Cowmen and Rustlers: A Story of the Wyoming Cattle Ranges

CHAPTER VII. — THE WARNING.

The full moon was shining on the second night succeeding the conflict which Budd Hankinson described between the rustlers and the cowmen of Whitney's ranch. The man that had fallen was laid away in a grave back of the house, and mother, son and daughter mourned him with a sorrow that was soothed by the consciousness that he had been a good husband and father in every sense of the word.

On this night, before the hour was late, three persons were seated in the balmy air on the outside of the dwelling, talking together in low tones.

They were Fred Whitney, whose bandaged arm rested in a sling, Monteith Sterry, and Jennie Whitney. The memory of the recent affliction suffered in the death of the father naturally subdued the voices and tinged the words with a seriousness that would not have been felt at other times.

Young Sterry, as already stated, had accepted an engagement with the Live Stock Association, which required him to investigate the operations of the rustlers over a large portion of Wyoming and Montana, and to report at regular intervals to his superior officers.

This was perilous business, but Sterry set about the work with a vigour, directness and intelligence that were felt over an extent of territory numbering hundreds of square miles, and made him a marked man by the rustlers, who are always quick to identify their friends and enemies. It seemed to make little difference, however, to him, who loved the excitement. He was a capital pistol and rifle-shot, a fine horseman, and as devoid of fear as the men against whom he directed his movements.

Unconsciously Monteith Sterry brought a grievous peril upon his friends, who held him in so high regard. Hated intensely by the rustlers, they were not long in learning that he spent a great deal of his time at the Whitneys. They came to be regarded, therefore, as aiders and abettors of his. This enmity was emphasized by the attack of which an account has been given.

"I think, Fred," said his sister, oppressed by the shadow that had fallen across the threshold, "we ought to sell out and leave this country."

"Why?" he gently asked.

"Because not only of what happened yesterday, but of the certainty that such attacks will be repeated."

"What reason have you to fear their repetition?" asked Monteith.

"Matters are growing worse between the cowmen and the rustlers; I have heard our men talk, and you have said so yourself."

"I cannot deny it," replied their visitor, thoughtfully smoking his cigar. He would have been pleased had her brother, now the head of the little household, decided to make his home once more in the East, for then he would take up the study of his profession of law and be placed where he could often meet them.

"It would be cowardly to sell out and abandon the country through fear of those men," said the brother, to whom the proposition was not pleasant.

"But suppose you should be their next victim?" suggested Jennie, with a shudder.

"I don't think I shall be a victim," he quietly responded; "this wound won't bother me long, and with Budd and Grizzly to help, we can laugh at all the rustlers in the country."

"It is hardly a matter of courage," ventured Sterry, "for no one knowing you or your sister would question your bravery, but it is rather the peace of mind of your mother and her. It will be a long time, if ever, before your parent recovers from the shock of yesterday. No matter how confident and plucky you may be, Fred, you know it is no guarantee against a bullet from one of those scamps at five hundred or a thousand yards. I shudder to think of what might happen."

Fred turned and looked full in the handsome face of the fellow beside him.

"It strikes me that you are showing little faith in your own words. Why do you remain where you are a marked man when there is no need of it, and where your personal danger is certainly as great as mine?"

This argumentum ad hominem was so unexpected that Sterry was embarrassed for the moment, but found voice to reply:

"I have no mother and sister dependent on me, as you have."

"But you have brothers, sisters, father and mother, and therefore the more to mourn if you should fall. The fact is, Mont, I feel that it is a duty you owe to them to give up the dangerous calling you have adopted. You not only do not need it, but are squandering time that ought to be given to the study of your profession, and you have become so feared and hated by the rustlers that they will go to any length to 'remove' you."

"The more cause, therefore, why I should stay," responded the other.

"A poor argument—"

The discussion was interrupted by the sound of a horse's hoofs. Some one was riding toward them on a gallop, and speedily loomed to view in the bright moonlight. The three instinctively ceased speaking and gazed curiously at the horseman, who reined up in front of where they were sitting.

