“Brazos — Santone — you — all back!” he panted, hoarsely.

  “Howdy, Rebel. Shore, we’re all heah,” replied Brazos, coolly.

  “Been ridin’, eh?” asked Britt, as he arose.

  “Boss, I couldn’t have — wuss news.... Fellars, finish yore supper. Lemme get — my breath.... Water an’ some grub. No whisky. I’m — all right.”

  “Take it easy, pard. I’ll throw yore saddle an’ turn yore hawse in,” replied Brazos. And scarcely another word was spoken among them, none to Rebel, until a few minutes later, when they all assembled in the bunk-house.

  “Shet doors an’ winders,” said Rebel, curtly. “Reckon we don’t want anybody else heahin’ what I got to say.”

  “Hev a smoke, Rebel,” said Laigs Mason, offering one. “An’ set down, cowboy. You’re shakin’ like a fence-wire in a November wind.”

  Rebel accepted the cigarette and, seating himself on the table, he puffed it a few times while sweeping the semicircle of his comrades with those eyes of fire.

  “Captain Britt — an’ fellars — I’m darn sorry I hev to report thet — thet Talman an’ Trinidad air double-crossin’ us,” began Rebel, in husky, halting voice.

  Into the shocked stillness that followed split the cracking sound of a hard fist in a hard palm. The first treachery under the new regime, since Holly Ripple’s endeavour to enroll them in knightly loyalty, greyed the faces and silenced the tongues of these cowboys. Britt’s heart sank. He had hoped against hope. And a slow smouldering rage took flame within him.

  “All right — Sloan,” choked out the foreman. “We all know you hate to squeal as much as we hate to heah you. But as an ootfit we got our backs to the wall.”

  “I’ve been ridin’ ten days an’ in thet time we’re oot aboot three thousand haid, rough estimate made at long distance with a glass, an’ all grades. Which means shore other brands besides ours.”

  “Three thousand haid!” ejaculated Britt, thunderstruck.

  “Talk low, Cap,” interposed Frayne. “Sloan, you’re not a man to overestimate. But...”

  “Frayne, I’m underestimatin’.”

  “Rebel, yu shore ain’t drunk or crazy,” burst out Brazos in a fierce whisper, his eyes leaping blue flames. “Hev yu been hit on the haid?”

  “Aw, Reb!” remonstrated Laigs, who would have corroborated anything stated by Brazos.

  “Gospel truth, fellars. An’ don’t rile me. I’m kinda sick an’ so — mad thet I’m seein’ you-all double.... Jest the same you know damn well thet Ben Sloan has good eyes. They’ve watched four drives, all aboot the same size, an’ with five riders each. Different riders! Three of these went between west an’ south, haided either fer Fort Sumner, Roswell, Lincoln, or Santa Fe, or mebbe Las Vegas. The last drive, with aboot a thousand haid, air due to go north in the mawnin’, I reckoned.”

  “These drives from Cottonwood Basin?” queried Britt, hanging on Sloan’s words.

  “Three of them. The last bunch must have been picked within sight of the ranch.’Cause I seen the cattle travellin’ west on the other side of the Cottonwood.”

  “Ha! In the timber?”

  “Yes. An’ along the edge. Say, less’n thirty miles from where you’re settin’ now.”

  “But, Sloan, how could all thet be possible?” demanded Britt, utterly bewildered.

  “I don’t know shore. My idees may be wrong. But heah’s how I figger. Fust, Talman had a field-glass.”

  “How do you know thet?”

  “I seen it. I seen him usin’ it from the top of Grey Hill.”

  “Where’d he get it?”

  “Ask me another. Wal, to go on. You sent Talman an’ Trinidad off fer the Basin, ahaid of all of us. I was to trail them a day late. Boss, I didn’t track them. If I had they’d seen me.’Cause they never went to the Basin. I figgered they’d do aboot what they did do. So I struck off into the hills from heah, an’ worked down. Second mawnin’ early I seen smoke come oot of the cedars on Grey Hill. An’ thet was my tip. But it took me two days to find oot them campers was Talman an’ Trinidad. One of them was there all the time. One of them rode off three times. Two separate bunches of riders made the foot of thet hill, aboot sundown on different days. Wâl, Talman is cute. He played to locate when an’ where you sent riders. No doubt he seen Skylark ride oot with his men, an’ Jim with his. I mustn’t forget thet Talman had two kinds of signals, mebbe a piece of mirror, an’ the other was regular old Injun smoke-signals.”

