapons.

"What're yuh goin' to do with me, Larkin?" whined the blackmailer. "Don't take me back there. I haven't done nothin'."

"Shut up and don't be yellow," admonished Bud. "If you're not guilty of anything you can prove it quick enough, I guess."

"I saved your life once," pleaded the other. "Let me go."

"You saved it so you could get more money out of me. Think I don't know you, Caldwell?"

"Let me go and I'll give you back all that money and all the rest you've ever given me. For God's sake don't let 'em hang me!"

The cowardice of the man was pitiful, but Bud was unmoved. For years his life had been dogged by this man. Now, an openly avowed rustler, he expected clemency from his victim.

"Ride ahead there," ordered Bud. Caldwell, whimpering, took his position.

"Put your hands behind you." The other made as though to comply with this command, when suddenly with a swift motion he put something in his mouth.

Instantly Bud had him by the throat, forcing his mouth open. Caldwell, forced by this grip, spat out something that Bud caught with his free hand. It was a piece of paper. Larkin slipped it into the pocket of his shirt and released his clutch. Then he bound Smithy's hands and started back toward the scene of the raid.

When he arrived, with his prisoner riding ahead on the limping horse, he found that all was over. Two of the rustlers were dead, but the rest were sitting silent on the ground by the side of the cook-wagon. One sheepman had been killed, and another's broken shoulder was being roughly dressed by Sims.

Others of the sheepmen were riding around the herd, quieting it. That there had been no stampede was due to the fact that the shooting had come from all sides at once, and the creatures, bewildered, had turned in upon themselves and crowded together in sheer terror, trampling to death a number in the center of the herd.

Less than half a mile ahead were the banks of the Big Horn and the ford. A mile behind the leaders of the sheep were steadily advancing. There was only one thing to be done.

"Drive the cows across the ford," commanded Bud. Then he told off a detail to guard the prisoners, and the rest of the men got the cattle in motion toward the crossing.

Bud did not join this work. Instead, he pulled from his pocket the bit of paper that Smithy Caldwell had attempted to swallow. By the light of a match he read what it said:

The range is clear. Drive north fast to-nite and travel day and nite. Meet me to-morrow at Indian Coulee at ten. Burn this. Stelton.

For a minute Bud stared at the incriminating paper, absolutely unable to digest the information it carried. Then with a rush understanding came to him, and he knew that Mike Stelton, the trusted foreman of the Bar T ranch, was really the leader of the rustlers, and was the most active of all of them in robbing old Beef Bissell.

For a long time he sat motionless on his horse, reviewing all the events that had passed, which now explained the remarkable activity of the rustlers and their ability to escape pursuit and capture.

"I don't know where Indian Coulee is, Stelton," he said to himself, "but I'll be there at ten if it's within riding distance."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE IMMORTAL TEN

Jimmie Welsh threw his hand into the discard and grinned sheepishly.

"Yuh got me this time," he said.

Billy Speaker, who held a full house, kings up, smiled pleasantly.

"I allow yuh'll have to put yore gun in the next pot if you want to stick along," he said. "An' if yuh do I'll win it off yuh and get away from here."

"No," said Jimmie regretfully, "if it was any other time I might resk it, but not now."

Red Tarken, who had been shuffling the single greasy pack of cards, began to deal. In the game beside these three were two more sheepmen and another cattle-raiser.

The six sat in the shade of a huge bowlder that had broken off and rolled down the side of the red scoria butte. The game had been going on for hours, and captors and captives alike played with all the cowboys' fervent love of gambling. Tarken, Speaker, and their companion were free to move as they liked, but were on parole not to try to overpower their guardians.

Others of the eleven owners sat about in the shade of rocks, playing cards, or talking and doing their best to pass away the time. It was a strange gathering. Only one man remained sitting by himself with bent head and his hands bound behind him. This was Beef Bissell, the cattle-king, who had steadfastly refused to give his word to remain peaceable, and fumed his life away hour after hour with vain threats and recriminations.

At either end of the small inclosure that backed against the butte, two men with Winchesters in their hands bestrode motionless horses.

This perpetual guard, kept night and day, though invisible from all but one small point, was the only sign that there was anything but the kindliest relations among all the members of the party.

When the cowmen had found that no personal harm was to be done them, all but Bissell and one other had resigned themselves to making the best of a laughably humiliating situation. It was Billy Speaker himself who had suggested the idea of the paroles, and as Jimmie Welsh knew the word of a Westerner was as good as his bond, the pact was soon consummated.

It was a remarkable formation in a desolate spot that the sheepmen had taken for a prison. It is a common fact that on many of these high buttes and mesas the pitiless weather of ages has chiseled figures, faces, and forms which, in their monstrous grotesquery, suggest the discarded clay modelings of a half-witted giant.

This place was a kind of indentation in the side of a precipitous butte, above which the cliff (if it may be so called) arched over part way like a canopy. The floor was of rock and lower than the plain, but over it were scattered huge blocks of stone that had fallen from above. Other stones had, in the course of time, made a sort of breastwork about this level flooring so that the retreat was both a refuge and a defense.

Better even than its construction was its situation. This particular spot was a corner of real "bad lands," and lumpy ridges, hogbacks, and barren buttes arose on all sides like waves in a sea. So numerous were they that unless riders passed directly by the sheepmen's hiding place the chances of discovery were almost nil. At one spot only was it visible, and that was a place where the edges of two hogbacks failed to lap and hide it.

The sheepmen were aware of this, and their two guards were placed out of range of that single opening. The distance to it was almost half a mile.

The game of poker went on. Billy Speaker sat with his back to this opening, and after a while, in the natural progress of things, the sun crept over the top of the rock and smote him. It was a hot sun, although it was declining, and presently Billy gave warning that he was about to take off his coat.

When he did so without an alarming display of hidden weapons, the fancy suspenders he wore came in for considerable attention. Now cowmen or cowboys almost never wore braces; either their trousers were tight enough at the waist to stay up, or they wore a leather strap to hold them. Suspenders hampered an active man.

But Billy Speaker, who had originally come from Connecticut fifteen years ago, wore these braces and treasured them because his mother had given much light from her aging eyes and many stitches from her faltering needle to the embroidery that traveled up and down both shoulder straps. She had embroidered everything he could wear time and again, and at last had fallen back on the braces as something new.

After free and highly critical comment regarding this particular aid to propriety, the game was permitted to go on. It happened to be Billy Speaker's lucky day, and he had nearly cleaned the entire six of all their money and part of their outfits. In the exhilaration of raking in his gains he moved about really lively, forgetful of the brilliantly polished nickel-plated buckles that decorated his shoulder-blades and denoted the height to which his nether garment had been hoisted.

