As the three men mounted fresh horses after a hasty breakfast, Nick Ellhorn said to Mead:

"Emerson, you're in big luck that that confounded thug in the kitchen hasn't cut your throat yet."

"Oh, he won't do anything to me," Mead replied, smiling. "I reckon likely he is a thug, or a crook of some sort, but he won't do me any harm."

"Don't you be too sure, Emerson," said Tuttle, looking concerned. "It's the first time I've ever seen him, but I don't think I'd like to have him around me on dark nights."

"He is a good cook and he keeps the house as neat and clean as a woman would. He won't try to do anything to me because I'm not big enough game. He knows I never keep money at the ranch, and that I haven't got very much, any way. Besides, he's seen me shoot, and I don't think he wants to run up against my gun."

They were hurrying to Alamo Springs, a watering place which Mead controlled farther up in the Fernandez mountains, where they arrived just in time to stop a pistol fight between the cow-boys of the opposing interests, half-a-dozen on each side, who had quarreled themselves into such anger that they were ready to end the whole matter by mutual annihilation.

Mead found that the round-up had progressed slowly during his absence. There had been constant quarreling, occasional exchange of shots, and unceasing effort on each side to retard the interests of the other. The Fillmore Company had routed the cow-boys of the small cattlemen, Mead's included, and for the last two days had prevented them from joining in the round-up. Mead found his neighbors and their and his employees disorganized, angry, and determined on revenge. Accompanied by Tuttle and Ellhorn, he galloped over the hills all that day and the next, visiting the camps on his own range and on the ranges of his neighbors who were leagued with him in the fight against the Fillmore Cattle Company. He smoothed down ruffled tempers, inquired into the justice of claims, gave advice, issued orders, and organized all the interests opposed to the cattle company into a compact, determined body.

After those two days there was a change in the way affairs were going, and the allied cattlemen began to win the disputes which were constantly coming up. There were not many more attempts to prevent the round-up from being carried on in concert, but there was no lessening of the bad temper and the bad words with which the work was done. Each side constantly harassed and defied the other, and each constantly accused the other of all the cattle-crimes known to the raisers of hoofed beasts. The mavericks were an unfailing source of quarrels. According to the Law of the Herds, as it is held in the southwest, each cattleman is entitled to whatever mavericks he finds on his own range, and none may say him nay. But the leagued cattle growers and the Fillmore people struggled valiantly over every unbranded calf they found scurrying over the hillsides. Each side accused the other of driving the mavericks off the ranges on which they belonged, and the vaqueros belonging to each force declared that they recognized as their own every calf which they found, no matter where or on whose range it chanced to be, and they branded it at once with small saddle irons if the other side did not prevent the operation.

Mead was the leader of his side, and, guarded always by his two friends, rode constantly over the ranges, helping in the bunching, cutting-out and branding of the cattle, giving orders, directing the movements of the herds and deciding quarrels. Colonel Whittaker came out from Las Plumas, and was as active in the management of the Fillmore Company's interests as was Emerson Mead for those of his faction. Ellhorn and Tuttle would not allow Mead to go out of their sight. They rode with him every day and at night slept by his side. If he protested that he was in no danger, Ellhorn would reply:

"You-all may not need us, but I reckon you're a whole heap less likely to need us if we're right with you in plain view."

And so they saw to it that they and their guns were never out of "plain view." And, possibly in consequence, for the reputation of the three as men of dare-devil audacity and unequalled skill with rifle and revolver was supreme throughout that region, wherever the three tall Texans appeared the battle was won. The maverick was given up, the quarrel was dropped, the brand was allowed, and the accusation died on its maker's lips if Emerson Mead, Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn were present or came galloping to the scene.

The look of smiling good nature seldom left Mead's face, but his lips were closely shut in a way that brought out lines of dogged resolution. He was determined that the cattle company should recognize as their right whatever claims he and his neighbors should make. Tuttle and Ellhorn talked over the situation with him many times, and they were as determined as he, partly from love of him and partly from lust of fight, that the cattle company should be vanquished and compelled to yield whatever was asked of it. But they took the situation less seriously than did Mead, looking upon the whole affair as something of a lark well spiced with the danger which they enjoyed.

Ellhorn heard one day that Jim Halliday was at the Fillmore ranch house, and they decided at once that his business was to lay hands upon Mead. It was also rumored that several people from Las Plumas had been riding over the Fernandez plain and the foothills of the Fernandez mountains trying to find Will Whittaker's body or some clue to his disappearance. The three friends learned that all these people had been able to discover was that he had left the ranch on the morning of his disappearance with a vaquero, a newly hired man who had just come out of the Oro Fino mountains, where he had been prospecting, in the hope of making another stake. A man had seen them driving down through the foothills, but after that all trace of them was lost. Old Juan Garcia and his wife, past whose house the road would have taken them, had been away, gathering firewood in the hills, but Amada, their daughter, had been at home all day, and she declared she had seen nothing of them, and that she did not think they could have gone past without her seeing them. It was accordingly argued that whatever had happened must have taken place not far from the junction of the main road with the road which led to Emerson Mead's ranch, and all that region was searched for traces of recent burial.



CHAPTER VIII

The round-up was almost finished, and, so far, Emerson Mead had won the day. Backed always by his two friends, he had compelled the recognition of every general claim which had been made, and in most of the daily quarrels his side had come out victor.

Toward the end of the round-up, Mead and two vaqueros, accompanied by Tuttle and Ellhorn, had worked all day, getting together a scattered band of cattle, and at night had them bunched at a water hole near the edge of his range. The next day they were to be driven a few miles farther and joined with the droves collected by the Fillmore Company's men and by two or three of his neighbors for the last work of the spring round-up. In the evening one of the cow-boys was sent to the ranch house with a message to the foreman, and a little later the other was seized with a sudden illness from having drunk at an alkali spring during the day. Mead, Tuttle and Ellhorn then arranged to share the night in watches of three hours each with the cattle. Mead's began at midnight. He saddled and mounted his horse and began the monotonous patrol of the herd.

There were some three hundred steers in the bunch of cattle. They lay, sleeping quietly, so closely huddled together that there was barely room for them to move. Occasionally, one lying at the outer edge got up, stretched himself, nibbled a few bunches of grass, and then lay down again. Now and then, as one changed his position, a long, blowing breath, or a satisfied grunt and groan, came out of the darkness. When Mead started his horse on the slow walk round and round the sleeping herd the sky was clear. In its violet-blue the stars were blazing big and bright, and he said to himself that the cattle would sleep quietly and he would probably have an uneventful watch. He let the horse poke round the circle at its own pace, while his thoughts wandered back to his last visit to Las Plumas and hovered about the figure of Marguerite Delarue as she stood beside her gate and took little Paul from his hands. With a sudden warming of the heart he saw again her tall figure in the pink gown, with the rose bloom in her cheeks and the golden glimmer in her brown hair and the loving mother-look in her eyes as she smiled at the happy child. But with a sigh and a shake of the head he checked his thoughts and sent them to the mass-meeting and the days he had spent in the jail.

Presently it occurred to him that his watch must be nearly over and he looked up at the Great Dipper, swinging on its north star pivot. Then he smiled at himself, for it seemed scarcely to have changed position since he had mounted his horse. "Not an hour yet," was his mental comment. Clouds were beginning to roll up from the horizon, and he could hear low mutterings of thunder and among the mountain tops see occasional flashes of lightning. Soon the sky was heavily overcast, and the darkness was so dense that it seemed palpable, like an enveloping, smothering cover, which might almost be grasped in the hands, torn down and thrown away. Mead could not see the horse's head, so, letting the reins lie loosely on its neck, he allowed the animal to pick its own way around the circle.

The cattle began to show signs of nervousness, and from the huddled mass there came sounds of uneasy movements. Mead urged his horse into a quicker walk and with one leg over its neck as they went round and round the herd, he sang to them in a crooning monotone, like a mother's lullaby to a babe that is just dropping into dreamland. It quieted the incipient disturbance, the rumbling thunder ceased for a time, and after a little moving about the cattle settled down to sleep again.

Suddenly, without forerunner or warning, a vivid flash of lightning cleft the clouds and a roar of thunder rattled and boomed from the mountain peaks. And on the instant, as one animal, hurled by sudden fright, the whole band of cattle was on its feet and plunging forward. There was a snorting breath, a second of muffled noise as they sprang to their feet, and the whole stampeded herd was rushing pell-mell into the darkness. They chanced to head toward Mead, and he, idling along with one leg over his saddle horn, with a quick jab of the spur sent his pony in a long, quick leap to one side, barely in time to escape their maddened rush. A second's delay and he and his horse would have been thrown down by the sheer overpowering mass of the frenzied creatures and trampled under their hoofs, for the horn of a plunging steer tore the leg of his overalls as the mad animals passed. Away went the herd, silent, through the dense blackness of the night, running at the top of their speed. And Mead, spurring his horse, was after them without a moment's loss of time, galloping close beside the frightened beasts, alertly watchful lest they might suddenly change their course and trample him down. They ran in a close mass, straight ahead, paying heed to nothing, beating under their hoofs whatever stood in their way.

They rushed crazily on through the darkness which was so intense that Mead's face seemed to cleave it as the head cleaves water when one dives. He galloped so close to the running band that by reaching out one arm he could almost touch one or another heaving side. But he could see nothing, not a tossing horn nor a lumbering back of the whole three hundred steers, except when an occasional flash of lightning gave him a second's half-blinded glimpse of the plunging mass. By hearing rather than by sight he could outline the rushing huddle at his right hand. And watching it as intently as if it had been a rattlesnake ready to strike, he galloped on by its side in a wild race through the darkness, over the plain, up and down hills, through cactus and sagebrush, over boulders and through treacherous, tunneled prairie dog towns, plunging headlong into whatever might be in front of them.