Hospitality is limitless in the West, and, before the stranger had halted, Fred Whitney rose from his chair and walked forward to welcome him.

The man was in the costume of a cowboy, with rifle, revolver and all the paraphernalia of the craft.

"Is your name Whitney?" asked the horseman, speaking first.

"It is; what can I do for you?"

"Do you know Mont Sterry?"

"He is a particular friend of mine," replied Whitney, refraining from adding that he was the young man sitting a few paces away with his sister and hearing every word said.

"Well, there's a letter for him; if I knew where to find him I would deliver it myself. Will you hand it to him the next time you meet him?"

As he spoke he leaned forward from his saddle and handed a sealed envelope to Fred Whitney, who remarked, as he accepted it:

"I will do as you wish; I expect to see him soon; won't you dismount and stay over night with us?"

"No; I have business elsewhere," was the curt answer, as the fellow wheeled and spurred off on a gallop.

Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber, the two hired men, were absent, looking after the cattle, for the rustler is a night hawk who often gets in the best part of his work between the set and rise of sun.

Mrs. Whitney was sitting in the gloom, alone in her sorrow. Jennie wished to stay with her, but the mother gently refused, saying she preferred to have none with her. No light was burning in the building, and that night the weather was unusually mild.

Mont Sterry accepted the paper from the hand of his friend and remarked, with a smile:

"I suspect what it is. When the rustlers don't like a man they have a frank way of telling him so, supplemented by a little good advice, I fancy I have been honoured in a similar way."

He deliberately tore open the envelope, while Jennie and her brother looked curiously at him. The moonlight, although strong, was not sufficiently so to show the words, which were written in lead-pencil. Fred Whitney, therefore, struck a match and held it in front of the paper, while the recipient read in a low voice, loud enough, however, to be heard in the impressive hush:

CHAPTER VIII. — GOOD-BYE.

Monteith Sterry read the "warning" through in a voice without the slightest tremor. Then he quietly smoked his cigar and looked off in the moonlight, as though thinking of something of a different nature.

It was natural that Jennie Whitney should be more impressed by the occurrence, with the memory of the recent tragedy crushing her to the earth. She exclaimed:

"Larch Cadmus! Why, Fred, he has visited our house several times; he was here last week."

"Yes," replied her brother; "he has often sat at our table; and, by the way, he is a great admirer of yours."

"Nonsense!" was the response; "why do you say that?"

"It may be nonsense, but it is true, nevertheless. Your mother noticed it; and, that there might be no mistake, Larch had the impudence to tell me so himself."

"I never liked him; he is a bad man," said Jennie, much to the relief of Sterry, who felt a little uncomfortable. "I did not know he belonged to the rustlers."

"He was a cowboy until last fall. He had a quarrel with Col. Ringgold and went off with the others, and has been on the blacklist ever since."

"Why didn't he bring the message himself," continued the sister, "instead of sending it?"

"He did," was the significant reply of the brother.

"What! That surely was not he?"

"It was. I knew his voice the moment he spoke; those whiskers were false; he didn't want to be recognized, and I thought it as well to humor his fancy, but I could not be mistaken."

"Now that I recall it, his voice did resemble Cadmus'," said the sister, more thoughtfully.

"Of course, and I can tell you something more; he was among the rustlers with whom we had the fight yesterday. He did his best to kill me, and came pretty near succeeding. It wasn't he, however, who put the bullet through my arm, for I dropped that fellow."

"You frighten me!" was all that Jennie Whitney could say.

Sterry still smoked in silence. He was thinking hard, but it was his turn to be startled by the next remark.

"Larch Cadmus hates you, Mont, not so much because you are the enemy of all rustlers, but more because he believes my sister holds you in higher esteem than she does him."

Sterry was clever enough to parry this compliment with considerable skill.

"For the same reason he is jealous of every gentleman whom Miss Whitney has ever met, for it would be a sorry tribute to any man's worth if he did not stand higher in her regard than Larch Cadmus."