Out in the bad lands a troop of horsemen moved slowly forward, detached bodies scouring the innumerable hogbacks for signs of their prey. There were a few more than a hundred in this body, and it represented the pick of ten ranches. At the head of it rode a stolid, heavy-faced man, who appeared as though he were in constant need of a shave, and whose features just now were drawn down into a scowl of thought and perplexity.

This man's body remained quite motionless as his horse plodded on with hanging head, but his small black eyes darted from side to side ceaselessly.

It was in one of these quick glances that he experienced a blinding flash upon his retina. A second later it occurred again, and then a third time. Suspiciously the man drew his horse to a stand, and those behind him did likewise.

Stelton thought for a moment that there must have been an outbreak from the near-by Wind River or Shoshone Reservation, and that the Indians were heliographing to one another. Presently, in an open space between the edges of two buttes he caught the flash close to the ground.

It probably was a tin can left by a herder—they often flashed that way—but he would prove it before he went on. He took from their case the pair of field-glasses that swung from his shoulder and raised them to his eyes.

What he saw caused him to swear excitedly and order the company to back out of sight.

At the same instant Jimmie Welsh, holding a straight flush, looked up triumphantly at Billy Speaker who had just raised him. He looked over Billy's shoulder and the smile froze on his face. He continued to look, and the cards dropped one by one out of his hand. Then his face became stern and he jumped to his feet.

"No more of this," he ordered. "We're discovered. You fellows get back out of sight," he added to the cowmen. "Here, Harry, Bill, Chuck, search these fellers again an' see they ain't got nothin' in their shoes."

"What ails yuh, Jimmie? Are yuh locoed?" asked a man who had not understood the sudden change in Welsh.

"I plenty wish I was," came the reply, "but I ain't. We've been discovered, an' we've got to fight. I don't know how many there was in the other party, but I 'low we ain't in it noways. Red an' Plug, you take yore horses round the butte to where the others are tethered, an' help Jimmie and Newt bring in them casks o' water. They ought to be back from the spring by this time. Tip, Lem, and Jack, help me put our friends here in the most-sheltered places."

In a moment the camp that had been sleepy and placid was bustling with a silent, grim activity. From secret places men produced Winchesters, revolvers, and knives, if they carried them. In half an hour all the food had been brought in, and the casks of water laboriously filled at a brackish pool five miles away.

"That flush excited yuh so you seen a mirage, Jimmie," bantered Speaker, whose ready wit and genial manner had won their way into the sheepman's affection.

"I hope so," was the curt response. But Welsh had seen no mirage, and he was aware of the fact, knowing that a council of war was delaying the action of the other party.

His chief concern was the disposal of his prisoners. Excepting for the first line of breastworks, the only protection in the flat area of the camp was derived from the masses of stone that had fallen into it, and behind which one or two men could hide. At last it was decided that the prisoners, unarmed as they were, should lie down behind the wall out of danger's way, while the sheepmen should take their chances behind the rocks. Another reason for this was, that it would never do to have the prisoners behind the men who were doing the fighting, ready to attack from the rear at first chance.

Each man had fifty rounds of ammunition, and was a fairly good shot, not, of course, equaling the cowboys in this respect. The prisoners had hardly been placed when, from behind a neighboring hogback, rode a man waving a white handkerchief.

Welsh stepped out of the camp and drove him back before he could talk, realizing the fellow's clever idea of spying on the defenders' position.

The cowboy had little to say except to demand the immediate surrender of the cattle-owners and the delivery up to court martial of half the sheepmen. Jimmie laughed in the messenger's face, and told him to tell whoever was boss of that outfit to come and take anything he wanted, and to come well heeled.

Then he went back to the rocky camp and stood his men up in a row.

"We got to keep our guests another week yet, boys," he said. "Mr. Larkin won't be up the range till that time, and our job is to keep them cowboys occupied so as to hold the range open for the sheep. Now anybody what don't want to take chances with lead can go from here now and get hung by the punchers. If there's many of 'em I allow we won't see Montana ag'in till we're angels; if there ain't, they won't see the Bar T. Now that's the story. One other thing.

"Our guests are out in front. If yuh see any of 'em actin' funny or tryin' to get away, put a hole in 'em an' end that right off. Hear that, boys?" he yelled to the cowmen who were on the ground behind the defense.

"Yep," they shouted, and continued to chaff one another unmercifully in the greatest good-humor.

The old story states that the Spartans prepared for the battle of Thermopylae by oiling their bodies and brushing their hair, much to the surprise of the Persians, who were forever wailing to their gods. This story has come down to us to illustrate solid, supreme courage in the face of certain death.

No less inspiring, though in a different way, was the preparation of Jimmie Welsh and his nine sheepmen. They cracked jokes on the situation, reminded one another of certain private weaknesses under fire, recalled famous range yarns, and enumerated the several hundred things that were going to happen to the enemy during the next few hours.

In all this banter the cowmen joined with their own well-flavored wit.

These facts have been given to show the natures of these men who made the West; who carved, unasked, an empire for the profit of us who live now, and who, in a space of less than forty years, practically passed from the face of the earth. Trained by their environment, they finally conquered it and left it to a more-civilized if softer generation.

At four o'clock of that afternoon came the first attack.

Stelton and his men were under a great disadvantage. In front of the sheepmen's defense was a little plain some three hundred yards across which was bare of any protection. The canopy of rock that overshadowed the camp prevented attack from above or behind. There was nothing for it but an onslaught in the face of a deadly fire.

Suddenly from around the butte that faced the camp poured the charge of the cowboys. Instantly they scattered wide, adopting the circling Indian mode of attack. On they raced to a distance of a hundred, then fifty yards.

Then, as though by preconcerted word, the Winchesters of both parties spoke, and the cowboys, turning at a sharp angle, galloped off out of range with one riderless horse, and two men, clinging, desperately wounded, to their pommels.

Jack Norton, one of the sheepmen, who had exposed himself for a better shot, dropped dead where he stood.

Now there was no word spoken. The helpless cowmen huddled against the wall while the hail of bullets swept over them in both directions, cursed softly to themselves, and smoked cigarettes. The punchers, having learned the lay of the land, drew off for consultation. Half of them were dispatched around the butte that protected the defenders and the plan of attack was changed.