From the rushing herd beside him there came the muffled roar of their thousand hoofs, overtoned by the constant popping and scraping of their clashing horns. The noise filled his ears and could not quite be drowned even by the rattling peals of thunder. Swift drops of rain stung his face and the water of a pelting shower dripped from his hat brim and trickled from his boot heels. The beating rain, the vivid flashes of lightning and the loud peals of thunder drove the maddened creatures on at a still faster pace. Mead put frequent spurs to his horse and held on to the side of the mob of cattle, bent only on going wherever they went and being with them at the dawn, when it might be possible to get them under control.

They plunged on at a frenzied gallop through the darkness and the storm, and when at last the sky brightened and a wet, gray light made the earth dimly visible, Mead could see beside him a close huddle of lumbering, straining backs and over it a tangle of tossing and knocking horns. The crowding, crazy herd, and he beside it, were rushing pell-mell down a long, sloping hill. With one keen, sweeping glance through the dim light and the streaming rain he saw a clump of trees, which meant water, at the foot of the hill, and near it a herd of cattle, some lying down, and some standing with heads up, looking toward him; while his own senseless mass of thundering hoofs and knocking horns was headed straight toward them.

With a whooping yell he dashed at the head of the plunging herd, sent a pistol ball whizzing in front of their eyes and with a quick, sharp turn leaped his horse to one side, barely in time to escape the hoofs and horns of the nearest steer. They swerved a little, and making a detour he came yelling down upon them again, with his horse at its topmost speed, and sent a bullet crashing through the skull of the creature in the lead. It dropped to its knees, struggled a moment, fell over dead, and the herd turned a little more to the right. Spurring his horse till it leaped, straining, with outstretched legs, he charged the head of the rushing column again, and bending low fired his revolver close over their heads. Again they swerved a little to the right, and dashing past the foremost point he sent a pistol ball into the eye of the leader. It fell, struggling, and with a sudden jerk he swung the horse round on its hind legs and struck home the spurs for a quick, long leap, for he was directly in the front of the racing herd. As the horse's fore feet came down on the wet earth it slipped, and fell to its knees, scrambled an instant and was up again, and leaped to one side with a bleeding flank, torn by the horns of the leading steer. The startled animals had made a more decided turn to the right, and by scarcely more than a hand's breadth horse and rider had escaped their hoofs. The crazy, maddened creatures slackened their pace and the outermost ones and those in the rear began to drop off, one by one, grazing and tailing off behind in a straggling procession. Another rush, and Mead had the mob of cattle, half turned back on itself, struggling, twisting and turning in a bewildered mass. The stampeding impulse had been checked, but the senseless brutes were not yet subdued to their usual state.

Glancing down the hill to the clump of trees, he saw men rushing about and horses being saddled. Shouting and yelling, he rushed again at the turned flank of his herd, firing his pistol under their noses, forcing the leaders this time to turn tail completely and trot toward the rear of the band. The rest followed, and with another furious yell he swerved them again to the right and forced them into a circle, a sort of endless chain of cattle, trotting round and round. He knew they would keep up that motion until they were thoroughly subdued and restored to their senses, and would then scatter over the hillside to graze.

He had conquered the crazy herd of cattle, but four horsemen were galloping up the hill, and he knew they were part of the Fillmore Company's outfit. He reloaded his revolver, put it in its holster, and rode a little way toward them. Then he checked his horse and waited, with his back to the "milling" herd, for them to come near enough to hail. Through the lances of the rain he could see that one of the men was Jim Halliday, the deputy sheriff from Las Plumas, who had arrested him on the night of the mass-meeting. Another he recognized as the Fillmore Company's foreman, and the two others he knew were cow-boys. One of these he saw was a red-headed, red-whiskered Mexican known as Antone Colorow—Red Antony—who was famous in all that region for the skill with which he could throw the lariat. His eye was accurate and his wrist was quick and supple, and it was his greatest pride in life that the rope never missed landing where he meant it should.



CHAPTER IX

The thunder clap which frightened the herd of cattle also roused Tuttle and Ellhorn, and through half-awakened consciousness they heard the noise of the stampede.

"What's that! The cattle?" exclaimed Tuttle, rising on his elbow. Ellhorn jumped to his feet.

"Tom, there goes ten thousand dollars on the hoof and a-runnin' like hell!"

"Where are the horses? Come on, Nick! Buck! Buck! Hello, Buck! Whoa! Here's mine, Nick! Yours is over by the chuck wagon!"

Fumbling in the darkness, they hurried to release and saddle the hobbled horses, and, calling to the sick cow-boy that when the foreman should come in the morning he must make haste after them, they jumped upon the ponies and set out on the gallop through the darkness to trail the noise of the running cattle. With every flash of lightning Nick Ellhorn looked about with keen, quick glances, and with half-blinded eyes located mountain peaks and arroyos, considered the direction in which they were headed, and the general lay of the land, and after a time he broke out with a string of oaths:

"Tommy, them cow-brutes are headed straight for Sweetwater Springs, and the Fillmore outfit's camped there to-night! Jim Halliday is there, and so is that measly Wellesly, if he hasn't gone back to town. He was out here two days ago. Emerson and the cattle will sure strike the Springs just about daylight, if they keep up their gait and nothing stops 'em!"

Tuttle swore angrily under his breath. "That's just the snap they've been waitin' for all this time! Their only show to get Emerson, or to kill him either, is to come down on him half a dozen to one, and they know it. Well, if they kill him he won't be the first to drop—nor the last, either," he added with a little break in his voice, as he gave his sombrero a nervous pull over his forehead.

"I reckon," Ellhorn replied, "they don't want to kill Emerson, as long as you and me are alive. They know what would happen afterward. Jim Halliday has got that same old warrant over there, and what they want to do is to shut him up in jail again."

The first stinging drops of rain dashed in their faces and they buttoned their coats and galloped on in silence. Tuttle was the first to speak again:

"What's that scrub Wellesly doing out here?"

"I don't know, unless he came to bring 'em some brains. They need some bad enough. Wellesly and Colonel Whittaker have been ridin' around over the range for the last two or three days, though I didn't know about it till yesterday. I guess they've been so everlastingly beaten on every proposition that he thought he'd better come out himself and see if he couldn't save the day for 'em on something."

They hurried on in the trail of the roar from the stampeding herd, but suddenly Ellhorn's horse struck his fore feet on the slope of a wet and slippery mound beside a prairie dog's hole. Before the animal could recover, its feet slid down the bank into the mouth of the hole with a forward jerk, and it came down with a groaning cry of pain. Ellhorn rose to his feet in the stirrups, and as the horse struck the ground he stood astride its body and with a quick leap jumped to one side unhurt. By the light of a match, which Tuttle sheltered under his sombrero, standing bareheaded, meanwhile, with the rain running in streams down his neck, Ellhorn examined the fallen horse.

"He's broke both his forelegs, Tom. There's only one thing to do with him, now."

Tuttle stroked the beast's nose. "I reckon so, Nick. You-all better do it." Then he turned away, while Ellhorn put his revolver to the horse's head and ended its pain.

"Now, Tom, you go on after Emerson as fast as you can and I'll hoof it back to camp and get Bob's horse."

"No, you-all jump on behind me, Nick, and we'll go on together. Emerson will need us both in the morning. If that crowd gets after him maybe he can stand 'em off till we-all get there. But he'll need us by daylight, Nick."

"I 'low you're right, Tommy, but ain't you on that horse that always bucks at double?"

"Yes, but I reckon he'll have to pack double, if you and me fork him."

"You bet he will!" and Ellhorn leaped to the horse's back behind Tuttle. "Whoo-oo-ee-ee!" Two pairs of spurs dug the horse's flank and a rein as tight as a steel band held its head so high that bucking was impossible. The horse jumped and danced and stood on its hind legs and snorted defiance and with stiffened legs did its best to hump its back and dismount its unwelcome double burden. It might as well have tried to get rid of its own mane. The riders swayed and bent with its motion as if they were a part of its own bounding body. Tuttle gave the animal its head just enough to allow it to work off its disapproval harmlessly, and for the rest, it did nothing that he did not allow it to do. Finally it recognized the mastery, and, pretending to be dreadfully frightened by a sudden vivid flash of lightning, it started off on a run.

"Hold on there, old man!" said Tuttle. "This won't do with two heavy weights on top of you. You've got to pack double, but you'd better go slow about it."



Calming the horse down to a quick trot, they hurried on in the wake of the stampede. They had lost all sound of the herd, and the trail which the ploughing hoofs had made at the beginning of the storm had been nearly obliterated by the beating rain. Once they thought they caught the sound again and must be off the track. They followed it and found it was the roaring of a high wave coming down an arroyo from a cloudburst farther up in the mountain. Hurrying back, they kept to the general direction the cattle had taken until the trail began to show more plainly in the soaked earth, like a strip of ploughed land across the hills. When they reached the next arroyo, they found it a torrent of roaring water. The greater part of the cloudburst had flowed down this channel, and where Mead and the cattle had to cross merely wet sand and soaked earth, they would have to swim.

"See here, Tom," said Ellhorn, "two's too much for this beast in the water. You take care of my belt and gun and I'll swim across."

"That's a mighty swift current, Nick. Don't you think we-all can make it together?"

"I don't want to take any chances. Buck can get across with you all right, but if he's got us both on him he might go down and then we'd have to follow Emerson on foot. We're coverin' ground almighty slow, anyway. I'm the best swimmer, and you-all can take care of my boots and gun."