"Well spoken!" said the young lady, relieved from what threatened to become an embarrassing situation for her.

Had her brother chosen he might have expressed what was in his mind, but he had the good taste to refrain. None knew better than he the deep, tender affection existing between his friend and his sister, though it had not yet reached the point of avowal and confession.

"Well, Mont, what are you going to do about it?" asked Whitney.

By way of reply, the latter twisted the "warning" into the form of a lamplighter. Then he applied a match to one corner, and held the paper until it had burned to the last fragment.

"That's my opinion of Mr. Larch Cadmus and his gang, and I shall pay the same attention to them."

"You are not wise," ventured Jennie, who, with the awful memory of the preceding day upon her, could not but shudder at the peril to her friend, who had never been quite so near to her as during the last few hours, when he showed so much tender sympathy for her and her mother and brother in the depth of their desolation and woe.

"I thank you," he said, with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "I have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking dog that does the biting."

"Don't make the mistake of supposing it is not so in this case," said Whitney, "and none should know it better than you."

"I do not underestimate the courage of those fellows; they will shrink at nothing, but there is no more excuse for my running away upon receiving such a warning than there would be for all the inhabitants of Wyoming to leave the State at such a command."

"The case is not parallel," was the comment of Fred Whitney.

"Bear in mind that if I stay, as I intend to do, I do not mean to sit down and wait for those rustlers to pick me off. I count on having something to say and do in the matter; but, friends, I must bid you good-night."

"What do you mean?" asked the astonished Fred Whitney.

"I must leave," replied Sterry, rising to his feet; "I have already staid too long."

CHAPTER IX. — A SUMMONS AND A REPLY.

Brother and sister were astounded. The hour was late, and they had been urging their guest to remain several days with them. He had not consented, nor had he refused, from which they were confident he would stay.

And now he announced his intention of departing at once, riding out into the night—whither?

They protested, but he replied so earnestly that an urgent necessity existed that they refrained. He gave no hint of the reason for his strange action, and they could not ask it. His fleet mare, which had been allowed to graze on the succulent grass at the rear of the building with the other horses, was brought forward and saddled and bridled, and he quickly vaulted upon her back.

"Remember me to your mother; it is not worth while to disturb her; I hope soon to be with you again."

He leaned over and pressed the hand of Fred Whitney, and then, raising his hat with his left hand, extended the right to Jennie.

Fred made an excuse to move away a few paces, for he understood the situation.

"Good-by," Sterry said in a voice just low enough to reach the dear one, as he pressed the delicate hand which rested so trustingly in his own.

"Good-by," she answered. "I am sorry you are going."

"So am I, but it is better that I should leave. As I said, I trust soon to see you again. Do you know why I hope Fred will decide to return to the East with you and your mother?"

"I suppose because we shall all be safer there;" and then she added, forgetting her sorrow for the moment, "that is if we do not go skating to Wolf Glen."

"It is not necessary to remove as far as Maine, but father insists that I am wasting time here, when I ought to be home studying my profession."

"And he is right, Monteith."

"But," he replied in a low voice, "before I go back I want to make sure that you will do the same. There, good-by again."

He replaced his hat, wheeled and dashed across the prairie without another word.

Jennie stood gazing in the direction taken by him for some time after he had disappeared in the gloom of the night. Then she turned to speak to her brother, but he had passed within the house. She resumed her seat, knowing he would soon return.

Fifteen minutes and more went by and she was still alone.

Sh! Was she mistaken, or was that the faint sound of a horse's hoofs in the distance?

She turned her head and listened. The murmur of voices, as her brother and mother talked in low tones, did not disturb her, and the almost inaudible lowing of the cattle on the distant ranges was but a part of silence itself.

Hardly a breath of air was stirring, but all knew the eccentric way in which sound is sometimes carried by it. Suddenly the reports of rifle-firing were heard, faint but distinct, and lasting several minutes. Then other and different noises reached her, still faint but clear.

