anted them," he mused, while he rode down
the bluff to his cabin. "But when they visit that bunch of stock
again, I reckon things will begin to tighten!"

He was wary of exposing himself too much to view from the bluff while
he did his chores that night, and he kept Rattler in the stable. Also,
he slept very little, and before daybreak he was up and away. He had a
rolled army blanket tied behind the saddle, a sack of grub and a
frying-pan and a bucket for coffee. But he did not go any farther than
the wolf-den, and he spent a couple of hours removing as well as he
could any suspicious traces of having dug anything more than wolf pups
from the bank on the ledge.

CHAPTER XVI

"I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT AND HANG YOU"

The trouble with a man like Buck Olney is that you can never be sure of
his method, except that it will be underhand and calculated to
eliminate as much as possible any risk to himself. Ward, casting back
into his memory--he had known Buck Olney very well, once upon a time,
and in his unsuspecting youth had counted him a friend--tried to guess
how Buck would proceed when he went down to that corral and found how
those brands had been retouched.

"He'll be running around in circles for awhile, all right," he deduced
with an air of certainty. "Blotched brands he'd know was my work; and
he could have put it on me, too, with a good yarn about trailing me so
close I got cold feet. As it is--" Ward smoked two cigarettes and
scowled at the scenery. As it was, he did not know just what Buck
Olney would do, except-- "If he makes a guess I did that, he'll know
I'm wise to the whole plant. And he'll get me, sure, providing I stand
with my back to him long enough!" Ward had his back to a high ledge,
at that moment, so that he did not experience any impulse to look
behind him.

"Buck don't want to drag me up before a jury," he reasoned further.
"He'd a heap rather pack me in all wrapped up in a tarp, and say how
he'd caught me with the goods, and I resisted arrest."

The assurance he felt as to what Buck Olney would do did not
particularly frighten Ward, even if he did neglect to go to bed in his
cabin during the next few days. That was common sense, born of his
knowledge of the man he was dealing with. He went to the cabin warily,
just often enough to give it an air of occupancy. He frequently sat
upon some hilltop and watched a lazy thread of smoke weave upward from
his rusty stovepipe, bu