They waited a few moments for a flash of lightning to show them the banks of the arroyo. By its light they saw a water course thirty feet wide and probably ten feet deep, bank-full of a muddy, foaming flood, in which waves two feet high roared after one another, carrying clumps of bushes, stalks of cactus, bones, and other debris. As they plunged into the torrent, Ellhorn seized the tail of Tuttle's horse, and, holding it with one hand and swimming with the other, made good progress. But in mid-stream a big clump of mesquite struck him in the side, stunning him for an instant, and he let go his hold upon the pony's tail. A high wave roared down upon him the next moment, and carried him his length and more down stream. He fought with all his strength against the swift current, but, faint and stunned, could barely hold his own. He shouted to Tuttle, who was just landing, and Tom threw the end of his lariat far out into the middle of the stream. Ellhorn felt the rope across his body, grasped it and called to Tuttle to pull.

"Tommy," he said, when safe on land, "I hope we'll find the whole Fillmore outfit just a-walkin' all over Emerson. I don't want more'n half an excuse to get even with 'em for this trip. Sure and I wish I had 'em all here right now! I'm just in the humor to make sieves of 'em!"



CHAPTER X

Emerson Mead waited until the four horsemen were within two hundred yards of him, and then he called out a good-natured "hello." The others checked their horses to a slow walk, and after a moment one of them hastily shouted an answering salutation. Mead instantly called in reply:

"I reckon you'd better stay where you are, boys. We can talk this way just as well as any other." The others halted and he went on: "Suppose you say, right now, whether you want anything particular."

They looked at one another, apparently surprised by this speech, and presently the foreman said:

"We thought you must be having trouble with your cattle. Stampede on you?"

"They're all right now. They're 'milling,' and won't give me any more trouble. But I reckon you didn't ride up here to ask me if my cattle had stampeded. You better talk straight just what you do want."

They hesitated again, looking at one another as if their plans had miscarried. "They expected I'd begin poppin' at 'em and give 'em an excuse to open out on me all at once," Mead thought. Then he called out:

"Jim, you out here to buy some cattle? Can I sell you some of mine?"

"You know I don't want to buy cattle," Halliday replied, sulkily.

"No? Then maybe you've come to ask me if it's goin' to rain?" Mead smilingly replied.

"I reckon you know what I want, Emerson Mead," Halliday said angrily, as if nettled by Mead's assured, good-natured tone and manner. "You know you're a fugitive from justice, and that it's my duty to take you back to jail."

"Oh, then you want me!" said Mead, as if greatly surprised.

"That's what, old man!" Halliday's voice and manner suddenly became genial. He thought Mead was going to surrender, as he had done before. He had no desire for a battle, even four to one, with the man who had the reputation of being the best and coolest shot in the southwest, for he knew that he would be the first target for that unerring aim, and he was accordingly much relieved by the absence of defiance and anger in Mead's manner.

"You want me, do you?" said Mead, his voice suddenly becoming sarcastic. "Is that what you've been waitin' around the Fillmore ranch the last three weeks for? Why didn't you come straight over to my house and say so, like a man who wasn't afraid? You want me, do you? Well, now, what are you goin' to do about it?" There was a taunt in Mead's tone that stirred the others to anger. Mead knew perfectly well what his reputation was, and he knew, too, that they were afraid of him.

"You won't surrender?"

"Whenever you've got any evidence for a warrant to stand on I'll give myself up. I let you take me in before to stop trouble, but I won't do it again, and you, and all your outfit, had better let me alone. I'm not goin' to be run in on any fool charge fixed up to help the Fillmore Company do me up. That's all there is about it, and you-all had better turn tail and go back to camp."

While he was speaking the foreman said something to Antone Colorow, and the man left the group and trotted away toward Mead's left as if he were going back to camp. Without seeming to notice his departure, Mead watched the cow-boy's actions from a corner of his eye while he listened to Jim Halliday:

"Now, Emerson, be reasonable about this matter and give yourself up. You know I've got to take you in, and I don't want to have any gun-fight over it. The best thing you can do is to stand trial, and clear yourself, if you can. That'll end the whole business."

Antone Colorow turned and came galloping back, his lariat in his hand. Mead's revolver was still untouched in his holster, and his horse, standing with drooping mane and tail, faced Halliday and the others. The cow-boy came galloping through the rain from Mead's left, and so far behind him that he could barely see the man from the corner of his eye. He was apparently unconscious of Antone's approach as he quietly replied to Halliday, but his fingers tightened on the bridle, and the horse, answering a closer pressure of heel and knee, suddenly lifted its head and stiffened its lax muscles into alertness.

"I'd hate to make you lose your job, Jim," said Mead, smiling, "but you can't expect a fellow to let himself be arrested for nothing, just so you can keep a soft snap as deputy sheriff. You get some evidence against me, and then I'll go with you as quiet as any maverick you ever saw."

As Mead spoke he was listening intently. He heard Antone's horse stop a little way behind him, and, as the last word left his lips, the hiss of the rope through the air. With a dig of the spurs and a sharp jerk of the bridle the horse reared. The noose fell over Mead's head, but his revolver was already in his hand, and with a turn as quick as a lightning flash he swung the horse round on its hind legs in a quarter circle and before the astounded Mexican could tighten the loop there were two flashing reports and a bullet had crashed through each wrist. Antone's arms dropped on his saddle, and through the shrill din of the mingled Spanish and English curses he shrieked at Mead came the sharp cracking of three revolvers. Emerson Mead felt one bullet whistle through his sleeve and one through the rim of his sombrero, as, with the rope still on his shoulders, he whirled his horse round again with his smoking revolver leveled at Halliday.

"Whoo-oo-oo-ee-ee!" Ellhorn's long-drawn-out yell came floating down from the top of the hill and close on its heels the report of a pistol.

"That was a very pretty trick, Emerson," said the foreman, in a voice which tried hard to sound unconcerned, "even if it was my man you played it on."

"It will be played on you if you make another break," Mead replied in an even tone, with his revolver still leveled at Halliday. He turned his horse slightly so that a sidewise glance up the hill showed Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, guns in hand, both astride one horse, coming toward them on a gallop. Tuttle's deep-lunged voice bellowed down the slope:

"We're a-comin', Emerson! Hold 'em off! We're a-comin'!" and another pistol ball sung through the rain and dropped beside Halliday's horse. Mead flung the rope from his shoulders and grinned at Halliday and his party.

"Well, what are you going to do now? Do you want to fight?"

Halliday put his gun in its holster: "I don't want any pitched battle over this business. We'll call the game off for this morning."

"It's all right, boys," Mead yelled to his friends. "Don't shoot any more."

"You're a fool, Emerson," Halliday went on, "or you'd give yourself up, go down to Plumas and clear yourself,—if you can—and have this thing over with. For we're goin' to get you yet, somehow."

Antone Colorow spurred his horse close to Mead and with all the varied and virulent execration of which the cow-boy is capable shouted at him:

"Yes, and if they don't get you, I will! I come after you till I get you, and I come a-smoking every time! You won't need a trial after I get through with you! You've done me up, but I'll get even and more too!"

Mead listened quietly, looking the man in the eye. "Look here," he said, "what did you reckon would happen to any man who tried to rope me? Did you think I'd let you-all drag me into camp at your horse's tail? I'm sorry I had to do that, but I didn't want to kill you. Here, Jim, you fellows better tie up Antone's wrists." Mead offered his own handkerchief to help out the bandages, and, suddenly remembering the whisky flask in his breast pocket, took it out and told the wounded man to finish its contents.

While this was going on Tuttle and Ellhorn rode up. The rain had stopped, and through a rift in the eastern clouds the level, red rays of the sun were shining. Mead met their eager, anxious faces with a smile.

"It's all right, boys. Jim says the game's off for this morning."

Nick and Tom turned black and scowling looks on Halliday and his party, and the deputy sheriff, manifestly nervous, rode toward them with an exaggeratedly genial greeting:

"Howdy, boys! Put up your guns! We ain't goin' to have any gun-fight this morning."

"How do you know we ain't?" growled Tom.

"Well, Emerson says so," he replied, with an apprehensive glance at Mead.

"Well," said Nick, "if Emerson says so it's all right. But we've had a devil of a ride, and we'd like to get square somehow!"

Mead laughed. "You can tally up with Jim, who's going to lose his job because I'm too mean to let him run me in."

Tuttle and Ellhorn turned grimly joyous faces toward Halliday. "If you want to arrest Emerson this morning," said Ellhorn, "just begin right now! We're three to three! Come on now and try it!"

The officer edged his horse away: "I'll wait till the round-up is over. Then you can't have the excuse that the Fillmore Company's doing it. But I'll have him yet, and don't you forget it!"

"Just like you got him this time!" taunted Ellhorn.

Halliday turned back a red and angry face: "I'll have him," he yelled, "if I have to kill the whole damned three of you to get him!"

A derisive shout of laughter was the only answer he received as he and his party galloped back to camp.



CHAPTER XI

After the round-up was finished Emerson Mead and his two friends started, with two vaqueros, to drive a band of cattle to Las Plumas for shipment. When they reached Juan Garcia's ranch Mead remembered that he wished to see the old Mexican, and the two cow-boys were sent on with the cattle while he and Tuttle and Ellhorn tied their horses in the shade of the cottonwoods at the foot of the hill. They found Amada Garcia leaning on her folded arms across the window-sill and making a picture in the frame of the gray adobe walls that was very good to see.

It is not often that the senorita of the southwest can lay claim to any more of beauty than glows in midnight hair and eyes. But Amada Garcia was one of the favored few. Her short, plump figure was rounded into dainty curves and her oval face, with its smooth, brown skin, its dimples, its regular features, its little, rosebud, pouting mouth, and its soft, black, heavy-lidded eyes, was alluring with sensuous beauty. A red handkerchief tied into a saucy cap was perched on her shining, black hair, and her black dress, carelessly open a little at the neck, showed a full, soft, brown throat.