Her power of hearing, like her vision, was exceptionally strong. It was that which enabled her to tell that the last sounds were not made by a single animal, but by several going at a high rate of speed. These, with the reports of rifles, made her certain that the rustlers had attacked Sterry.

Meanwhile the young man found matters exceedingly lively.

The reception of the "warning" through the hands of Fred Whitney was proof that his enemies knew he was frequently at his house. Their messenger had gone thither to deliver it. Young Whitney had slain one of their number, and though the law-breakers themselves had suffered the most, they felt bitter resentment toward the family.

If Sterry remained with them they would have trouble. He was satisfied that Larch Cadmus recognized him, as he sat in front of the rancher's house, and would not forget to tell it to his comrades, who would speedily make the place a visit. He believed they were likely to do it before the rise of the morrow's sun.

If the Whitneys were attacked, his presence would add to the defensive strength, but such an attack would not be made if he was not there. Desperate and defiant as the rustlers had been, it would be an injustice to represent them as capable of such wantonness.

He felt, therefore, that it was his duty to leave the ranch without delay, thus removing an element of grave danger. It would have been hardly wise to make this explanation to them, though he believed Fred suspected it.

Turning his back, therefore, upon the dearest spot in all the West to him, he set his mare Queenie on an easy, swift gallop, heading southward toward the ranges where the cattle of the Whitneys were grazing.

Sterry, in one sense, was without a home as long as he remained in Wyoming or Montana, while in another sense he was the owner of numberless dwelling-places or "headquarters." He may be likened to a commercial traveller in a vast and sparsely-settled region, where he is well known and welcomed by the inhabitants.

The ranchmen who knew him—and there were few who did not—were his friends, for he was working in their interests. At whichever cabin he drew rein he was certain of a hospitable reception.

With no clearly defined idea of where he would spend the remaining hours of the night, he turned the nose of Queenie toward the ranges, among the mountain spurs.

Grizzly Weber and Budd Hankinson would stay near the cattle for an indefinite time, and he was debating whether to join them or to ride on to the ranch of Dick Hawkridge, a number of miles to the northeast, when his meditations were broken in upon in the most startling manner.

During those perilous times, the lonely horseman, in a dangerous region, relies much on his intelligent steed for warning. While Monteith Sterry could do a great deal of thinking in the saddle, he was too alert to drop into a brown study that would divert his thoughts from his surroundings.

He was no more than a mile from the Whitney ranch when his mare pricked up her ears, gave an almost inaudible whinny, and slightly slackened her pace.

That meant that she scented danger, and her rider was on the qui vive.

He tightened the rein and drew her to a full stop. She turned her head to the right and looked steadily in that direction, with her pretty ears thrown forward. This meant that whatever impended was coming from that point of the compass.

But the keen eyes of Mont Sterry could not penetrate the moonlight sufficiently far to detect anything. He was out of the saddle in a twinkling, and tried a trick learned from the old hunters. He pressed one ear against the ground, which, as all know, is a much better conductor of sound than the air.

This told the story he anticipated. The faint but distinct clamping of horses' hoofs was heard. The number was indefinite, but, somewhat to his surprise, none of them was running or loping; all were moving on a walk.

The noise was so clear that when he rose to his feet and looked off to the right he expected to see the animals and their riders, and he was not disappointed.

On the outer margin of the field of vision the outlines of several horsemen assumed shape. They were approaching, and one of their steeds emitted a whinny, as a salutation to the motionless Queenie, who had shifted her pose so as to face that point of the compass.

"Sh!" whispered Sterry to her.

But there was no call for the warning; she was too well trained to betray her master, and remained mute.

But it was inevitable that if the young man could discern the figures of the approaching horsemen, they must also see him. He leaped into the saddle and turned away.

He knew instinctively they were rustlers, and he was almost equally certain they were hunting for him. There were at least three; and, well aware of their character, he was only prudent in shying off, with the intention of avoiding them altogether.