On signal, the parties from both sides charged along the face of the butte toward each other, this movement being calculated to bring them out close to the enclosure without the danger of an attack in front, and at the same time give them the chance to fire upon the sheepmen from a destructive angle at either side.

The maneuver resulted in concentrating the fire within a zone of twenty-five yards, and it was fire so murderous that, before the cowboys could get out of range, ten were dead or wounded, while two of the sheepmen were killed outright and a third was disabled and rolled out into the sun to writhe in agony until his pal ran from cover and dragged him back.

The result was now a foregone conclusion, for the cowboys had solved the difficult problem of attack. Mushrooming out on either side at a distance of three hundred yards, they formed again in the shelter on either side and charged once more.

The wounded man, hearing the drumming of hoofs, seized his revolver, rolled out into the sun, and sat up on the ground. And from this position he emptied his gun at the yelling cowboys until another shot put him out of his misery.

More cowboys fell, and now, in front of the stone breastworks, a dozen bodies lay, some twitching, and others still. The number of the defenders was reduced to five capable of holding and using a weapon, for such marksmen were the punchers that, if they did not kill outright, their bullets inflicted mortal wounds.

Jimmie Welsh was undisturbed and unhurt. He and Newt were sheltered behind one rock, while Tip and Lem defended another, and Chuck Durstine held a third by the side of his dead partner, Red. The fourth charge found them lying on the ground, contrary to their former practice of standing, and they escaped unhurt, although their ability to shoot the mounted punchers above the wall was not diminished. Again they wrought terrible havoc.

"I sure wish I could've cleaned up on that straight flush, Billy," remarked Jimmie Welsh to Speaker.

"So do I, Jimmie," returned the other; "yore bad luck was just breakin'. But, look here. Suppose you fellers quit this business now. I don't relish yore all bein' slaughtered this-a-way, and it's shore a comin' to yuh if yuh don't quit."

"Yuh talk like a Sunday-school class had stampeded on yuh, Billy. I'm surprised!" gibed Welsh. "Mebbe yuh don't like yore flowery bed of ease out there, what?"

"All horsin' aside, I mean it," insisted Speaker. "Yuh better quit now before they come ag'in."

"Yeah, an' get strung up to the nearest tree fer my pains, eh? Oh, no; I like this better; but, of course, if any o' the boys—"

"Naw! What the deuce are yuh talkin' about?" demanded an aggrieved voice, instantly joined by the other three.

"You're wrong, Jimmie; of course, I don't mean that. If yuh'll quit I'll see that yuh don't get strung up."

"You're shore some friendly, Billy," said Jimmie, shaking his head; "but I couldn't never look my boss in the face if I even thought o' quittin'. That ain't what he pays me fer."

"I'll give yuh a job as foreman on the Circle Arrow. I see one of you hellions got my foreman; he's layin' out there kickin' still. What d'ye say?"

"I'm plumb regretful, Billy," returned Welsh, without hesitation; "but I can't do it. Mebbe one o' the boys—"

"Naw!" said the boys in unified contempt.

"Well, yuh pig-headed sons o' misery, go on an' die, then!" cried Speaker, quite out of patience.

"Jest a minute an' we'll oblige yuh, Billy," rejoined Welsh, as the dreaded drumming of hoofs foretold the next charge.

There was a tense moment of waiting, and then the fusillade began again, pitifully weak from the sheepmen. When the horsemen had whirled out of sight Lem and Newt lay groaning on the ground, while Tip O'Niell lay strangling in a torrent of blood that rushed from what had once been his face.

Welsh took one look at the tortured man, and with a crack over the head from the butt of his pistol, rendered him unconscious and stilled his blood-curdling agonies. Then he walked over to the cowmen.

"Anybody got the makin's?" he asked. "One o' them punchers spilt mine out o' my pocket last time."

Nonchalantly he showed the clean rent on the left side of his flannel shirt, just over his heart, where his pocket had been.

Somebody handed up the paper and tobacco, and he rolled a cigarette, tossing the materials back to Chuck Durstine, who sauntered up, examining his gun curiously.

Durstine, from his appearance, had no right to be alive. His cheek bled where a bullet had grazed him, his left arm was scratched, and there were three holes in his clothes. His revolver was so hot he could hardly hold it.

When they had finished their smoke they started back to their shelter, the middle rock of the enclosure.

"Well, good-by, boys," said Jimmie. "I allow it's pretty near my turn an' Chuck's."

"Good-by!" came the chorus from the owners, all of whom had pleaded steadily with the two to give up the unequal struggle. These men were hard and brave men, and they appreciated genuine grit as nothing else in the world, for it was a great factor in their own make-up.

"I'll tell yuh this, Jimmie," called out Beef Bissell, whose conceptions had been undergoing a radical change for the last two hours, "if you an' Chuck are sheepmen, I take off my hat to yuh, that's all! I never seen better fighters anywhere."

"Yuh ought to see us when we ain't dry-nursin' a dozen cattle-owners," retorted Welsh, amid a great guffaw of laughter.

Suddenly again sounded the roar of the galloping horses.

"Well, so-long, boys!" yelled Chuck, his voice barely audible.

"So-long."

The chorused response was cut short by the spitting of weapons. Chuck faced to the left, Welsh to the right. Both pumped two guns as fast as they could. Presently Chuck dropped one and leaned against the rock, his face distorted, but the other gun going. Jimmie felt a stab of fire, and found his weight all resting on one foot. Dropping their pistols, they drew others from holsters and fought on.

A bullet furrowed Chuck's scalp, and the blood blinded him so that he could not shoot. He stepped out from behind the rock, "fanning" one gun and clearing his eyes with the other hand. Three bullets hit him at once, and he dropped dead, firing three shots before he reached the ground.

He had scarcely fallen when Welsh's other leg and both arms were broken, and he tumbled in a heap just as the last of the charging cowboys swept past. When they had gone there was a moment's silence. Then:

"Hello, anybody!" called Speaker.

There was a pause.

"Hello!" came a muffled voice. "Come an' git me. I cain't fight no more." And with a great shout the owner of the Circle Arrow outfit ran to where Jimmie Welsh, the indomitable, lay helpless, disabled by six bullets, but still full of fight.

"Stick me up on that wall, Billy," he said faintly, "an' put a gun in each hand. I can't shoot 'em, but them punchers'll think I can and finish me."

"You go to Hell!" remarked Speaker joyfully.

"Don't call yore ranch names," admonished Jimmie with a grin, and fainted.