She received the three men with that dignified courtesy that is never forgotten in the humblest Mexican adobe hut, but she tempered its gravity with many coquettish glances of her great black eyes. They talked in Spanish, the only language Amada knew, which the men spoke as readily as they did their own. No, her father was not at home, she said. He had gone to Muletown and would not be back until night. But was it the wish of the senores to be seated and rest themselves from their travel and refresh themselves with a drink of cool water? Mead presented Tuttle, who had never seen the girl before, and Amada said, with many flashes of languorous light from under her heavy lids, ah, she had heard of the senor, a most brave caballero, a man whom all women must admire, so brave and skillful. Her carriage and the poise of her body as she stood, or sat down, or walked about the room, would have befitted a queen's approach to her throne, so unconsciously regal and graceful were they. For ever since she was old enough Amada had carried every day to the house, up the hill from the spring, in an olla poised on her head, all the water for their domestic necessities. And in consequence she walked with a grace and carried her head with an air that not one American woman in a hundred thousand could equal.

She brought them water from an olla which stood in the portal, where it would be free to the breeze and shaded from the sun, and as she handed it to one after another she smiled and dimpled, her white teeth gleamed, her black eyes shone alluringly in sudden flashes from under their long-fringed covers, and her sweet, soft voice prattled airy, beguiling flatteries and dear little complimentary nothings. As she talked, she tossed her head and swayed her body and made graceful, eloquent little gestures with her hands and arms. There was unconscious coquetry in every movement and a mischievous "you dare not" in every glance of her eyes and in every dimpling smile. She was like a plump, saucy, sweet-throated bobolink, perched on a swaying bough and singing a joyous and daring "catch me if you can."

She walked across the room to put the cup on the table and Ellhorn sprang to her side and threw his arm about her. She drew back a little, tossed her head, and looked at him with eyes gleaming "if you dare, if you dare," from under their soft lids. She faced the door as she did so and as he bent his head to take the kiss she dared, a sudden, gray horror fell over her laughing face and changed it in a second to a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, drawn thing, pitiful in its helpless, ashen fear. The sudden change stopped him with his lips close to hers, and with his hand on his gun he wheeled toward the door to see what had frightened her. The other two, looking and laughing, saw the sudden horror transform her face and they also sprang toward the open entrance, revolvers in hand. But there was nothing there. The portal was empty of any living thing. And all across the gray-green plain the only sign of life was the drove of cattle far down the winding road. They turned to the girl in surprise and asked her what was the matter. She had recovered her smiling, coquettish self, and declared that Senor Ellhorn had frightened her. She scolded him prettily, in the soft, sweet, Mexican tones that are a caress in themselves, and, with a demure expression, to which only the black eyes would not lend themselves, she told him it was not right for a man to take advantage of a girl when she was all alone. If he wished to kiss her when her mother was present, ah, that was different. Yes, she would forgive him this one time if he truly were very sorry, but he must never, never frighten her so again. And her eyes flashed a smile at him that flouted every word she said.

As the three men rode away Tuttle asked:

"Emerson, did she really mean what she said about Nick's frightening her?"

Mead looked at him with an indulgent smile: "Tom Tuttle, you're the biggest maverick I ever saw. I reckon havin' a man want to kiss her ain't such an unusual thing that it's goin' to frighten Amada Garcia into a conniption fit."

"What in thunder was the matter with her then?" said Ellhorn, a bit nettled over the outcome of his gallantry. "It couldn't have been because she didn't want me to kiss her."

Mead broke into a loud, hearty roar, Tuttle grinned broadly, and Ellhorn regarded the two of them with an angry look. Mead leaned over and slapped his shoulder.

"Nick, you're a devil of a fellow with the women, and I know it as well as you do. I guess Amada's not very different from the rest of 'em, if she did stop your performance. She looked as if she saw a ghost, and maybe she thought she did. These Mexicans are a superstitious lot. Maybe she's kissed one too many some time and happened to think of it just when it spoiled your fun."

"She's a stunner, anyway!" said Ellhorn enthusiastically, his good humor restored. "I say, Emerson, is she straight?"

"I guess so. Yes, I sure reckon she must be, or Juan Garcia would have made trouble. Old Juan and his wife are fine old people, and any man who wronged Amada would have to answer for it to her father. He'd have to either kill the old man or be killed himself in mighty short order. Oh, yes, Amada's a good girl, but she's an awful little flirt."

As soon as the cattle were secured in the pens at the railroad station, ready to be transferred to the cars, Emerson Mead put spurs to his horse and rode off alone to the northward without a word to his friends. Nick and Tom, perched on the high fence of a cattle-pen, watched him gallop away with amazement. His action was unusual and surprising, for when the three were together where one went the others went also, or, at least, knew all about it. The two left behind discussed what it might mean. Nick watched him until, half a dozen blocks away, he turned off toward the mountains from which they had just come. Then a light broke upon Ellhorn and he slapped his knee with his palm and broke into a laugh.

"Tom Tuttle, I reckon I'm onto his curves! He's goin' to strike the mountain road back of town a ways and come in alone, past Frenchy Delarue's place, as if he'd just come to town!"

"Frenchy Delarue! Does he mean to have it out with Frenchy for the way he talked at that mass-meetin'? Say, Nick, we ought to be handy, for he'll sure need us. Come on, let's ride out that way." And Tuttle began to climb down from his high perch. Ellhorn stopped him with another roar of laughter.

"Tommy, sometimes I think you sure ain't got any more sense than a two-year-old! Emerson don't care anything about Frenchy Delarue, or what he said at a dozen mass-meetings. He don't hold things against a man that way." Ellhorn ended with another laugh and sat there chuckling while Tom looked at him resentfully.

"I don't see what you want to make a fool of a fellow for," he said sulkily. "If you-all don't want to tell me what it's all about, say so, and I won't ask any more questions."

Ellhorn slapped him on the shoulder. "That's all right, Tommy. It was such a good joke I couldn't help it. Don't you remember that stunning pretty girl we saw on the street with the kid the day Emerson came into town, that I told you was Frenchy Delarue's daughter?"

"What? Emerson! You don't mean—say, Nick! I don't—Emerson?" And Tuttle stopped, from sheer inability to express his mingled feelings, and stared at his companion, his face the picture of mystified amazement.

Ellhorn nodded. "I don't know anything about it, but two or three times I've seen things about Emerson that made me think he must be gettin' into that sort of trouble somewhere, and if he is I sure think it can't be anybody but Miss Delarue."

Tuttle was silent a few moments, thinking the matter over. Then he shook his head doubtfully.

"If it was you or me, Nick, I could understand it. But Emerson! Nick, I can't believe it until I know it's so!"

"I wouldn't have thought so either, but you never can tell," Nick replied oracularly. "Now, I'd kiss Amada Garcia, or any other pretty girl, every time I got a chance. You wouldn't do it unless you could sneak around behind the house where nobody could see, and you wouldn't say a word about it afterward. But Emerson, well, maybe Emerson would too, but I don't reckon he would even think about kissin' her unless she asked him to, and I'm dead sure he'd never think about it afterward. But that's just the sort of a man who gets knocked plumb out when a woman does hit him. It wouldn't make any difference to you or me, or not very long anyway, because we'd go right along and love some other girl just as much the next time. Likely you've been in love as many times as I have, and I don't know how many that is, but I don't believe Emerson ever thought more'n twice about any woman before this. But I sure reckon he's knocked out now, and bad enough to last him a long time. He's just the sort that don't want any woman if he can't get the one he does want. But you and me, Tommy,—Lord-a-mighty! We'll have a sweetheart every time we can get one!"

Tuttle blushed a still deeper crimson under his red tan at this frank account of his possible love affairs, and after a few moments of silence he nodded thoughtfully:

"I guess you-all have hit it off about right, Nick, But I never thought Emerson would be the first one of us three to go and get married! I thought likely none of us ever would!"

"He ain't married yet, and I don't know as she'd have him."

"Why not? Of course she would!" said Tom, resentful at the idea that any girl could refuse his idolized friend. He whittled the board fence despondently a few moments, and then added with a brighter look: "But he's on the wrong side of politics to suit her father, and I reckon Frenchy wouldn't have it."

The whistle of the northbound train came up the track and they climbed down from the fence and went to the depot. The telegraph operator called Tom and handed him a dispatch.

"It's from Marshal Black," said Tuttle to Ellhorn, "and he wants me to go up to Santa Fe as quick as I can get there. I reckon I'd better jump right onto this train. Emerson don't need me any more now. Tell him about it, and if he wants me for anything, or you-all think I'd better come, wire, and I'll flirt gravel in a minute. Good-bye, old man."

Emerson Mead made a detour through the northern end of the town and came into the mountain road at the lower edge of the uplands. He galloped down the street, checking his horse to a slow trot as he neared Pierre Delarue's house. With sidelong glances he keenly examined the veranda and the open doors and windows, but he could see no flutter of drapery, nor the flaxen curls of the child. With a protesting disappointment in his heart he held the horse back to a walk while he stooped over and examined the cinch. He had almost passed the place when little Paul came around the house, trailing a subdued looking puppy at the end of a string, saw him, and ran to the gate shrieking his name. Mead turned back, a warm flood of delight surging into his breast.

"Hello, little Bye-Bye! Do you want to ride with me? Run back to the house and ask your sister if you can go."

The child ran back to the porch and from within the house Mead heard Marguerite give permission. "Won't she come out?" he thought, anxiously.

"You must come and lift me up," said Paul, and Mead determined to buy him the finest toy in the town.

"Climb on the fence and let Mr. Mead put you on."

"She won't come. She does not want to see me," thought Mead.

"No, I want you to come," persisted Paul, who was in a naughty mood.

"No, dearie, Mr. Mead can stoop over and help you on just as well as I can."

"She is determined not to see me," thought Mead. "She never did so before."

Paul began to cry. "I can't, Daisy. Truly, I can't get on if you don't come. And then I can't have any ride."