But they were not the men to be bluffed in that fashion. They were "out" for the inspector, and did not intend that such an opportunity should slip by unchallenged.

"Hello, pard!" called one of the trio, "where from and where going?"

This was a pointed demand, to which Mont Sterry made an equally pointed response.

"That is my own business; I will attend to it, and you may attend to yours."

All this time he was keeping watch of their movements. Their horses were still walking, but they were now coming straight toward him. At a touch of the rein Queenie headed directly away, and her gait was about the same. She acted as though she shared the thoughts of her master, who shrank from sending her off on a flying run, as would have been more prudent for him to do.

A brave man dislikes to flee, even when his better judgment tells him it is the only wise thing to do.

The night was so still that Sterry plainly heard the words of the men when talking to each other in an ordinary conversational tone.

"I believe that's him," said one of them, eagerly.

"It sounded like his voice, but he wouldn't leave the Whitneys at this time of night when she's there."

"He's too free with his tongue, anyway; we'll make him show up."

"Say, you! hold on a minute. Do you know anything about Mont Sterry? We're looking for him."

"I am Mont Sterry," was the defiant response. "What do you propose to do about it?"

CHAPTER X. — A HOT PURSUIT.

It may be said Mont Sterry answered his own question at the moment of asking it, for, bringing his Winchester to his shoulder, he let fly at the rustlers, and then with a word and touch of the spur sent Queenie bounding away with arrowy swiftness.

Unquestionably it was a daring act on his part, but there was wisdom in it. He knew those men were seeking his life, and would shoot him, as they had threatened to do, on sight. When they met, it would be a question simply as to which got the drop on the other.

They were preparing to make a rush at him, and while he had no fear of a contest of speed between Queenie and any animal that "wore horse-hair," they were altogether too near at the beginning of the contest, and the chance of using their rifles was too much against him.

The crack of the Winchester accompanying his sharp reply, with the whistle of the bullet about their heads, gave them a momentary shock, which delayed the pursuit for a few precious seconds.

This was the object of the fugitive, for, while that brief interval was thrown away by them, he improved it to the utmost. At such crises a few rods count immensely, and they were made to count on the side of Mont Sterry.

They were insufficient, however, to take him beyond peril. Men like those horsemen are quick to recover from a surprise, and it would have seemed that Sterry was hardly started in his flight when they were speeding after him. He heard their maledictions and knew that the struggle for life was on.

Comparatively brief as had been the time spent in the West by Sterry, he had not neglected his education along the lines indispensable to those following his manner of living. At the moment of giving Queenie rein he flung himself forward on her neck, hugging it close and uttering an involuntary prayer that the bullets might pass harmlessly by him and his horse.

There were enough of the missiles to kill several men, but the chance for aiming was so poor that even such fine marksmen as the rustlers had little chance. The mare was only dimly discernible, and she, like their own horses, was going at full speed.

Had the sun been shining the result must have been widely different.

The encounter with these men was so unexpected and the several changes of direction by Queenie so sudden and unavoidable that Sterry was not given a chance to take his bearings. The one object was to get as far from them as possible in the quickest time in which it could be done.

When that distance became a safe one it would be soon enough to give attention to the points of the compass.

Nobly did Queenie do her duty. She had carried her master out of many a peril, and she could be counted on to do it as long as the ability remained with her. Sterry's anxiety was really more on her account than on his own. He knew there was little danger of himself being struck by the bullets of the rustlers, who, as I have shown, had no possible chance of taking any sort of aim, but she was a conspicuous target, which it would seem they ought to hit with little difficulty.

Often must a person in the situation of Sterry leave everything to his horse. He did not seek to guide Queenie, but sat, or rather lay, in the saddle and on her neck, as she skimmed like a swallow over the undulating prairie.

Strange imaginings were in the brain of the young man during those few minutes. He listened to each shot of the Winchesters, and then, instead of feeling any apprehension for himself, waited for the dreaded evidence that his horse had been struck.