CHAPTER XIX

AN INDIAN COULEE

By four o'clock in the morning the fifteen hundred head of cattle had crossed the ford of the Big Horn and were bedded down on the other side. When this hazardous business had been completed, Bud Larkin ordered the sheep brought up and kept on the eastern bank among the cool grass of the bottoms.

The captive rustlers, under guard, were being held until daylight, when, it had been decided, they would be taken to the almost deserted Bar T ranch, and kept there until further action could be determined on in regard to them.

When dawn finally came Bud looked at the stolid faces of the men, and recognized most of them as having belonged to the party that had so nearly ended his earthly career. He called them by their names, and some of them grinned a recognition.

"Hardly expected to meet yuh again," said one amiably. "Thought it might be t'other side of Jordan, but not this side of the Big Horn."

"That's one advantage of raising sheep," retorted Bud. "Mine are so well trained they stampede in time to save my life. You fellows ought to have joined me in the business then."

"Wisht we had," remarked another gloomily. "'Tain't so hard on the neck in the end."

Bud wondered at the hardihood of a man who, facing sure death, could still joke grimly about it.

Directly after breakfast the rustlers were mounted on their horses, with their arms tied behind them, and, under a guard of six men, started on their journey to the Bar T. In charge of the outfit was a gray-haired sheep-owner from Montana, and to his care Bud entrusted a long letter to Juliet that he had added to day by day with a pencil as opportunity offered.

It was such a letter as a lonely girl in love likes to get, and Bud's only thought in sending it was to prove that she was ever in his mind, and that he was still safe and well.

Weary and sleepless, Bud then prepared for the ordeal with Stelton. From Sims, who seemed to know the country thoroughly, he learned that Indian Coulee was almost thirty miles south-east, and could be distinguished by the rough weather-sculpture of an Indian head on the butte that formed one side of the ravine.

Lest there be a misunderstanding, it should be said here that this was the second day after the battle of Welsh's Butte, as it came to be known. The first day the punchers had been busy burying the dead and attending to the numerous things to which such an occasion gives rise. It was on the morning of this day that Stelton, giving as an excuse his urgent desire to return to the Bar T, had ridden away, commanding his cowboys to remain and do their portion of the work.

Late in the afternoon he had met Smithy Caldwell in a secret place, and given him a note to the leader of the band of rustlers. This Caldwell, with his usual tricky foresight, did not deliver, giving the message by word of mouth, and keeping the piece of paper as evidence in case Stelton should turn against him.

Stelton, anxious to hear how the commencement of the drive fared before returning to the Bar T ranch, camped in the hills that night, and moved on to Indian Coulee the next morning to await the messenger.

Just previous to starting on the long ride, Larkin called Sims to him.

"Now, I'll tell you why I want these cows," he said. "We've got to rush the sheep up the range. As soon as I'm gone start 'em, but surround the sheep with a line of cows, and keep a good bunch ahead. From a distance it will look like a cattle-drive, and may serve to throw the punchers off the track if they're anywhere in sight."

"By Michaeljohn! That's a good idea!" exclaimed Sims; "but I don't allow either of them will feed much."

"Let 'em starve, then; but keep 'em moving," said Bud. "We win or bust on this effort. Fact is, we've got to keep those cows anyhow, to return them to their owners if possible, and you might as well make some good use of them."

Mike Stelton, meanwhile, who had often used the place as a rendezvous before, went into the usual shady spot, dropped the reins over his horse's head, and lay down.

Stelton's heart was at peace, for the sheepmen he considered defeated at every angle. Jimmie Welsh, half dead and delirious, was on his way to the Circle Arrow ranch under Billy Speaker's care. Consequently, it was impossible that Bud Larkin should know anything of the battle at Welsh's Butte.

Larkin would go on about his plans, dreaming the cowmen still in captivity, and the pursuing punchers on a false trail, Stelton calculated. Then he chuckled at the surprise in store for the ambitious sheepmen, for the remaining cowboys under Beef Bissell had already begun to talk of a war of extermination and revenge.

When he had disposed of Larkin to his satisfaction, the foreman recollected with delight that the rustlers must have the fifteen hundred cows well up the range by this morning. The chance of their being intercepted by the cowboys was small, and the probabilities were that they would be at the northern shipping-point and well out of the way before the punchers had finished with the miserable sheep.

Two things Mike Stelton had not counted on. One was the prompt and daring action of Larkin in risking his all on one forced march up the range; the other was the treachery of Smithy Caldwell in not burning the note according to instructions.

From the first Stelton had "doped" Caldwell out all wrong. He took him for a really evil character supplied with a fund of sly cunning and clever brains that would benefit the rustlers immensely, and for that reason had warmly supported his application for membership. Somehow he did not see the cowardly streak and dangerous selfishness that were the man's two distinguishing traits.

Now, as Stelton lay in the shade with his hat over his face, steeped in roseate dreams, the weariness of a week of long marches and an afternoon's hard fighting oppressed him. He had been riding nights of late, and just to lie down was to feel drowsy. He would like to get a nap before the sun got directly above and left no shade whatever, but he did not permit himself this luxury, although, like all men with uneasy consciences, he was a very light sleeper.

He figured that he could hear the trotting of a horse in plenty of time to prepare for any possible danger, and remained flat on his back in the warm sun, half-asleep, but yet keenly alert.

Bud Larkin, sighting the coulee and Stelton's horse at a considerable distance, dismounted and promptly got out of range. Then he continued stealthily to approach, wondering why Stelton did not put in an appearance somewhere and start hostilities.

A quarter of a mile from the spot where Stelton's horse stood dejectedly Larkin left his own animal and proceeded on foot. Nearer and nearer he approached, and still there was no sign of Stelton.

Bud unslung his glasses, and scanning the rocks near the horse carefully, at last made out the small outline of a booted foot along the ground. Then he drew his revolver and crept forward, choosing every step with care.

At a distance of thirty yards his foot unconsciously crunched a bit of rotten stone. There was a scrambling behind the rock, and a moment later Stelton's head appeared. Bud had him covered with two revolvers, and on sight of the dark face ran forward to finish the job.

But the foreman was no mollycoddle, and with one lightning-like motion unlimbered his .45 and began to shoot. Like most Western gun-handlers, his revolver commenced to spit as soon as its mouth was out of the holster, and the bullets spurted up the sand twice in front of Bud before the muzzle had reached a dangerous angle, so swiftly was it fired.

But the sheepman was not idle, and had both guns working so accurately that at last Stelton drew in his head, but left his hand around the corner of the rock, still pulling the trigger. He would never have done this with any other man, but he still considered Larkin a "dude" and a sheepman, and knew that neither was much of a shot.