Marguerite came out with a little, white, high-crowned sunbonnet pulled over her head. She had been arranging her hair and had put on the bonnet to conceal its disarray, when she found that the child could not be persuaded to let her remain indoors. Mead thought her face more adorable than ever as it looked out from its dainty frame. Paul kicked his heels into the horse's shoulders, but a firm hand held the bridle and the animal did not move. Marguerite turned a smiling face upon Mead and met in his eyes the same look she always saw there. She glanced down again, blushing, and felt the silence embarrassing, but all the things she would ordinarily have said suddenly seemed trivial and out of place, so she turned to the child with a gentle, "Be a good boy, Paul." Mead looked at her in silence, smiling gravely. Many things were whirling about in his mind to say, but he hesitated before each one, doubting if that were the best. Paul kicked vigorously and shouted, "Come on! Come on! Aren't you ready to go, Mr. Mead?" Emerson's grave smile relaxed into a foolish grin, he lifted his hat to Marguerite, and he and the boy cantered off.

Marguerite hurried back to her room and as she stood before her mirror, trembling, she resumed her hair dressing to the accompaniment of thoughts that ran contrariwise:

"I would think the man was dumb if I didn't know better. Why doesn't he ever say anything? He is certainly the rudest creature I ever saw! He stares at me until I am so confused that I can not even be courteous. He isn't nearly so nice as Mr. Wellesly—I don't care, he isn't! I like Mr. Wellesly, and he seems to like me, but—he does not look at me out of his eyes as Mr. Mead does. I wonder—if he—looks at any one else that way?"

After Mead had returned the child he rode at once to his room, and while he bathed and shaved and dressed himself in the garments of civilization he gave himself up to gloomy thoughts about Marguerite.

"Of course, she thinks I am a criminal of the worst sort,—a thief and a murderer,—and maybe she does not like to have me stop at her gate. She was nervous about it to-day, and she wouldn't come out until the kid made her. It is plain enough that she doesn't want to see me any more, and I suppose I ought not to stop there again. Still, the boy is always so pleased to ride with me that it would be a shame to take that pleasure away from him. But she doesn't like it—how sweet she looked in that sunbonnet!—and she's too kind-hearted to ask me not to. Well, she would rather I would not—yes, it is plain that she does not want me to do it—so—well—all right—I'll not stop there again."

His revolver lay on the table, hidden by some of the clothing he had just taken off. Under the stress of his thoughts it escaped both eye and mind. As he put on vest and coat he struggled to his final resolution. Then he quickly jammed his hat on his head, thinking, "I suppose I can't see her any more at all," and hurried into the street. Presently he heard a loud whoop from the direction of the jail. "That's Nick's yell, sure," he thought, "and it sounds as if he was drunk. Now what's to pay, I wonder!"

He hurried in the direction from which the sound had come, and was just in time to see Ellhorn, yelling and waving his hat, led by Jim Halliday into the jail, while a half-dozen excited Chinese, who had been following close behind, stood chattering at the door.

When the train which carried Thomson Tuttle northward left the station, Nick Ellhorn watched it disappear in the hot, white, quivering distance, and then wandered forlornly up town. He went first to Emerson Mead's room, but Mead had not yet returned. He went to Judge Harlin's office, and found that he was out of town. He next tried the Palmleaf saloon, where he solaced and cooled himself with some glasses of beer. Several men were already there, and others came in, whom he knew, and all wanted to hear about Emerson Mead's round-up and to congratulate him on its success. He drank mint juleps with two, straight whisky with two others, a cocktail with another, and ended with more beer. He walked up the street to the hotel, and as he talked with the landlord he could feel the liquors he had so recklessly mixed beginning to bite into his blood and raise little commotions in remote corners of his brain. A pleasant-faced young Mexican came into the office, and the landlord asked him how his patient was. The young man replied in broken English that the man was a little better but very sad, and that he wished to find some one to stay with him a few minutes while he went out on an errand.

Nick Ellhorn's heart was warmed and expansive and he promptly volunteered to sit with the invalid and entertain him for an hour, and with effusive thanks the Mexican nurse conducted the tall Texan to the sick-room. White, gaunt and weak, the invalid lay in his bed and looked with eyes of envy and admiration at the tall, firm, well-knit frame, the big muscles and the tanned face of his companion. By that time Nick began to be conscious of a high, swift tide in his veins, and through his dancing brain came the conviction that he must hold a steady hand on himself and be very serious. He sat up stiff and straight in his chair by the bedside, and his demeanor was grave and solemn. When the sick man spoke of his health and strength, Nick replied with admonishing seriousness:

"I'd be just such a lookin' thing as you are if I stayed indoors like you do. You can't expect to be worth a whoop in hell if you stay in the house and in bed all the time. I'll steal you away from here so that coyote of a Mexican can't get hold of you again, and I'll take you out to Emerson Mead's ranch and put you on a horse and make you ride after the cattle, and sure and you'll be a well man before you know it."

The invalid appeared apprehensive, and, feeling himself weakened by the fear lest something untoward might happen, he asked Ellhorn to give him a drink of brandy from a flask which stood on the mantel. Nick poured the measured dose into a glass, smelt of it, and looked frowningly at the sick man.

"Do you-all mean to say that you drink this stuff, as sick as you are? You can have it if you insist, but I tell you you'll be dead by sundown if you drink it! Sure and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, lyin' in bed and soakin' with brandy, right on the ragged edge of the tomb! That Mexican coyote ought to be shot as full of holes as a pepper box for keepin' this stuff in the room, and I'll do it when he comes back! I've taken a notion to you-all, and I'm goin' to carry you off on my horse to Emerson's ranch and make a well man of you. But you must sure let brandy and whisky alone, I'll tell you that right now! And I'll put this out of your sight, so it won't be a temptation to you. I'll drink it myself, just to save your life!"

He poured the glass full and drank it off without a breath. Then he began to lecture the thoroughly frightened invalid on the evil results of too much indulgence in strong drink. "Look at me!" he solemnly exclaimed. "I used to drink just as bad as you do, and where did it bring me! Yes, sir! I've had feathers enough in my time to make me a good bed, but I scattered and wasted 'em all with whisky and brandy, just as you're doin' now, and here I am a-layin' on the hard ground! But I've quit! No, sirree! I don't drink another drop, unless it's to save a friend, same as I'm drinkin' this."

When the Mexican nurse returned he found his patient fainting from fright, and a very drunken man solemnly marching up and down the room, flourishing an empty flask and uttering incoherent remarks about the evils of strong drink and the certainty of death.

"I've saved him!" Nick proudly exclaimed to the Mexican. "I've saved his life! He'd 'a' been drunk as I am, and dead, too, if I hadn't drunk all the brandy myself! I didn't let him touch a drop!"

The nurse pitched him out of the room and locked the door behind him, and he, after a dazed stare, stalked off indignantly to the front entrance. A Chinaman was passing by, with placid face, folded arms and long queue flopping in the wind. Ellhorn grabbed the queue with a drunken shout. The man yelled from sudden fright, and started off on the run with Ellhorn hanging on to the braid, shouting, his spurs clicking and his revolver flapping at his side. Nick's yells and the Chinaman's frightened screams filled the street with noise and brought people running to see what was happening. Ellhorn whipped out his knife and cut off the queue at the Chinaman's neck, and the man, feeling the sudden release from the grip of the "white devil" behind him, ran with flying leaps down the street and at the end of the block banged against Jim Halliday, himself running to learn the cause of the uproar. The Chinaman knew Halliday's office, and with wild gestures and screaming chatter demanded that he should go back and arrest the man who had despoiled him of his dearest possession. Halliday, guessing that his enemy was too drunk to offer much resistance, hastened at once to the task, and in five minutes Nick Ellhorn was locked in the jail.

Emerson Mead at once went to work to get his friend out on bail. He saw the sheriff, John Daniels, go into the White Horse saloon and hurried after him. As they stood facing each other, leaning against the bar and talking earnestly, Mead saw Daniels flash a look of intelligence and nod his head slightly to some one who had entered from a back room toward which Emerson's back was turned. Instinctively he reached for his gun, and Jim Halliday grabbed his right wrist with both hands while John Daniels seized his left. With the first touch of their fingers, the remembrance flashed through his brain that he had left his revolver on the table in his room. He would have thought it as impossible to forget that as to forget his trousers, but the thing was done, and here was the result. He shrugged his shoulders and said quietly:

"You've caught me unarmed, boys. I'm at your service—this time."

They looked at him in doubting surprise. To catch Emerson Mead unarmed seemed a most unlikely fairy tale. The two men held his arms and Daniels called a third to search him. Mead flushed and bit his lip.

"I'm not used to having my word doubted," he said, "but I can't blame you for doubting it this time. I can hardly believe it myself. Jim, you've struck just the one chance in a thousand years."

Halliday laughed. "Well, I've been lucky twice to-day, and I reckon I haven't worn out the run yet."

Mead smiled indulgently down from his superior height, and said: "Work it while it runs, Jim; work it while it runs. You can have your innings now, but mine won't be long coming."

"Well, you won't have any chance to get yourself hauled over the back wall this time, I'll tell you that right now."

They hurried their prisoner off to jail, and in a few minutes he also was locked behind thick adobe walls.



CHAPTER XII

Albert Wellesly never made a new investment, nor allowed any change to be made in property in which he was interested, without first making a thorough personal inspection. For that reason he spent a number of busy days at the ranch, near the close of the round-up, inspecting the range and debating with Colonel Whittaker whether it would be better to enlarge it or to run the risk of overstocking by increasing the number of cattle on the land which they already held. They decided that if they could get control of certain springs and surrounding ranges, especially Emerson Mead's Alamo and Cienega springs and another belonging to McAlvin, which joined the range they already held, it would be exactly what they needed.

