em, showing that there
had been some movement after the halt.

Norton dismounted and examined the surrounding soil.

"They all got off here," he said shortly, after the examination;
"there's the prints of their boots. They caught him here and handed it
to him."

Hazelton silently pointed to a queer track in the sand--a shallow groove
running about fifty feet, looking as though some heavy object had been
drawn over it. Norton's face whitened.

"Drug him!" he said grimly, his lips in two straight lines. "It's likely
they roped him!" He remounted his pony and sat in the saddle, watching
Hazelton as the latter continued his examination. "They're a fine, nervy
bunch!" he sneered as Hazelton also climbed into his saddle. "They must
have piled onto him like a pack of wolves. If they'd have come one at a
time he'd have cleaned them up proper!"

They rode away down the trail toward the cabin. Norton went in and
looked again at Hollis, and then, telling Hazelton that he would return
in the afternoon, he departed for the Circle Bar. He stopped at the
ranchhouse and communicated the news to his wife and Potter and then
rode on up the river to a point about ten miles from the
ranchhouse--where the outfit was working.

The men received his news with expressions of rage and vengeance. They
had come to admire Hollis for his courage in electing to continue the
fight against Dunlavey; they had seen that in spite of his ignorance of
the customs of their world he possessed a goodly store of common sense
and an indomitable spirit. Yet none of them expressed sympathy, though
their faces showed that they felt it. Expressions of sympathy in a case
such as this would have been unnecessary and futile. But their
expressions of rage showed how the news had affected them. Though they
knew that Dunlavey's forces outnumbered their own they were for striking
back immediately. But Norton discouraged this.

"We're layin' low for a while," he said. "Mebbe the boss will get well.
If he does he'll make things mighty interestin' for Dunlavey--likely
he'll remember who was in the crowd which beat him up. If he dies----"
His eyes flashed savagely. "Well, if he dies you boys can go as far as
you like an' I'll go with you without doin' any kickin'."

"What's goin' to be done with that noospaper of his'n?" inquired Ace.
"You reckon she'll miss fire till he's well again?"

Norton's brows wrinkled; he had not thought of the newspaper. But he
realized no