  “Hell you say!” ejaculated Britt, greatly chagrined at becoming the dupe of a cowboy he had not considered at all clever.

  “I rode all night an’ took up a stand on a high knoll in the Basin. I stayed there two days. Seen the drives from there. I had to get oot fer water. So I left after night-fall, an’ come back, an’ got a foothill back of McCoy’s ranch. I could see Grey Hill, but too far away to make anythin’ oot. I lay low all day. An’ thet was yesterday. This mawnin’ before daylight I moved back ten miles or so where I could watch Grey Hill. More smoke-signals. Aboot mid-afternoon I catch some dust risin’ above the cottonwoods. I watched thet creep along fer hours. I seen a big bunch of cattle cross the creek an’ work toward thet draw west of Grey Hill. Four riders. I watched the cattle oot of sight. An’ aboot sundown I seen Talman an’ Trinidad ride down to meet them four riders.... Aw hell! I knowed their hawses, ‘specially thet iron-grey pack-hawse. I watched them go oot of sight up the draw. Then I hit oot fer home an’ if my hawse ain’t daid by now he’s shore got bottom.”

  “No, it couldn’t be wuss,” soliloquized Britt, sadness momentarily infringing on anger.

  “Reb, it was a hell of a job, but yu done it great,” was Brazos’ eloquent tribute.

  “Rest easy to figger, boss,” put in Jim, mildly.

  “Sloan, get it over. What’s yore angle?” added Britt.

  “Wal, I’d say it’s all over but the fire-works.... There’s a fine pasture up thet draw. Oot of sight, an’ it leads short cut over to the trail to the reservations. Thet’s where thet beef is haided. Jest timed nice before the snow flies. Whoever sells them steers to them cheatin’ government buyers will get ten dollars or more a haid. — Whew! What a haul!...Wal, I don’t figger Talman an’ Trinidad goin’ any farther than thet camp. They’re on the way heah. But I figger they had pore fare on thet hill-top. They’ll be cocky an’ hungry. Mebbe want to talk more business. They might not stay in camp all night an’ may be on the way heah now. But I’d gamble not.”

  “Cap, Talman has sold oot to some big cattle interest fer big money, an’ he’s made a sucker oot of Trinidad,” said Brazos, with terse finality.

  “Britt, it’s all plain as print now,” added Frayne. “Talman’s job is to stick with us and be a spy for whoever bribed him to ditch us. Keep these rustlers posted on when and where our outfit rides and the movements of our stock.... Damn clever! There’s brains behind that deal.... Sloan, I congratulate you on the slickest piece of scout work I ever heard of.”

  “Aw, I was jest lucky.... An’ onlucky to be the fellar to ketch them.”

  “Don’t talk thet way,” returned Britt, sharply. “We air honour an’ duty bound in this ootfit. It was a magnificent job.... Who’s behind this steal?”

  “I don’t know, boss,” admitted Rebel. “Reckon thet’s a small matter now, ‘cause it’s a cinch we’re gonna find oot.”

  “Ah-huh! Thet fetches us down to brass tacks,” rejoined Britt, grimly. “Sloan, will you handle the deal?”

  “Air you askin’ me, or orderin’ me, sir?”

  “Wal, I leave it to you.”

  “Reckon I ought to.... All right. Gimme six men on fresh hawses. We’ll leave pronto an’ cut up in the hills the way I went, an’ come down on thet draw, before daylight. I know right where they’ll camp. We’ll leave our hawses back a ways an’ slip down, aimin’ to surprise them.”

  “Men, I’m callin’ fer volunteers, but reservin’ right not to accept anyone I want to stay heah,” announced Britt.

  “Me,” spoke up Brazos, coolly, his head bowed. He, the cowboy who had only recently suffered from the treachery of a friend, whom he killed for that treachery, had allied himself with this sinister posse for a like fatal responsibility.

  “An’ me,” growled Laigs Mason.

  “I’ll go,” said Frayne.

  “No, Frayne. You stay heah,” interposed Britt. “I want to go myself, so I’d rather you stayed heah.”

  “Me, too,” called Tennessee.

  “No,” objected Britt.

  “I’se willin’, suh,” put in Ride-’Em Jackson. “Dat Talman hombre kicked me once, an’ I sho nebber lubbed him.”

  “Thet’s three. Come on, you,” called Britt, impatiently. “Me,” replied Santone.

