hate to have to do this, old hoss," the man crooned; "but we've got
to change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together,
an' I reckon we want to stick."

He thrust the running iron deeper into the glowing coals.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WITNESS

The morning was hardly two hours old, and the crisp air was stinging
sweet with the tang of pine and fir, as Rathburn rode jauntily down
the trail on the eastern slope of the divide and drew rein on the
crest of a high ridge. As he looked below he whistled softly.

"Juniper, hoss, there's folks down there plying a nefarious trade, a
plumb dangerous trade," he mused, digging for the tobacco and brown
papers in the pocket of his shirt. "I reckon they're carrying on in
direct defiance of the law, hoss."

The dun-colored mustang tossed his head impatiently, but his master
ignored the animal's fretful desire to be off and dallied with tobacco
and paper, fashioning a cigarette, lighting it, breathing thin smoke
as his gray eyes squinted appraisingly at the scene below.

Winding down into the foothills, in striking contrast to the dim
trails higher up, was a well-used road. It evidently led from the
saffron-tinted dump and gray buildings of a mine which showed on the
side of a big, bald mountain to southward. At a point almost directly
below the ridge where the man and horse stood, it crossed a small
hogback and descended a steep slope between lines of jack pines,
disappearing in the timber farther down.

The gaze of the man on the ridge was concentrated on the bit of road
which showed on the hogback and the slope beyond. A truck was
laboriously climbing the ascent. But the watcher evidently was not so
much concerned with the approach of the truck as with certain
movements which were in progress on the hogback at the head of the
grade.

Three persons had dismounted from their horses behind the screen of
timber. One, a tall man, had donned a long, black slicker and was
tying a handkerchief about his face.

"Juniper, hoss," said Rathburn, "what does that gent want that slicker
on for? It ain't going to rain. An' how does he reckon to see onless
maybe he's got holes cut in that there hanky?"

A second man had made his way down the slope a short distance. He took
advantage of the timber which screened him from sight of the driver of
the oncoming truck.

"I 'spect that's in case the truck driver should suddenly take it into
his head to slide down backwards