The skilful railway engineer, sitting in his cab, with his hand on the throttle, can discover, on the instant, the slightest disarrangement in the mass of intricate mechanism over which he holds control. His highly trained senses enable him to feel it like a flash. So it was that Mont Sterry would have detected any injury to his horse as quickly as she herself. No matter if but the abrasion of the skin, the puncture of the flesh, or the nipping of an ear, she would betray it involuntarily.

If she were wounded and should fall, the situation of her rider would be well-nigh hopeless. He could only throw himself behind her body and have it out with his enemies. Such a defence has been successfully made many a time by white men against Indians; but Sterry would not be fighting Crows nor Sioux, but those of his own race and blood, as brave and skilful as he.

"Thank God!" he murmured, after each shot, as the splendid play of the machinery under him continued without a break or tremor; "she was not hit that time. She is running at her best."

Once his heart stood still, for she seemed to quiver through her body, as if involuntarily shrinking from the prick of a sword.

In his alarm, Sterry rose to an upright posture in the saddle, and leaning to the right and left, and looking forward and behind him, searched for the wound. He hardly expected to see it, for it would have been beyond his sight in any one of a dozen different portions of the body.

But if in one of the limbs, it would quickly show in the gait of the animal.

"No," he murmured, "there is no change of pace; it could not have been much, and it may be she was not hit at all."

The rustlers fired two shots at this moment, when the horseman was more of a target than his animal, but he gave no heed to that; it was she for whom he felt concern.

A glance backward brought a thrill of hope. The distance between him and his pursuers had perceptibly increased. Queenie was showing her heels to those who dared dispute with her the supremacy of fleetness. She would soon leave them out of sight, unless it should prove she was disabled by some of the shots.

All would have gone well but for the appearance of a new danger of which he did not dream.

Suddenly Queenie emitted her faint, familiar whinny, and swerved to the left. She had scented a new peril.

In the gloom almost directly ahead loomed the figures of other horsemen bearing down upon the fugitive. They might be friends, and they might be enemies, but it would not do to take chances. Without an instant's hesitation Sterry wheeled to the left and spoke to his horse:

"Now, Queenie, do your best."

The mare responded with the same gameness she always showed; but the situation had suddenly become so grave that Monteith Sterry assuredly would have been overwhelmed and cut off but for one of the most extraordinary occurrences that ever came to any person in the extremity of danger.

CHAPTER XI. — A STRANGE DIVERSION.

It was the wonderful sagacity of the little mare which intervened at this crisis in the fate of her rider.

She was no more than fairly stretched away on a dead run from the new peril when she shot into an arroya or depression in the prairie. Such a depression suggests the dry bed of a stream through which the water may not have flowed for years. It is sometimes a few feet only in width, and again it may be a number of rods. The rich, alluvial soil often causes a luxuriant growth of grass, cottonwood or bush, which affords the best of grazing and refuge for any one when hard pressed by the enemy.

The arroya into which Queenie plunged had gently sloping sides, and was perhaps fifty feet wide. The bottom was covered not only with grass, but with the thin undergrowth to which allusion has been made, and which was so frail in character that it offered no impediment to the passage of a running horse.

Sterry's expectation was that his mare would shoot across the depression and up the other bank with the least possible delay; but of her own accord, and without suggestion from him, she turned abruptly to the left and dropped to a walk.

He was astounded, and was on the point of speaking impatiently to her as he jerked the bridle-rein, when the occurrence already referred to took place, and made the action of the animal seem like an inspiration or instinct approaching the height of reason.

At the moment she made the sharp turn to the left, another horseman galloped up the opposite slope and off upon the prairie. By an amazing coincidence it happened that he was in the arroya, and in the act of crossing in the same direction with the fugitive, when the furious plunge of the mare sent his own bounding up the farther bank.

Sterry caught the situation like a flash. Before Queenie had gone more than a half-dozen rods he brought her to a standstill. They resembled an equestrian statue, so motionless were they for a full minute.