  “Wal, I ain’t keen to go, but I reckon I’ll do it,” said Jim, wagging his lean head.

  “I’ll let you off, Jim,” declared Britt. “Rustle, boys. Two more.”

  Cherokee signified a reluctant willingness to participate, but Britt ruled him out, as also Blue. Then Tex and Mex Southard, slow and impassive as always, chimed in to complete the number Sloan had asked for.

  “Couple of you wrangle fresh hawses,” ordered Britt. “What else, Rebel?”

  “Rifles, water-bags, some grub. We might have a chase.”

  “Cap, what’ll we do if Talman and Trinidad ride in tomorrow?” queried Frayne.

  “I was thinkin’ of thet. They’d smell a rat, shore.... Wal, tie ’em up an’ wait for us to come back.”

  “This must be kept from Miss Ripple.”

  “Hell yes! So in case they come be shore careful. Holly’s worried aboot them cowboys.”

  “Britt, it’ll be most damn uncomfortable for us if Talman and Trinidad come back,” said Frayne, ponderingly.

  “Let’s don’t borrow trouble.”

  An hour later eight horsemen, on bays and blacks, darkly garbed and heavily armed, rode silently away from Don Carlos’ Rancho, headed for the foothills to the north.

  Down on the range the night was warm and still. Stars shone brightly. Sloan led the single file at a trot until he struck a slow grade, where he put his horse to a walk. The fact that no rider smoked or spoke attested to the nature of this night adventure.

  Britt was reminded of his ranger work down on the Rio Grande. How many nights had he ridden out with a grim group of rangers, bent on some such dark quest as this! The fall of Talman, and especially of Trinidad, had hurt him deeply. Still, after the first regrets had given way to wrath, he did not think his faith in the other cowboys of his outfit had been impaired. Talman and Trinidad were due for a terrible reckoning.

  Once up on the ridge Britt found the air cool and his heavy coat comfortable. Soon Sloan turned west and kept heading the draws that came out from under the bulk of the mountain. From sage they rode on into the cedars, and at last into a fringe of scattered pines reaching down from the timber belt. Deer took the place of cattle, and coyotes and wolves wildly broke the silence. Table Mountain, over in Colorado, loomed square and black above the range of lesser mountains. The grey cedar-dotted ridges ran down to end in hills that sloped off into the range. Between these wide ridges dark timber-choked gullies wound down to merge in the grey. Water splashed with cold tinkle over rocks. Once the lead horses snorted and plunged as a black bear lumbered by insolently. As the country became rougher travel grew slower. Sloan led a tortuous course through thickets of oak and patches of cedar, winding in and out of a jumble of great rocks fallen from above. He crossed a goodly mountain stream, which went tumbling down with shallow roar. This surely was Bush Creek, that had its confluence with the Cottonwood fifteen miles west of the rancho.

  In another hour of as rough riding as Britt had experienced Sloan left the dim deer trail and headed down hill. By starlight Britt made out that his watch said one o’clock. The guide knew his way and took his time. It seemed to Britt that the longer the hours the grimmer the men.

  A late moon rose, dimming the stars, adding to the weird aspect of the wilderness. It was a pale yellow moon, misshapen, and low over the ramparts. Gnarled and stunted cedars, reaching out with bleached dead snags, added to the spectral scene.

  At length Sloan led out of the heavy timber to a marked break in the conformity of the vast slope. Grey, black-dotted ridges ran down with bare white backs and sides, toward the vast void that was the cattle range. The night spectacle here appeared to Britt grand in the extreme. He was on the backbone of the tableland, between the mountains and the foothills. The great range curved around this corner into an amphitheatre walled by the Rockies.

  Sloan halted to let his comrades close in around him.

  “How long till daybreak?”

  “Wal, let’s see. My watch says two-thirty. I reckon we hev an’ hour an’ a half before we can see good.”

  “Plenty time. Thet camp is tolerable far yet. But in this air a crack of a hoof on a rock would carry a long way. What you-all say?”

  “Better be shore than sorry,” rejoined Britt. “Pile off, fellars.”

  “Leave everythin’ extra heah but yore rifles — an’ ropes,” whispered Sloan, as he securely tied his horse to an oak sapling. “Take yore chaps off an’ spurs.”

  In a moment his followers were all ready, dark faces agleam in the pale moonlight.

  “Listen, men. I know right where this ootfit will camp. We’ll have to go slow an’ easy.... Now, boss, what’s the deal when we slip up on them?”