"These water holes would be worth a lot to us," said Colonel Whittaker, "but it would be just like these contrary cusses to refuse to sell at any price, especially to us."

"Then they'll have to be persuaded," Wellesly replied.

It was necessary for Colonel Whittaker to return to Las Plumas before they had quite finished their inspection, and Wellesly decided to remain a little longer and go back to town alone. Whittaker hesitated over the arrangement, for he knew that Wellesly had neither the instinct nor the training of the plainsman, and that he was unusually deficient in that sense of direction which is the traveler's best pilot over monotonous levels and rolling hills.

"Do you think you can find your way?" he said. "One of the boys can guide you over the range, and when you start back to town, unless you are perfectly sure of yourself, you'd better have him go with you, as far as Muletown, at least."

"Oh, I'll have no trouble about getting back," Wellesly replied. "It's a perfectly plain, straight road all the way, and all I'll have to do will be to follow the main track. I'll stay here two days longer and I'll take two days for the trip to town. You can expect me—this is Monday—some time Thursday afternoon."

The misadventure of Nick Ellhorn, which landed both him and Emerson Mead in jail, was on Tuesday afternoon, and it was early the next morning that Albert Wellesly left the ranch house and rode down through the foothills. He decided that the horse knew more about the road than he did, and would do just as well if left to its own guidance. So he let the reins lie loosely on its neck and, forgetful of his surroundings, was soon absorbed in a consideration of the problems of the cattle ranch. Well down toward the plain the road forked, one branch turning sharply to the right and the other to the left. The horse which he rode had, until recently, belonged to Emerson Mead, from whom the Fillmore Company had bought it. Left to its own will, at the forks it chose the left hand branch and cantered contentedly on over rising foothills. Wellesly's thoughts turned from the ranch to other business ventures in which he was interested. It was a long time and the horse had covered much ground before he finally looked about him to take his bearings and consider his progress. Looking at his watch he thought he ought to be well down in the plain toward Muletown, and wondered that he was still among the foothills. He had an uneasy feeling that there was something wrong, but he said to himself that he had followed the straight road all the way and that therefore it must be all right. At any rate, it would be foolish not to go straight ahead until he should meet some one from whom he could ask directions. So he rode on and on and the sun rose higher and higher, and nowhere was there sign of human being. But at last he saw in the distance a splotch of green trees through which shone whitewashed walls. And presently he was hallooing in front of Emerson Mead's ranch house.

A thick-set, elderly man, with a round, smooth, pleasant face, out of which shrewdly looked small dark eyes, came out to see what was wanted. In his knocking around the world Billy Haney had kept fast hold of two principles. One was to find out all that he could about any stranger whom he chanced to meet, and the other, never to tell that stranger anything about himself that was true. In response to Wellesly's question, Haney told him that he was far off the road to Las Plumas, and then by means of two or three shrewd, roundabout questions and suggestions, he brought out enough information to enable him to guess who his visitor was. He knew about Wellesly's connection with the cattle company and his recent presence at the ranch, and the man's personal appearance had been described to him by Mead and Ellhorn. So he felt very sure of his ground when he shortly surprised the traveler by addressing him by name. Then he told Wellesly that his own name was Mullford, which was the name of a man who owned a cattle range much farther to the south and who had not been engaged in the recent trouble over the round-up. He represented himself as the owner of the place and said that he had been engaged in the cattle business ten years, but that he was not pleased with it and intended to pull out within the next year. It was nearly noon and he insisted that Wellesly should stay to dinner. An idea was dawning in his brain and he wanted time to consider it.

A hammock hung in the shade of the cottonwoods, where the breeze blew cool and refreshing, and he invited Wellesly to stretch himself there until dinner should be ready. A vaquero took his horse to the stable and Wellesly threw himself into the hammock and looked up into the green thickets of the trees with a soul-satisfying sense of relief and comfort. His revolver in his hip pocket interfered with his ease and he took it out and laid it on a chair beside the hammock. Then he pulled his hat over his eyes and in five minutes was asleep.

There was only one vaquero at the ranch house, and he and Billy Haney and Wellesly were the only human beings within many miles. When the cow-boy had taken care of Wellesly's horse Haney called him into the kitchen. The man was tall and sinewy, with a hatchet face, a thin-lipped mouth and a sharp chin.

"Jim," said Haney, "I've got a scheme in my 'ead about that man, and I think there'll be lots of money in it. Do you want to come in?"

"What'll it be worth to me?"

"If there's anything in it, there'll be a big pile and we'll go 'alf and 'alf, and if there isn't—well, of course there's chances to be took in everything."

"What'll it cost?"

"Some work and some nerve, and then a quick scoot."

"All right, Billy. What's your play?"

When they had finished their planning Haney walked softly toward the hammock. A gentle snore from beneath the hat told him that Wellesly was sleeping quietly. He took the revolver from the chair, removed the cartridges from the six chambers and put it back in the same position. Then he walked around to the other side of the sleeper and called him in a hearty tone. Wellesly rose yawning, and they started toward the house for luncheon.

"You've forgotten your revolver, sir," said Billy.

"So I have! I'm not accustomed to carrying the thing, and if you had not reminded me I probably wouldn't have thought of it again for a week. I don't believe it is necessary to carry one, anyway, but my friend, Colonel Whittaker, insisted that I should do so."

"You never know when you'll need one down in this country," Haney replied, with a sad shake of the head. "It's pretty tough, I can tell you. There's that Emerson Mead outfit. They're the worst in the southwest. You'd need your gun if you should meet any of them."

"Yes, our company has had very serious and very sad experience with them."

"Ah, yes! Poor young Whittaker! I 'eard about 'is death. That was the wickedest thing they've ever dared to do. Most everybody in this country 'as lost cattle by them and we'd all be glad to see 'em driven out."

"They belong to that class of cattlemen," Wellesly replied, "who start in the business with one old steer and a branding iron, and then let nature take its course."

Haney laughed uproariously and when he could speak added: "Yes, and in three years they 'ave bigger 'erds than any of their neighbors. You're right, sir, and the sooner the country gets rid of such men the better. I don't think, Mr. Wellesly, it's safe for you to ride alone where you are likely to meet any of that outfit. You know the feeling they 'ave for your company, and what they did for young Will, poor boy, they'd do for you if they got the chance. I've got business out your way, over at Muletown, and if you don't mind I'll ride along with you that far. That will put you on the right road and if we should meet any of the Mead outfit they wouldn't be so likely to shoot as if you were alone."

"All right, Mr. Mullford, I'll be very glad of your company. I'm no plainsman, and it is the easiest thing in the world for me to get lost out here among the mesquite and sagebrush, where the country all looks alike. I suppose I have about the least sense of direction of any man who ever tried to find his way across a plain alone."

"You needn't worry about that now. Just leave it to me and I'll get you to Muletown by the shortest route. I know all this country thoroughly, every cow-path and water 'ole in it, and you couldn't lose me if you tried. You needn't think about the road again this afternoon."

Haney buckled on a full cartridge belt and a revolver, put a pair of saddle bags with a big canteen of water in each side over his horse, slung a rifle on one side of his saddle, and they started off along a slightly beaten road straight toward the southeast. Wellesly asked Haney if he were sure they were going in the right direction, and Haney assured him that it was all right and chaffed him a little that he so easily lost the points of the compass. In the distance, a mile or so ahead of them, they saw a man on horseback leading another horse which carried a pack. When Wellesly again said that he did not understand how he could be so entirely at sea, Haney suggested that they overtake this traveler and get his assurance in the matter. They galloped up beside him and called out a friendly hail. It was Jim, the vaquero from Mead's ranch, but he and Haney looked at each other as if they had never met before. He assured Wellesly that they were certainly on the road which led to Las Plumas by the way of Muletown, that he knew it perfectly well, having traveled it many times, and that he himself was going past Muletown to the Hermosa mountains.

"You see," he explained, "Muletown ain't on the straight line between here and Las Plumas. It's away off to one side and you have to go quite a ways around to get there. That's what has mixed you up so, stranger. The road has to go past Muletown, because it's the only place on the plain where there's water."

"Well," said Wellesly, "since you both say so, it must be all right. The joke is on me, gentlemen." He took a flask from his breast pocket. "There isn't much left in this bottle, but as far as it will go, I acknowledge the corn."

The men each took a drink, Wellesly finished the liquor and threw the empty flask on a sandheap beside the road. Light clouds had risen, so that the sun and all the western sky were obscured and there were no shadows to suggest to him that they were going east instead of west. They were nearing a depression in the Fernandez mountains. Haney pointed to it, saying:

"When we get there we can show you just the lay of the land."

They passed through the break and a barren plain lay spread out before them bounded by precipitous mountains which swerved on either hand toward the range in which they were riding.

"That," said Haney, "is the Fernandez plain. You remember crossing that, surely?" Wellesly nodded. "And the mountains over there," Haney went on, "are the 'Ermosas."

"The range just this side of Las Plumas," said Wellesly. "Yes, I am getting my bearings now."

"I'm going prospecting in them mountains," said Jim. "I'm satisfied there's heaps of gold there. I'm going up into that canyon you see at the foot of that big peak. I was in there two weeks ago and I found quartz that was just lousy with gold. You fellows better break away and come along with me. I'll bet you can't make more money anywhere else."

"I don't care to go prospecting," said Wellesly, "but if you make a good strike, and develop it enough to show what it is, I'll engage to sell it for you."

"Good enough! It's a bargain!" Jim cried. "Just give me your address, stranger, so I'll know where to dig you up when I need you."

Wellesly handed his card and Jim carefully put it away in his pocketbook.