The converging parties of pursuers could plainly see the second horseman speeding away from the other side, and inevitably concluded that he was the inspector whom they wanted. They were after him hot-footed on the instant.

This man was Ira Inman, a well-known rustler, and the intimate friend of Larch Cadmus. When he saw himself pursued by a half-dozen of his friends he reined up, and calmly but wonderingly awaited their arrival, which took place within the next few seconds.

"Up with your hands! Quick about it, too! You're the man we want!"

"Wal," replied the leader, surveying them with a grin, and paying no heed to their fierce commands, "now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?"

If there ever were a set of dumbfounded men, they were the rustlers who closed about the leader and recognized him in the moonlight. The remarks that followed his identification were as ludicrous as they were vigourous.

The majority believed he had played a trick on them in pretending to be Mont Sterry, whom all were so anxious to bring down; but there were one or two who were not satisfied. They knew the voice of the inspector, which in no way resembled the gruff tones of Inman. Then, their leader was not given to practical jokes.

"What set you to hunting me so hard?" he asked, after the first flurry was over.

"We're looking for Mont Sterry."

"Wal, what made you take me for him? Do I look like him in the moonlight?"

"But you said you were, and fired at us," explained one.

"Fired at you? Said I was that chap? What in the mischief are you driving at?"

One, who suspected the truth, now interposed.

"We did meet Sterry and hailed him; you must have heard our guns; he dashed into the arroya; we saw you gallop out on t'other side, and took you for him."

"Ah, I understand it all now," replied Inman; "I had ridden down there on my way back from a little scout, when a horseman dashed into the slope behind me like a thunderbolt. My horse was so scared that he went up the other side on the jump, and before I could turn around to find out what it all meant, you lunkheads came down on me with the request to oblige you by throwing up my hands, which I will see you hanged before I'll do."

"But where is he? What has become of him?" asked several, looking around, as thought they expected to see the young man ride forward and surrender himself.

"Wal, calling to mind the kind of horse he rides, I should say he is about a half-mile off by this time, laughing to find out how cleverly he has fooled you chaps."

"It looks as if you was in the same boat, Inman," retorted one of the chagrined party.

"I wasn't chasing Sterry."

"He seemed to be chasing you, for you came out of the arroya ahead of him."

"If he was chasing me," replied the leader, who felt that the laugh was on his companions, "he would have followed me out; but I don't see anything of him;" and he, too, stared around, as though not sure the man would not do the improbable thing named.

"It was a blamed cute trick, any way you look at it," remarked one of the party. "It was queer that you should have been there, Inman, just at the minute needed. But for that, we would have had him, sure."

"Wal, you can make up your mind that we have him as good as catched already. He can't get out of the country without some of the boys running against him, and the first rustler that catches sight of Mr. Sterry will drop him in his tracks."

"If he gets the chance to do it," was the wise comment of another. "That fellow is quick on the shoot and isn't afraid of any of us."

"He ain't the first one that's made that mistake, only to find himself rounded up at last. Larch Cadmus' idea of 24 hours' notice don't go down with this crowd, eh?"

And the crowd unanimously responded in the negative.

CHAPTER XII. — THE BACK TRAIL.

Mont Sterry had wisdom enough to turn to the fullest account the remarkable advantage gained through the sagacity of his mare.

His pursuers, in their haste to head him off, had dashed across the arroya at a point only a short distance above where he entered and their leader emerged from it. They were sure to discover the truth in a short time.

Waiting, therefore, only until they had passed beyond, he rode his horse a few rods along the depression, and then left it on the same side by which he had ridden into it.

Unconsciously he fell into an error of which he was not dreaming. In the short distance passed, the arroya made a sweeping curve, and he had repeatedly changed his own course since leaving the Whitney ranch. Thus it was almost inevitable that he should get the points of the compass mixed, and that he should follow a route widely different from the one intended.

Had he paused long enough to note the position of the full moon in the heavens, or the towering Big Horn Mountains, he would have gained an approximate idea of where he was; but, despite his experience in the West, he galloped forward at an easy canter, with never a suspicion of the blunder he was making.