  “Hold them up. If they show fight, wal — thet’d suit us all better. Only—”

  “Only we want to find oot who’s back of this deal,” interrupted Sloan, menacingly. “We wouldn’t be so much better off without thet.”

  “Rebel, you’re daid right. We want to force one of them to squeal.”

  “Jest so thet ain’t Talman or Trinidad,” said Brazos.

  “Britt, you want me to go ahaid with this?” asked Sloan, hoarsely.

  “Yes, an’ clear through with it.”

  “All right. Foller me close. Do what I do. When I yell run in with me. Hold them up. Don’t shoot unless they go fer their guns. Thet’s all.”

  With a rifle in one hand and a coiled lasso in the other Sloan slipped off under the cedars. He picked his way, walking stealthily, and after proceeding a hundred steps or more he halted to listen. In a moment he pressed on. Britt came last in that file. He had difficulty with his breathing. The altitude bothered him. Patch after patch of dark cedars were passed, and thickets of aspens, rustling in the cool soft breeze, and labyrinthine mazes of lichened boulders. Another thread of brooklet meandered down the slope. Beyond it a low incline ran up to a ridge-top where a few rods down on the other side the belt of timber ended. A grey swale extended down into obscurity. Sloan halted at the edge of the trees until all the men were around him. They touched each other and looked, but no one spoke. All heard the cattle down in that swale.

  When Sloan started on again he took to an Indian’s stealth and slowness. Every few feet he halted. The moon shone fitfully through the spreading branches, casting dark shadows. A cow bawled somewhere. From the opposite ridge a wolf howled. Once again Sloan’s followers lined up beside him. He touched his nose. Those nearest him nodded. They smelled smoke or a burned-out camp fire.

  Then he went on more guardedly than ever. The moon failed or passed behind a peak. This permitted the men to see that the dark hour before dawn had almost passed. Sloan proceeded more slowly, halted oftener, and waited longer, until gloom lightened to grey.

  Britt heard horses nipping the grass and presently saw a bunch on the grey slope. Birds began to twitter. The wail of coyotes soared up from the range below. Water trickled somewhere over rocks. Day was at hand, yet the crafty Sloan grew more relentlessly slow than ever. If any of his men snapped a twig, which happened a few times, he paused long. At last when stones and trees could be clearly distinguished be got down to crawl. This method of advance was a relief to Britt, for whom the unusual exertion had been trying. They crawled and they rested. Finally Britt felt a restraining hand patting his shoulder. He looked up. Santone crouched a little ahead of him. Britt discovered a beautiful glade just below him, the smoking remains of a camp fire, prone blanketed forms on the ground, and packs scattered around.

  Britt saw Sloan lay aside his lasso and take his rifle in two hands, slowly getting to his knees. His followers did likewise. Britt felt the cold sweat break out over him. He changed his rifle to his left hand, and drew his gun.

  On the moment one of the prostrate men rolled over to throw off his blanket, to sit up yawning.

  Rebel leaped up to let out that rebel yell for which he was famed. Then rang out a stentorian chorus: “Hands up!”

  The farthest of these seven men leaped nimbly up, to shoot as swiftly and bound away. A volley of rifle shots answered him. Britt saw him stagger and fall.

  Another, unheeding commands or shot, rolled out of his bed, guns flashing red. He was riddled by bullets before he got off his knees. A third, agile and swift, escaped a first fire to make the blunder of wheeling before he reached cover. His gun spouted as the rifles cracked, and he collapsed like a wet sack.

  “Hands up, — !” bawled Rebel, advancing, his rifle at his hip.

  Of those remaining one stood paralysed, his hands aloft, another sat with his hands high as his head, a third lay as if stunned, and the fourth leaned on his elbow, a blanket half concealing him. But his posture, his grey blotch of face, struck Britt as forbidding.

  “Yu there. Up with ‘em!” rang out Brazos, striding forward.

  “Look oot, pard! He’s got a gun!” yelled Laigs, leaping and shooting simultaneously. He lunged in front of Brazos just as the rustler fired through his blanket. Mason staggered under the impact of a heavy ball, then shot the man three times, flattening him on the ground.

  “My Gawd! — Laigs, air yu hit?” cried Brazos, piercingly.

  “Aw — it ain’t nuthin’,” replied the cowboy, thickly, and turned his rifle on the remaining three men.

  “Air yu shore yu’re not hurt? I heahed thet bullet hit.”