Haney laughed jovially. "You may count me out, pard, on any of that sort of business. I've blowed all the money into this damn country that I want to. You'll never get anything out of it but 'orned toads and rattlesnakes and 'bad men' as long as it lasts. If I can pull out 'alf I've planted 'ere I'll skip, and think I'm lucky to get out with a whole skin."

They trotted across the dry, hot, barren levels of the desert into which they had descended, seeing nowhere the least sign of human life. The faintly beaten track of the road stretched out in front of them in an almost straight line across the gray sand between interminable clumps of cactus and frowsy, wilted sagebrush. Bunches of yellow, withered grass cropped out of the earth here and there. But even these forlorn caricatures of vegetation gave up and stayed their feet on the edges of frequent alkali flats, where the white, powdery dust covered the sand and dealt death to any herbage that ventured within its domain. Hot, parched, forbidding, the desert grew more and more desolate as they proceeded. To Wellesly there was an awe-inspiring menace in its dry, bleaching, monotonous levels. He felt more keenly than ever his own helplessness in such a situation and congratulated himself on having fallen in with his two guides. He wondered that the plain had not impressed him more deeply with its desolation and barrenness when he came out to the ranch. But he had no doubt of the ability and good faith of his two companions and he drew his horse a little nearer to them and said:

"My God! What a place this desert would be for a man to be lost in!"

Then they told him stories of men who had been lost in it, who had wandered for days without water and had been found raving maniacs or bleaching skeletons—the sort of stories that make the blood of any but a plainsman seem to dry in his veins and his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Told in all their details and surrounded by the very scenes in which their agonies had been suffered, they brought the perspiration to Wellesly's brow and a look of horror to his eyes. Haney and Jim saw that they made him nervous, and racked their memories and their imaginations for more of the same sort.

They were approaching the mountains and the country around them was broken into barren, rocky hills. The road grew rougher and the mountains towered above them in jagged peaks of seemingly solid rock. The day was nearly ended and Wellesly remembered enough of the distances along the Las Plumas road to be sure that they ought to be approaching Muletown. But in this stern wilderness of rock and sand, human habitation did not seem possible. He looked back across the desert at the Fernandez mountains, standing out sharply against the red sunset clouds, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that if the sun were setting there they must have been traveling in an easterly direction all the afternoon, which meant that they had been getting farther and farther away from Las Plumas. Enlightened by this idea, he sent a quick, seeing glance along the range of mountains standing out boldly and barrenly in front of them, and he knew it was not the Hermosa range. Haney turned with a jovial remark on his lips and met Wellesly's eyes, two narrow strips of pale gray shining brilliantly from between half-closed lids, and saw that his game had played itself smoothly as far as it would go.

Wellesly disregarded Haney's jest and looking him squarely in the eyes said: "I suppose, Mr. Mullford, if we keep on in this direction a matter of some twenty-five thousand miles we might reach Muletown. But don't you think we would save time if we were to turn around and travel the other way?"

Haney laughed good-naturedly and exclaimed: "You've not got that notion out of your 'ead yet, 'ave you! Say, pard," he added to Jim, "Mr. Wellesly is still turned around. 'E thinks we ought to right about face and take the back track to get to Muletown. What can we do to convince 'im 'e's all right?"

Wellesly was watching the two men narrowly, his suspicions aroused and all his faculties alert. Haney's calm, solicitous tone for a moment almost made him think he must be mistaken. But another glance at the rocky, precipitous mountains reassured him that they were not the Hermosas and settled the conviction in his mind that he had fallen into the trap of a pair of very smooth rogues. A still, white rage rose in his heart and mettled his nerves to his finger-tips, as he thought of the plausible pretensions of good will with which they had led him into this wilderness. He scarcely heard Jim's reply:

"I don't know what else he wants. We're going to Muletown, and if he don't want to get lost out on this desert and have the coyotes pickin' his bones inside of a week he'd better come along with us."

"My friends," said Wellesly, in an even tone in which could barely be heard here and there the note of suppressed anger, "if you think you are going to Muletown in this direction, all right, go ahead. That's your funeral. But it isn't mine. If anybody in this crowd is turned around I'm not the man. I have been, thanks to your very ingenious efforts, but I'm not now, and I'm not going any farther in this direction. Unless you can get a little more light on which way is west I'm afraid we'll have to part company. Good-bye, gentlemen. I'm going back."

He turned his horse squarely around and faced the long, gray levels of the darkening desert. As his eye swept over that forbidding, waterless, almost trackless waste, a sudden fear of its horrors smote through his anger and chilled his resolution. Haney spurred his horse to Wellesly's side, exclaiming:

"Stop, Mr. Wellesly! You can't go back over that desert alone in the night! Why, you couldn't follow the road two miles after dark! You know 'ow uncertain it is by day, and in the dark you simply can't see it at all. The desert is 'ell 'erself in the daytime, and it's worse at night."

Wellesly did not reply, for his resolve was wavering. Jim came beside them, swearing over the delay. "See here," he said, "we've got no time to fool away. If this here tenderfoot thinks he knows better than we do which way we're going, just let him round-up by himself. I've been over this here road dozens of times, I reckon, and I know every inch of it, but I wouldn't undertake to travel a mile after night and keep to the trail. Maybe he can. If he thinks he's so darned much smarter than we are let him try it."

"Can we make Muletown to-night?" asked Haney.

Jim swore a big oath. "Didn't you hear me say I don't do no travelin' on this road at night? No, sir. I know a canyon up in the mountain a ways where there's sweet water and I'm goin' to camp there to-night. If you folks want to come with me and eat prospector's grub, all right, you're welcome."

"Thank you, pard," said Haney. "For my part, I'll be glad to get it. You'd better come too, Mr. Wellesly. It will be sure death, of the sort we've been talking about this afternoon, for you to start back alone."

"You're right," said Wellesly. "I'll go with you."

Jim rode into a canyon which led them into the mountains and for a mile or more their horses scrambled and stumbled over boulders and sand heaps. Then they turned into another, opening at right angles into the first, and after a time they could hear the crunching of wet sand under their horses' feet and finally the tinkle of a little waterfall met their ears.

"Here's the place," said Jim, dismounting.

"Sure this isn't h'alkali?" said Haney.

"You and the tenderfoot needn't drink it if you don't want to," growled Jim. "And you needn't stay with me if you're afraid I'm a-going to pizen your coffee."

"Don't get angry, my friend," said Wellesly. "Mr. Mullford didn't mean anything out of the way. We are both very much obliged to you for allowing us to share your camp."

"Yes," assented Haney warmly, "it's w'ite, that's what it is, to take in two 'ungry fellows and feed us out of your grub. And we'll see that you don't lose by it."

They watered their horses, which Jim hobbled and left to graze upon the vegetation of the little canyon. All three men hunted about in the dim light for wood with which to make a fire, and they soon had ready a supper of coffee, bacon, and canned baked beans, which Jim produced from his pack. Afterward, he brought out a blanket apiece and each man rolled himself up and lay down on the ground with his saddle for a pillow. Wellesly thought the matter all over as he lay on his back and stared up at the moon-lighted sky. He finally decided there was nothing to do but to wait for the next day and its developments, and in the meantime to get as much sleep as he could.

When he awakened the next morning he found that the others were already up and had prepared breakfast. The blue sky was brilliant with the morning sun, but the little canyon was still damp and cool in the black shadow of its walls and of the beetling mountains that towered beyond. Their camp was at the very head of the canyon. On two sides the walls reached high above them in almost perpendicular cliffs. At the end, the rocky barrier was more broken and was heaped with boulders, through which the clear waters of the streamlet came trickling and gurgling and finally leaped over the wall into a little pool. The floor of the canyon was barely more than two hundred feet across, and twice that distance below the pool the walls drew so near together that they formed a narrow pass. In this little oval enclosure grew several pine trees of fairly good size, some scrub pines and cedars and other bushes, and the ground was well covered with green grass and flowers.

Haney was hearty and jovial in his greeting to Wellesly, solicitous about his physical welfare and genial and talkative all through breakfast. Jim grinned at his jokes and stories and ventured some facetious remarks of his own, and Wellesly told a story or two that sent the others into peals of laughter. He searched his pockets and found three cigars, and the three men sat down on the rocks and smoked them in silence. Each side was waiting for the other to make a move. At last Wellesly said that he would start back across the plain if the others still wished to continue in the same direction. They expostulated and argued with him and reminded him of the probability that he could not find his way alone, and of the dangers from heat and thirst which he would have to face.

Wellesly guessed that they wanted money and were trying to force him into making an offer. He held to his determination and while they talked he saddled and mounted his horse. Then they tried to beat down his resolution by picturing to him the certain death he would meet on the waterless plain. In his heart he was really very much afraid of that scorching, sandy waste, but he let no sign of his fear show in his face as he curtly replied:

"I'm very much obliged to you for all your concern about my welfare, but I'll be still more obliged if you won't worry about me any more. I'm going back and I'm going to start now, and if you are so sure I'll get lost and die you can come along a week or so later, hunt up my bones and collect the reward that will be offered for news of me."

At that suggestion Jim glanced hastily at Haney and Wellesly saw the Englishman shake his head in reply.

"We don't want to be responsible for your death, Mr. Wellesly," Haney began, but Wellesly cut him off short:

"You won't be. I release you from all responsibility, after I leave you. Good morning, gentlemen." And with a cut of the quirt his horse started. They had been standing near the lower end of the head of the canyon, and as he moved forward the two men sprang in front of him, blocking the narrow pass which gave the only outlet.

"Will you let me pass?" demanded Wellesly, his lips white and his voice trembling with anger.

"We're not ready for you to go yet," said Haney, all the joviality gone from his face and voice. His look was that of brutal determination and his voice was harsh and guttural. Jim added an oath and both men drew their guns.

"Then, by God, we'll shoot it out!" cried Wellesly, whipping his revolver from his pocket. The hammer fell with a flat thud, and with an angry exclamation he clicked the trigger again. With furious haste he went the round of the cylinder. Jim and Haney stood grinning at him, their guns in their hands.