With a ball through his right foot, Bud hopped out of the path of the stream of lead and discharged each revolver once at the same spot. The result was a broken hand and a wrecked gun for Stelton, who, unfortunately, did not know that Larkin, on occasions, had split the edges of playing cards with dueling pistols.

Before the Bar T foreman could reach his Winchester, Bud was around the rock, and had him covered. Stelton gave one look at the hard, determined eyes of the sheepman and thought better of the impulse to bolt for the rifle on a chance. He slowly hoisted his hands.

"Well, darn it, what do yuh want?" he snarled.

"First I want you to back up against that rock and keep your hands in the air until I tell you to take 'em down," said Bud, in a tone that meant business.

Stelton obeyed the command sullenly. Then Larkin, keeping him covered, picked up the Winchester and found another .45 in an extra holster thrown over the pommel of the saddle. Next he took down Stelton's rope.

Larkin was satisfied with his investigations. "Turn around and face the rock, and hold your hands out behind you!" he ordered.

With the wicked glitter of an animal at bay in his eye, Stelton did as he was told, and in a moment Larkin had him bound and helpless, and on the end of a tether. Still covering his man, he mounted Stelton's horse and told him to march ahead.



In this manner they traveled the quarter-mile to Bud's animal. There they exchanged beasts, and started on the long ride back to the sheep camp.

"What're yuh doin' this for?" stormed Stelton, at a loss to explain the sudden appearance of Larkin in Caldwell's place, but beginning to have a terrible fear.

"Don't you know?"

"No, I don't." His tone was convincing.

"Well, I'll tell you. All the rustlers are taken, and I have absolute proof that you are their leader," replied Bud coolly. "I allow old Bissell will be glad to see you when you're brought in, eh?"

Stelton laughed contemptuously.

"What proof?" he demanded.

"A note to Smithy Caldwell that he forgot to burn. He tried to swallow it when I captured him, but I saw him first."

Stelton stood the blow well and made no answer, but Larkin, watching him, saw his head drop a trifle as though he were crushed by some heavy weight.

"What're yuh goin' to do with me now?" he asked at last.

"Ship you under guard to the Bar T ranch, where the rest have gone. Then the cattlemen can settle your case when they come back from their vacation."

For an instant it was on Stelton's tongue to blurt out what had happened two days previous, but an instinctive knowledge that Larkin would profit by the information restrained him, and he continued riding on in silence, a prey to dismal thoughts better imagined than described.



CHAPTER XX

SOMEBODY NEW TURNS UP

Utterly exhausted with his day's riding and the stress of his other labors, Bud Larkin, driving his captive, arrived at the sheep camp shortly before sundown. Faint with hunger—for he had not eaten since morning—he turned Stelton over to the eager sheepmen who rode out to meet him.

Things had gone well that day with the drive, for the animals, under pressure, had made fifteen miles. The cattle, at first hard to manage, had finally been induced to lead and flank the march, but neither they nor the sheep had grazed much.

When Larkin arrived they had just reached a stream and had been separated from the sheep that both might drink untainted water. Sims had set his night watchers, and these were beginning to circle the herd. The sheep were bedding down on a near-by rise of ground.

Larkin, having eaten, cooled and bathed himself in the stream and returned to the camp for rest. Shortly thereafter a single horseman, laden with a bulky apparatus, was seen approaching from a distance. Immediately men mounted and rode out to meet him, and returned with him to camp when he had proved himself harmless and expressed a desire to remain all night in the camp.

It was Ed Skidmore, the photographer, who had just completed a profitable day at Red Tarken's ranch, the M Square.

Larkin, who was lying on the ground, heard the excitement as the newcomer rode into camp, and got up to inspect him. Skidmore had dismounted, and had his back turned when Bud approached, but suddenly turned so that the two came face to face.

As their eyes met, both started back as though some terrible thing had come between them.

"Bud! My Heavens!" cried Skidmore, turning pale under his tan.

"Lester!" was all that Larkin said as he stared with starting eyes and sagging jaw at the man before him. Then, as one in a dream, he put out his hand, and the other, with a cry of joy, seized and wrung it violently.

For a moment the two stood thus looking amazedly at each other, while the sheepmen, suddenly stricken into silence, gazed curiously at the episode. Then, one by one, they turned and walked away, leaving the two together.

It was Bud who found his voice first.

"What under heaven are you doing out here, Lester?" he asked at last.

"Earning a living making pictures," returned the other with a short laugh. "It must be quite a shock to you to see me actually working."

"I can't deny it," said Bud as he smiled a bit. "But when did you come out?"

"Six months after you did."

"But why on earth didn't you let me know? I would have given you a job on the ranch."

"That's just why I didn't let you know. I didn't want a job on the ranch. I wanted to do something for myself. I concluded I had been dependent on other people about long enough. I'm not mushy, or converted, or anything like that, Bud, but I figured that when the governor died and left me without a cent I had deserved everything I got and was a disgrace to the family and myself."

"Same with me, Lester," acknowledged Bud. "If you had only told me how you felt about things we could have struck out here together."

"And you with all the money? I guess not," and Lester spoke bitterly.

"I'd have divided with you in a minute, if you had talked to me the way you're doing now. We always used to divide things when we were kids, you know."

"That's square of you, Bud, but I really don't want the money now. I'm making a good go of my pictures; I don't owe anybody, and I haven't an enemy that I know of. What have you done with your money?"

Larkin turned around and motioned toward the thousands of sheep dotted over the hills.

"There's all my available cash. Of course there was some in securities I couldn't realize on by the terms of father's will, and if I go to the wall I can always get enough to live on out of that. But my idea is to get a living out of this, and just now I am in the very devil of a fix."

"How?"

Bud narrated briefly the stormy events that had led up to this final stroke by which he hoped to defeat the cowmen and save his own fortune; and as he did so he observed his brother closely.

Lester Larkin was three years younger than Bud, was smaller, and had grown up with a weak and vacillating character. The youngest child in the wealthy Larkin family, he had been spoiled and indulged until when a youth in his teens he had become the despair of them all.

Even now, despite the tanned look of health he had acquired, it could still be seen that he was by no means the strong, virile young man that Bud had become. His face was rather delicate than rugged in outline; his brown hair was inclined to curl, and his blue eyes were large and beautiful.

The sensitive mouth was still wilful, though character was beginning to show there. He was, in fact, a grand mistake in upbringing. With all the instincts of a lover of beauty he had been raised by a couple of dull parents to a rule-of-thumb existence that started in a business office late one morning and ended in a cafe early the next.

