y?" His gesture was one of helpless disgust. "They're out. Bin
out since daylight. An' I guess they've as much chance roundin' that
crowd up as they would huntin' bugs in a hundred acre pasture.
Sikkem's about the brightest. But he ain't no sort o' good after a
bunch of rustlers. I wouldn't trust him with a dead mule o' mine
anyway. The boss hangs to him as if he was the on'y blamed cowpuncher
east o' the mountains because he's handy. I don't like him, Miss,
an'---- Say, how did them rustlers know 'bout them calves? Ther's two
hundred head o' beeves out there, an' they passed 'em right over fer
the Shorthorns."

The man's argument and distrust of the man Sikkem made a deep
impression on Nan. She had listened to some of the latter before. But
Jeff's predilection for the dark-faced half Greaser had left her
sceptical of Lal's opinion. Now, however, she was seriously impressed.

At that moment Bud himself rode up at a gallop, and behind him rode
four of the home station boys. The pace at which he came was unusual,
and Nan's troubled eyes promptly sought his face.

Instantly her greeting died upon her lips, which tightened ominously.
His usually steady gray eyes were hot and fierce, and his face was set.
The comfortable lines about his mouth were drawn hard and deep. She
needed no word to tell her that further trouble was abroad.

He scarcely waited for his horse to come to a halt. He was out of the
saddle in a moment, and his great figure towered before the foreman,
whom he took in with an angry stare.

"What's brought you in?" he demanded, with a dangerous calm. Then the
calm broke before his storm of feeling. "Don't tell me ther's trouble
around your layout, too," he cried, without waiting for reply. Then he
turned on Nan, who was still on the veranda. "Say, Nan, they done it.
The rotten swines have done it. They shot 'Jock' up!"

"The Highland bull?" Nan gasped.

"Yes. That's it." Bud laughed furiously. "That bull I imported last
fall for three thousand dollars," he went on, turning back to the
foreman. "They shot him up and drove off his twenty-five cows from the
Coyote Bluff pastures. Dirty spite an' meanness. The white-livered
scum!" Then with a fierce oath the usually even-tempered Bud hurled
his wrath upon the waiting man. "Gorl darn it, you're standin' around
like a barbed wire fence post. What in hell's brought you around now?
What they done your way?"

His manner roused the