He was on the alert for rustlers, and kept glancing to the right and left, and to the front and rear. As has been shown, he had little fear of being overtaken in a chase where he was given an equal chance with his pursuers, but his narrow escape rendered him more apprehensive than usual.

"I thought of staying with Weber and Hankinson to-night," he mused, "but I think it hardly prudent. The rustlers may pay them a visit, and my presence will only make matters worse; and yet those fellows don't want to start up a band of regulators who will shoot them down without mercy, and that's just what will take place if they carry their outrages too far."

"My death won't bring the regulators into existence," he grimly reflected, "for one man, more or less, doesn't count; but there is much bitter feeling in the country."

Once he thought he caught the sounds of horses' feet on the prairie, and checked his mare to listen, but she gave no evidence of suspicion—a thing she was sure to do, if the cause existed.

Sterry was so well satisfied by this fact that he did not dismount to test the matter as before. He rode on, however, and held her down to a walk.

His eventless course had continued some minutes before a thought came to him of the direction he was following, with the possibility that he was wrong.

"I wonder if we are on the right track, Queenie?" he said, addressing his animal, as was his custom when they were alone. "It would be strange if we didn't drift away from our bearings. Hello! that can't be Dick Hawkridge's ranch; we haven't gone far enough for that; but what the mischief can it be, unless a fire that some one has started in the open?"

The starlike twinkle of a point of light suddenly shone out directly in advance. It puzzled him by appearing only for a moment, when it vanished as quickly as it entered his field of vision.

This fact suggested that it was within some dwelling and had been extinguished, or was shut from sight by being moved past a window or open door to another point in the interior.

"We are so near, Queenie, we may as well go farther," he added, not unmindful of his danger from those who were making such a hot search for him. He kept his horse on a walk, maintaining a keen watch between the dainty ears that were already pricked up as if she knew something was likely to happen quite soon.

Advancing in this deliberate fashion, the outline of one of those long, low wooden structures so common in the West was gradually defied in the moonlight, and he knew he was approaching the home of some ranchman.

But whose? was the question that perplexed him. He recalled that some of his travelling had been done at a high rate of speed, but the distance between the Whitney and Hawkridge ranches was fully a dozen miles, and he was sure that that space had not been covered by him since bidding his friends good-by earlier in the evening, especially as he had not followed a direct course.

"Can it be?" he exclaimed, with a sudden suspicion. "Yes, by gracious! What a blunder!"

The exclamation was caused by the sight of a young man, with one arm in a sling, who came forward to welcome him.

He had returned to the Whitney home, which he supposed was miles away, and this was his old friend Fred, who came smilingly forward and said, as he recognized him:

"I am glad, indeed, to see you, Mont; we heard the sound of the firing and feared that something had happened to you."

"Nothing at all, thank you, and nothing to Queenie—but that reminds me," he added, slipping out of the saddle; "she acted once as though she had been hit, though it wasn't bad enough to show itself in her gait."

The two made a hasty examination but discovered nothing; proof that, as her owner said, the wound, if any, was too slight to trouble her.

"Fred, what do you think of my coming back to you in this fashion?" abruptly asked Sterry, with a laugh, looking around in his friend's face.

"The most sensible thing you could have done; it redeems your foolishness in leaving us as you did."

"But my return was involuntary."

"How was that?"

"I thought I was miles distant, and had no idea of my location until I caught the outlines of your house; I assure you I contemplated no such performance as this."

"Well, you're here, so what's the use of talking unless you mean to mount your mare and try it again."

"Hardly that; I have too much mercy on her."

The couple walked past the dwelling to the rude but roomy shelter at the rear where the horses were sometimes placed when not in use, or when the severity of the weather made the protection necessary. There the saddle, bridle and trappings were removed from the mare, and she was made comfortable. Then the two returned to their seats at the front of the building, to smoke and chat a few minutes before retiring for the night.