It was the kind of life to which the poor laborer looks up with consuming envy, and which makes him what he thinks is a socialist. Given a couple of sharp pencils and some blocks of paper, along with sympathy and encouragement, Lester Larkin might have become a writer or an artist of no mean ability.

But the elder Larkin, believing that what had made one generation would make another, had started young Lester on a high stool in his office with a larger percentage of dire results than he had ever imagined could accrue to the employment of one individual. With the high stool went a low wage and a lot of wholesome admonitions—and this, after a boyhood and early youth spent in the very lap of luxury.

Thus, when the father died, the boy, at nineteen, knew more ways to spend a dollar than his father had at thirty-nine, and less ways to earn it than his father at nine. So much for Lester.

"Well, if I can help you in any way, Bud, let me know," he said when his brother had finished his story of the range war that was now reaching its climax. "I rather imagine I would like a jolly good fight for a change."

"I don't want you to get hurt, kid," replied Bud, smiling at the other's enthusiasm, "but I have an idea that I can use you somehow. Just stick around for a day or two and I'll show you how to 'walk' sheep so your eyes'll pop out."

"It's purely a matter of business with me," rejoined Lester. "Pictures of seventy men at five dollars apiece, selling only one to each, will be three hundred and fifty dollars. I think I'll stick."

"Suppose I get 'em all in one group so you can't take individuals, then what will you do?"

"I'll make more money still," retorted the other promptly. "I'll sell seventy copies of the same picture at five apiece and only have to do one developing. What are you tryin' to do, kid me?"

Bud laughed and gave up the attempt to confuse the boy.

During the next two days Bud saw more sheep-walking than he had seen since going into the business, and Lester amused himself profitably by taking pictures of the embarrassed plainsmen, many of whom would not believe it possible that an exact image of them could be reproduced in the twinkling of an eye, but who were willing to pay the price if the feat were accomplished.

When he had filled all his private orders, the picturesqueness of the life and outfit with which he traveled so appealed to Lester that he made nearly a hundred plates depicting the daily events of the drive and the camp. And these hundred plates, three-quarters of which were excellent, form by far the best collection of actual Western scenes of that time and are still preserved in the old Larkin ranch house in Montana.

At the end of the two days the Gray Bull River was still twenty miles away and would require an equal amount of time to be reached and crossed. During this period Bud Larkin knew nothing whatever of the fate of Jimmie Welsh and his companions, believing that they still held the repentant cowmen captive, and that the punchers in pursuit were still searching the bad lands for them—an almost endless task.

He was in a state of high good humor that his plans had carried out so well, and looked forward with almost feverish impatience to the glorious hour when the last of his bawling merinos should stand dripping, but safe, on the other side of the Gray Bull. The nearer approach to the stream brought a greater nervous tension and scouts at a five-mile radius rode back and forth all day searching for any signs of spying cowpunchers.

The thought that he might effect the passage without hindrance or loss was stretching the improbable in Bud's mind, and he devoted much time every day to an inspection of his supplies and accouterments.



CHAPTER XXI

JULIE INVESTIGATES

The occasion when nine men with their hands tied behind them arrived at the Bar T ranch, accompanied by six others with Winchesters across their saddle bows, was an extremely happy one for Juliet Bissell. This happiness was not associated, except superficially, with the capture of the rustlers, but had to do especially with the receipt of a certain smeared and blackened journal from a certain tall and generously proportioned young man.

The captives arrived at noon, but it was nearly supper-time before she had finished reading, around, amid, among and between the lines, despite the fact that the lines themselves left very little doubt as to the writer's meaning.

This was not the same beautiful girl Bud Larkin had left behind him that early morning of his escape. Since that time she had changed. The eyes that had formerly been but the beautiful abode of allurement and half-spoken promises, had taken on a sweet and patient seriousness. The corners of her mouth still turned up as though she were about to smile, but there was a firmer set to them that spoke of suppressed impulses.

She moved with a greater dignity, and for the first time became aware of the real worth of her mother, who until now she had somehow taken for granted. Martha's consternation and grief at her husband's sudden and prolonged disappearance, only broken by the visit of Skidmore and his camera, had been really pitiful, and the girl's eyes were opened to the real value and beauty of an undying love.

Her own misery, after the receipt of the letter brought by Skidmore, she had faced alone, and in her, as in all good and true natures, it had worked a change. It had softened her to the grief of another, and showed her, for the first time, that happiness is only really great when in sharp contrast with pain.

So this long and simple love-letter from Bud, while satisfying the cravings of the lover, stirred up again the misgivings of the doubter. And her cogitations resulted in the admission that Bud must be either one of two things. Either he was absolutely innocent of the imputations contained in the letter that Skidmore brought, or he was one of the most consummate villains at large.

There were grounds for both suppositions, and the girl, after hours of vain struggle, found herself still in the middle ground, but more nervous and anxious than she had ever been.

The arrival of Mike Stelton under guard two days after that of the other rustlers created a sensation. For the girl it was the blow that shattered another illusion, for although she had never cared for the foreman, her belief in his unswerving faithfulness to the Bissell house was absolute. Now to see him the admitted leader of the gang that had steadily impoverished her father was almost unbelievable.

The man who brought Stelton in also brought a hurried scrawl to Juliet from Bud, which read:

Darling:

We are more than half-way up the range. Have recovered 1,500 head of rebranded stock, much of which is Bar T. Stelton is the head of the rustlers and I have the proof. Sorry to foist these criminals on the Bar T, but it was the nearest ranch, and besides, I want them there when your father comes home. Also I want to be able to tell you that I love you, and will love you always. With luck, two days ought to see the end of all these troubles.

Your Bud.

Probably the most miserable man in the whole cow country at this time was Smithy Caldwell. Aside from the fate he feared, his position among the captured rustlers was one of utter torture. The men had discovered that it was through his selfish scheming that Stelton had been betrayed, and they treated him with the cruelty and scorn of rough, savage men.

So, when Stelton appeared, Caldwell fairly cringed. With the strange, unreasoning terror of a coward he feared bodily harm at the hands of the foreman, forgetting that, in all probability, his life was forfeit sooner or later.

His fear was all but realized, for no sooner were Stelton's hands unbound as he caught sight of Caldwell than he made a leap for him and would have strangled him then and there had not others pulled the two apart.

"There, you whelp!" bellowed Stelton. "That's a sample of what you'll get later on. All I ask is to see you kickin' at the end of a rope, you yellow-bellied traitor!" And Smithy, clutching at his throat, staggered, whimpering, away.