"Something the matter with your pop-gun, I reckon," said Jim.

Wellesly opened it and looked through the empty cylinder. Then he put it carefully in his hip pocket, rested his hands on the pommel of his saddle and looked the two men slowly over, first one and then the other, from head to foot. At last he spoke:

"Well, whenever you are ready to make your proposition I will listen to it."

"We 'aven't any proposition to make," Haney replied. "We're not ready to leave 'ere yet, and we're not willing for you to risk your life alone on the desert. That's all there is about it."

"Oh, very well! I can stay here as long as you can," Wellesly replied, dismounting. He unsaddled his horse, hobbled it and turned it loose to graze. Then he sat down in the shade of a tree, while the others still held guard over the narrow pass. He had made up his mind that he would not offer them money. He would watch his chance to outwit them, he would match his intelligence against their cunning, his patience against their brute force. It would be worth a week's captivity to turn the tables on these two rogues and get back to civilization in time to set at work the police machinery of a hundred cities, so that, whatever way they might turn, there would be no escape for them. He turned several schemes over in his mind as he watched Haney preparing their noon meal of bread, coffee, beans and bacon. Jim was taking a pebble from the shoe of one of the horses. Wellesly sauntered up and watched the operation, asked some questions about the horses and gradually led Jim into conversation. After a time he broke abruptly into the talk with the question:

"What is the name of these mountains?"

"The Oro Fino," Jim answered promptly. Then he remembered that he and Haney had been insisting that they were the Hermosas ever since the day before and he stammered a little and added:

"That is, that's what the—the Mexicans call them. The Americans call them the Hermosas."

"So you told me last night," Wellesly answered calmly, "but I had forgotten."

He remembered the name and recalled a topographical map of the region which he had looked at one day in Colonel Whittaker's office. He remembered how the three ranges looked on the map—the Hermosas, the first range east of Las Plumas, with the wide Fernandez plain lying beyond, then the Fernandez range, more like high, grassy hills than mountains, with only their highest summits barren and rocky, and separated from the Oro Fino—the Fine Gold—mountains, by the desert they had crossed the day before. He recalled the descriptions he had heard of these Oro Fino mountains—high, barren, precipitous cliffs, separated by boulder-strewn canyons and cleft by deep gorges and chasms, a wild and almost impassable region. He remembered, too, that he had been told that these mountains were rich in minerals, that the whole rocky, jumbled, upreared, deep-cleft mass was streaked and striped and crisscrossed with veins of silver and gold, turquoise, marble, coal and iron, but that it was all practically safe from the hand of man because of the lack of wholesome water. Alkali and mineral springs and streams there were, but of so baneful nature that if a thirsty man were to drink his fill but once he would drink to his death. Recalling these things, Wellesly concluded that this trickling spring of sweet, cool water and the little green canyon must be rare exceptions to the general character of the mountains and that this must have been the objective point of his captors from the start.

Along with the awakened memories came also a sudden recollection of a tale once told him in Denver by a prospector, whom he was grubstaking for the San Juan country, of a lost mine in the Oro Fino mountains of New Mexico. He was able to recall the salient points of the story and it occurred to him that it might be useful in the present emergency. While they ate dinner Wellesly spoke again of the dangers of the desert and of the risks he knew he would be taking if he should attempt to cross it alone.

"With my deficient sense of direction," he said, "I should probably wander all over it a dozen times before I could find my way out."

"You'd be dead long before that time," said Jim.

"Yes, it's very likely I would," Wellesly calmly assented.

"Of course," said Haney, "our friend 'ere 'asn't got much grub and if you and me continue to live off 'im it won't last long. 'E knows a way to get through these mountains and go down to El Paso, but of course 'e can't be expected to pilot you down there for nothin'. Now, if you made it worth 'is w'ile, I dare say 'e'd be willin' to stop 'is prospecting long enough to get you safe into the town. Eh, pard?"

"Yes, I can," Jim replied, "if the tenderfoot wants to make it enough worth while. I ain't stuck on the trip and I don't want to fool any more time away around here. You two have got to decide what you're a-going to do mighty quick. I want to get to prospectin', and if I have to tote you-all down to El Paso you'll have to pay big for the favor."

Wellesly did not reply and Haney, who was looking critically at a big boulder on the top of the canyon wall, burst into the conversation with an exclamation:

"My stars! Do you see that 'uge boulder up there, just above the narrow place in the canyon? 'Ow easy it would be, now, wouldn't it, for two men to get up there and pry it loose. It would crash down there and fill up that whole blamed trail, wouldn't it, Mr. Wellesly?"

"Yes, and effectually wall up anybody who might have had the bad luck to be left in here," Wellesly dryly replied. "But speaking of the dangers of crossing the desert," he went on, "I remember a story told me once in Denver by a prospector who had been down in this country. It was about a lost mine, the Winters mine. Did you ever hear of it?"

"Yes," said Jim, "I have. I've heard about it many a time. It's in these mountains somewhere."

"It was so rich," Wellesly went on, "that Dick Winters knocked the quartz to pieces with a hammer and selected the chunks that were filled with gold. He said the rock was seamed and spotted with yellow and he brought out in his pocket a dozen bits as big as walnuts that were almost solid gold."

The two men were listening with interested faces. Jim nodded. "Yes, that's just what I've heard about it. But there are so darn many of them lost mines and so many lies told about 'em that you never can believe anything of the sort."

"What became of this chap and 'is mine?" asked Haney.

"I reckon the mine's there yet, just where he left it," Jim answered, "but Dick went luny, crossin' the desert, and wandered around so long in the heat without water that when he was picked up he was ravin' crazy and he didn't get his senses back before he died. All anybody knows about his mine is what he said while he was luny, and you can't put much stock in that sort of thing."

"I don't know about that," said Wellesly. "I had the story from the man who took care of him before he died, the prospector I spoke of just now—I think his name was Frank, Bill Frank. He said that the old man was conscious part of the time and told him a good deal about the strike—enough, I should think, to make it possible to find the place again."

Haney and Jim were looking at him with intent faces, their interest thoroughly aroused. Wellesly decided to draw on his imagination for any necessary or interesting details that the prospector had not told him.

"What did he say," Jim demanded, "and why didn't he go after it himself?"

"As I remember it, he said that during his delirium Winters talked constantly of his rich find, that he seemed to be going over the whole thing again. He would exclaim, 'There, just look at that! As big as my fist and solid gold!' 'Look at that seam! There's ten thousand dollars there if there's a cent!' and many other such things. He would jump up in bed and yell in his excitement. If he was really repeating what he had seen and done while he was working his strike, Bill Frank said that he must have taken out a big pile, probably up near a hundred thousand dollars. That he really had found gold was proved by the nuggets in his pockets."

"Did Winters tell him what he'd done with the ore?" Jim demanded. He was evidently becoming very much interested.

"Frank told me that at the very last he seemed to be rational. He realized that he was about to die and tried to tell Frank how to find the gold he had taken out. He said he had hidden it in several places and had tried to conceal the lead in which he had worked. It is likely that the strike, whatever it was, had upset his head a little and made him do queer things before he got lost and heat-crazed on the desert."

"Well, did this man tell you where he'd hid the dust?"

"Do you know where it is?"

"My informant, Bill Frank, said that Winters was very weak when he came to his senses and could only whisper a few disconnected sentences before he died, and part of those," Wellesly went on, smiling at the recollection, "Frank said 'the darn fool wasted on gratitude.' But he gathered that the Winters mine was somewhere in the southern part of the Oro Fino mountains, not far from a canyon where there was good water, and that he had hidden the nuggets and dust and rich rock that he had taken out, in tin cans and kettles and bottles in another canyon not far away."

"Why didn't your chap go and 'unt for it 'imself?" asked Haney.

"He did spend several weeks trying to find it, and nearly died of thirst, and broke his leg falling off a precipice, and had a devil of a time getting out and getting well again. Then he wanted me to grubstake him for another hunt for it, but I think a man is more likely to find a new mine than he is a lost one and so I sent him to the San Juan instead."

"Lots of men have gone into these mountains hunting for the Winters mine," said Jim, "but all I've known anything about have always gone farther north than this."

"Yes," said Wellesly, as easily as if it were not an inspiration of the moment, "Bill Frank told me that when he talked about it he always made people think that Winters had said it was in the northern part of the range, but that it was really in the southern part."

Jim got up and walked away and presently called Haney. Wellesly lay down and pulled his hat over his face. He fell into a light slumber and awoke himself with a snore. He heard the voices of the two men, and so he kept on snoring, listening intently, meanwhile, to their conversation. He could not hear all that they said, but he soon found that they were talking about the lost mine.

"If this here tenderfoot ain't lyin'," said Jim, "the Winters mine ain't far from here. I know these mountains and I know this here spring is the only sweet water within ten miles, yes, twenty of 'em, unless there may be one up so high among the cliffs that nothing but a goat could find it. If Dick Winters' mine is in the southern part of the Oro Fino mountains it's somewhere within two miles of us."

Then he heard them talk about "finishing up" with him and coming back to look for the mine. Haney suggested that as they had enough provisions to last two or three days longer they might spend a day examining the near-by canyons and "finish up" with Wellesly afterward.

"If we find the stuff," he heard Haney say, "and this chap don't conclude to be reasonable, we can leave 'im 'ere. If 'e does come to time, we'll 'ave so much the more."

Then they walked farther away and Wellesly heard no more. His scheme was coming out as he wished, for they would of course take him with them, and in their search for the lost mine they might become so interested that their vigilance would relax and he would find an opportunity to slip away unobserved. He thought he could find his way out of the mountains by following the downward course of the canyons. That would be sure to bring him to the desert.