brand on them. She meant to get a description of them when she saw
Charlie again--it was like his innocence to forget the most essential
details!--and she meant to keep her eyes open. If Charlie were right
about the calves not being anywhere in the Cove, then they had been
driven out of it, stolen. Billy Louise turned dejectedly away from the
fence and went down to a shady nook by the creek, where she had always
liked to do her worrying and hard thinking.

She stooped and tried to catch a baby trout in her cupped palms, just
as she used to try when she was a child. If those four calves were
stolen, then there was a "rustler" in the country. And if there were,
then no one's stock was safe. The deduction was terribly simple and as
exact as the smallest sum in addition. And Billy Louise could not
afford to pay toll to a rustler out of her forty-seven head of cattle.

The next day she rode early to the Cove and learned some things from
Marthy which she had not gleaned from Charlie. She learned that two of
the calves were a deep red, except for a wide, white strip on the nose
of one and white hind feet on the other; that another was spotted on
the hindquarters, and that the fourth was white, with large, red
blotches. She had known cattle all her life. She would know these, if
she saw them anywhere.

She also discovered for herself that they could not have broken out of
that pasture, and that the river bank was impassable, because of high,
thick bushes and miry mud in the open spaces. She had a fight with
Blue over these latter places and demonstrated beyond doubt that they
were miry, by getting him in to the knees in spite of his violent
objections. They left deep tracks behind them when they got out. The
calves had not gone investigating the bank, for there was not a trace
anywhere. And the bluff was absolutely unscalable. Billy Louise
herself would have felt doubtful of climbing out that way. The gray
rim-rock stood straight and high at the top, with never a crevice, so
far as she could see. And the gorge was barred, so that it was
impossible to go that way without lifting heavy poles out of deep
sockets and sliding them to one side.

"I've got an idea about a gate here," Charlie confided suddenly.
"There won't be any more mysteries like this. I'm going to fix a
swinging gate in place of these bars, Miss Louise. I shall have it
swing uphill, like this; and I'll have a weight arranged so that it
will