The day after Stelton's arrival Juliet conceived the idea of questioning the foreman about the letter that she knew Smithy Caldwell had written her. At her request he was brought into the living-room of the ranch house with his hands tied to permit of the guard leaving them together.

Now that all Bud's prophecies in regard to the man had been fulfilled, she feared him, and one glance at his dark, contorted face as he was led in increased this fear.

For his part the very sight of this sweet, quiet girl for whom he had waited so long, and through whose lover he was now doomed, brought a very eruption of rage. His lips parted and bared his teeth, his eyes were bloodshot, and his swarthy face worked with fury.

"Mike, I'm sorry to see you here like this," said Juliet gently.

"A lot you are!" he sneered brutally. "You're tickled to death. Hope to see me swing, too, I suppose?"

"Don't talk like that," she protested, horrified at the change in the man. "I'm going to try to see what I can do for you, though Heaven knows you don't deserve much."

Fury choked him and prevented a reply. At last he managed to articulate.

"What do yuh want of me?" he growled.

"I want you to tell me about a letter that I received a few days ago. It was brought here by a man by the name of Skidmore, who takes pictures."

At the identification of the letter, Stelton's eyes glittered and his mouth grinned cruelly.

"What do yuh want to know about it?" he asked.

"First I want to know why you wrote it?"

"I didn't write it," he snarled.

"Well, then, why you had Caldwell write it?"

"How do you know I had Caldwell write it?"

His tone was nasty and she could see that he was enjoying the misery he caused her.

But though Juliet was humbled, she was none the less a daughter of her father, and at Stelton's tone and manner her imperious anger flashed up.

"Look here, Stelton," she said in a cold, even tone, "please remember who I am and treat me with respect. If you speak to me again as you have this afternoon I will call those men in and have you quirted up against a tree. If you don't believe me, try it."

But Stelton was beyond speech. All the blood in him seemed to rush to his head and distend the veins there. He struggled with his bonds so furiously that the girl rose to her feet in alarm. Then she walked to the library table, opened the drawer and took out a long, wooden-handled .45.

With this in her possession she resumed her seat. Presently the foreman, unable to free his hands, ceased his struggles through sheer exhaustion.

"I know you made Caldwell write that letter," she said, balancing the gun, "and I want to know why you did it?"

Stelton, finding physical intimidation impossible, resorted to mental craft.

"I didn't want you to love that sheepman," he replied sullenly.

"Why not?"

"Because all those things about him are true, and I thought I'd let yuh know before yuh broke yore heart."

She searched his face keenly and had to confess to herself that he spoke with absolute sincerity. Her face slowly paled, and for a moment the room seemed to whirl about her. The world appeared peopled with horrible gargoyles that resembled Stelton and that leered and gibbered at her everywhere.

The foreman saw her wince and grow pallid, and his fury was cooled with the ice of fiendish satisfaction. He could hurt her now.

"Because you say so doesn't prove it to me," she managed to say at last, though she scarcely recognized the voice that came from her tremulous lips.

"I can give you proof enough if you want it," he snapped, suddenly taken with an idea.

"You can?" The words were pitiful, and her voice broke with the stress of her misery.

"Yes."

"How?"

"Get Smithy Caldwell in here. He knew that lover of yore's when he wasn't quite such a sheepman. He'll tell yuh things that'll make yore hair stand on end."

In his delight at his plan Stelton could not keep the exultant cruelty out of his voice.

Juliet pounded on the floor with the butt of her weapon (this was the signal agreed upon for the removal of Stelton), and a sheepman almost immediately thrust his head in at the door.

"Yes, ma'am?" he inquired.

"Bring Smithy Caldwell in, please," she requested, "and tie his hands."

When the miserable fellow was pushed through the doorway and saw Stelton standing inside he shrank back against the wall and stood looking from one to the other with the quick, white eyes of a trapped animal. The thought came to him that perhaps these two were already deciding his fate, and his weak chin quivered.

"Sit down, Caldwell," said Juliet, coolly motioning him to one of the rough chairs. He slunk into it obediently.

"I want to ask you about that letter you sent me in which you said several things about Mr. Larkin," she went on not unkindly, her heart going out to the wretch, so abject was his misery.

"Mike here says that everything in that letter is true, and that you can prove it," she continued. "Is that so?"

Involuntarily Caldwell looked toward Stelton for orders, as he had always done, and in those beetling brows and threatening eyes saw a menace of personal injury that indicated his course at once.

"No, don't look at Mike; look at me," cried Juliet, and Caldwell obediently switched his gaze back. "Are those things true?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Caldwell without hesitation.

"You mean to tell me that he was married before?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Where?"

"In Chicago to a woman by the name of Mary. She was a cousin of mine."

"Oh, God!" The low cry burst from Juliet's pale lips before she could recover herself, and Stelton lay back in his chair, feeding his unspeakable nature upon the girl's torture.

"Shall I tell you about it?" Caldwell, seeing his former chief was pleased, now took the initiative.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried frantically. "I don't want to hear. I never want to hear!"

For a few moments there was silence in the low, bare room while Juliet recovered herself. Then she said:

"And about that other thing in the letter. Why are the officers after Bud?"

"For forgery, ma'am. That is, I mean, they would be after him if they knew everything." A cunning smirk crossed Smithy's countenance.

"Why don't they know everything?" asked the girl.

"Because I haven't told 'em," was the reply.

"And so you blackmailed him under threat of telling, did you?"

"Well, he seemed to be willin'," countered Smithy evasively, "or he wouldn't have paid."

"Why did you write me that letter, Caldwell?"

"The boss here told me to," motioning toward Stelton.

"What reason did he give for telling you?"

Caldwell did not like this question. He turned and twisted in his seat without replying, and shot a quick glance at Stelton, uncertain what reply was expected of him. But he got no help there.

Stelton was relishing the fear and anxiety of his tool and watched to see which way the other's cowardice would lead him. He was quite unprepared for the answer that came.

"It is a long worm that has no turning," someone has remarked, and Caldwell had reached his length. The pure cruelty of Stelton's conduct revolted him, and now, sure that Stelton could do him no harm because of his tied hands, he took a vicious dig at his former leader.

"He wanted to marry you himself," he said, "and offered me a hundred dollars to write you that letter."

Stelton sat for a moment open-mouthed at the temerity of his subordinate and then leaped up with a roar like the bellow of a bull.

