drover looked at his new employee with a question in his shrewd eyes.
The boy was either a man out of a thousand or he was a first-class
bluffer. He claimed to have cut Indian sign and to know exactly what was
written there. At a single glance he had sized up Prince and knew him
for a reliable side partner. Without any bluster he had served notice on
Yankie that it would be dangerous to pick on him as the butt of his
ill-temper.

In those days, on the Pecos, law lay in a holster on a man's thigh. The
individual was a force only so far as his personality impressed itself
upon his fellows. If he made claims he must be prepared to back them to a
fighting finish.

Was this young Thursday a false alarm? Or was he a good man to let alone
when one was looking for trouble? Webb could not be sure yet, though he
made a shrewd guess. But he knew it would not he long before he found
out.

Chapter II

Shoot-a-Buck Canon

Webb sent for Billie Prince.

"Seems there's a bunch of bronco 'Paches camped ahead of us, Billie.
Thursday here trailed with Sieber. I want you an' him to scout in front
of us an' see we don't run into any ambush. You're under his orders, y'
understand."

Prince was a man of few words. He nodded.

"You know the horses that the boys claim. Well, take Thursday to the
remuda an' help him pick a mount from the extras in place of that
broomtail he's ridin'," continued the drover. "Look alive now. I don't
want my cattle stampeded because we haven't got sense enough to protect
'em. No 'Paches can touch a hoof of my stock if I can help it."

"If they attack at all it will probably be just before daybreak, but it
is just as well to be ready for 'em," suggested Thursday.

"I brought along some old Sharps an' some Spencers. I reckon I'll have
'em loaded an' distribute 'em among the boys. Billie, tell Yankie to have
that done. The rifles are racked up in the calf wagon."

Billie delivered the orders of the drover to the foreman as they passed
on their way to the remuda. Joe gave a snort of derision, but let it go
at that. When Homer Webb was with one of his trail outfits he was always
its boss.

While Thursday watched him, Prince roped out a cinnamon horse from the
remuda. The cowpuncher was a long-bodied man, smooth-muscled and lithe.
The boy had liked his level eye and his clean, brown jaw before, just as
now he approved the swift economy of his motions.

Probably Billie was about twenty years of age