Juliet pounded hastily on the floor, and the sheepmen appeared just as Stelton fetched Caldwell a kick that sent him half-way across the room.

"Take them both away," ordered the girl, suddenly feeling faint and ill after the mental and physical struggle of the interview.

When the two had gone she sank back in her chair and faced the awful facts that these men had given her.

"Bud! Bud! My lover!" she cried brokenly to herself. "I want you, I need you now to tell me it is all a lie!"

She remained for several minutes sunk in a kind of torpor. Then, as though she had suddenly arrived at some great decision, she rose slowly, but determinedly, and left the room. Finding one of the men, she ordered her horse saddled and retired to change her clothes.

Her mother came in and asked if she were going riding alone.

"Yes, mother," replied the girl quietly. "I am going to Bud and find out the truth about him. I cannot live like this any longer. I shall go crazy or kill myself. But I promise you this, that I will find father and bring him home to you."

The eyes of Martha Bissell clouded with long-suppressed tears.

"God bless you, Juliet," she said. "I can't live without him any longer."



CHAPTER XXII

THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

It was noon and the great column of parched animals and hot, dusty men had come to a halt under their alkali cloud beside a little stream. The foot-weary sheep and cattle, without the usual preliminaries, lay down where they stood, relieved for once from the incessant nipping of the dogs and proddings of the men.

Sims, walking among the sheep with down-drawn brows, noted their condition, how gaunt they were, how dirty and weary, and shook his head in commiseration. Had he but known it he was as gaunt and worn-looking as the weakest of them. Returning to where Larkin had dropped in the shade of the cook-wagon, he said:

"We've got to make it to-night if the Old Boy himself is in the way."

Larkin realized the seriousness of the situation. Water and feed were plentiful, but owing to the hurry of the drive the animals were starving on their feet. Less than five miles away was the Gray Bull River, the goal of their march. Once across that and they would be out of the Bar T range and free to continue north, for the next ranch-owner had gone in for sheep himself (one of the first to see the handwriting on the wall), and had gladly granted Larkin's flocks a passage across his range.

"What I can't understand is where all those cowpunchers are," continued Sims. "I'm plenty sure they wouldn't let us through if we was within a foot of the river, they're that cussed."

He had hardly got the words out of his mouth when from ahead of the herd appeared a horseman at a hard gallop, quirting his pony at every few jumps.

Pulling the animal back on its haunches at the cook-wagon, the rider vaulted out of the saddle and was blurting out his story almost before he had touched the ground.

"Up ahead there!" he gasped. "Cow-punchers! Looks like a hundred of 'em. I seen 'em from a butte. I 'low they've dug fifty pits and they've stuck sharp stakes into the ground pointed this way. They're ready fer us, an' don't yuh ferget it."

Sims and Larkin looked at each other without speaking. Now it was plain that the punchers had had plenty of reason for not molesting them; they had been preparing a surprise.

"An' that ain't all, boss," went on the rider. "I took a slant through my glasses, and what d'yuh suppose I seen? There, as big as life, was old Beef Bissell an' Red Tarken, and a lot more o' them cowmen. How they ever got there I dunno, but it's worth figurin' out of a cold winter's evenin'."

This information came as a knockdown. The two men questioned their informant closely, unable to credit their ears, but the man described the ranch-owners so accurately that there was no room left for doubt.

"Then what's become o' Jimmie Welsh and his nine men?" asked Sims wonderingly.

"Mebbe they're captured; but I couldn't see anythin' of 'em."

"Nope," said Bud slowly, "they aren't captured. They're dead. I know Jimmie and his men, and I picked them for that job because I knew how they would act. Poor boys! If I get through here alive I'll put a monument where they died."

He ceased speaking, and a sudden silence descended on all the company, for the other men had been listening to this report. Each man's thoughts in that one instant were with Jimmie and his nine men in their last extremity at Welsh's Butte, although the site of the tragedy was as yet unknown to them.

"What about the lay of the country?" Sims finally asked of the scout.

"Dead ahead is the big ford, but that is what the punchers have protected. I could see that either up or down from the ford the water's deep, because there ain't no bottoms there—the bank's right on top of the river."

"Where is the next nearest ford?"

"Ten miles northeast, this season of the year," was the reply.

"Thunderation, boss, what'll we do?" inquired Sims petulantly.

"Call Lester, and we three will talk it over," said Bud, a half-formed plan already in his mind.

Presently the three were alone and discussing the situation. Bud proposed his scheme and outlined it clearly. For perhaps a quarter of an hour he talked, interrupted by the eager, enthusiastic exclamations of Lester. When he had finished, Sims lay back on his two elbows and regarded his employer.

"If yuh keep on this-a-way, boss," he remarked, "I allow we might let yuh herd a few lambs next spring, seein' yuh will learn the sheep business."

Bud grinned at the other's compliment and noted Lester's enthusiasm. Then they plunged into the details.

"Better ride your horse around by way of the ford ten miles away," were the instructions as Lester saddled up. "Then you can come at 'em by the rear."

No word of young Larkin's intention had passed about the camp, and the sheepmen watched with considerable wonder the departure of the boy, placing it to Bud's fear of his receiving an injury in the trouble that was almost surely bound to happen that night.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, or thereabouts, Lester, with his outfit strapped on his dejected horse, rode slowly away from the sheepmen's camp.

Meanwhile, behind the various defenses that had been erected against the coming of Bud Larkin and his animals, the cowmen and their punchers were making ready for their night's battle. The chief actor in these fevered preparations was Beef Bissell, whose hatred of Larkin was something to frighten babies with at night.

Since the gallant battle at Welsh's Butte, Bissell had changed some of his ideas regarding sheepmen in general; but he had changed none regarding Larkin in particular. It was now a matter of pride and determination, almost of oath with him, to fight this matter of the range to the finish. The other cowmen stood by him out of principle and because of the need of a unified stand by men of their association.

So here in the last ditch, ready to sacrifice men, animals, and money, wrong and knowing it, these beef barons prepared to dispute the last inch of their territory. It should never be said, they had sworn, that sheep had crossed the cattle-range of any of them. On this elevating platform they proposed to make their fight.

To be perfectly just to all concerned, it is only right to add that all who did not choose to remain, either owners or punchers, were perfectly free to withdraw, but in doing so they forfeited their membership in the association. But one man had taken advantage of this—Billy Speaker.

"If there's any damage to be done, those sheep have already done it. Why don't yuh let 'em through, yuh ol' fat-head?" said Speaker to Bissell as, with his cowboys, he threw his leg over the saddle and started homeward.