"Sure you could have heard them? Some of you were talking pretty loud,
for I heard you in my room just before I went to sleep."

"Well, of course, I couldn't be certain about it; but I came out on the
veranda to take a look at the sky just before I turned in, and I didn't
see it then. Surely, as I turned to come back into the house my eye
would have caught that big piece of white paper beside the door."

"What time was it that the most important part of your conversation took
place?"

"Just before we broke up. I remember we were going over the mysterious
robberies, and I expressed the opinion that they were the work of the
gang under Skip Riley and Creviss."

"That was probably the time the fellow who put up that notice was about.
You see, if he followed you from Soldier Butte he wouldn't get here much
earlier than that, for he wouldn't dare ride a pony the length of the
valley at that time of the morning, so he had to walk from the south
fence."

"By Jove! I believe you are right."

"If my theory is true, the fellow who brought the warning also carried
back your conversation to the gang."

"Then they surely will have something to fight us on."

"Yes, fear that you will get on their trail will compel them to try to
make their bluff good, as expressed in that message."

"I'd give something to know when this thing was put up."

"Let's see; it was about four o'clock when you turned in, wasn't it?"

"Just about."

"And just about that time Song gets up to cook for the boys in the bunk
house who get out to relieve the night watch in the big pasture. Doesn't
he?"

"Those are the orders."

"Then have Song in, and we'll ask him if he saw a strange man around the
place when he got up. He might have seen him and thought nothing of it,
and would never think of reporting it."

"Good idea. Wait here and I will call him."

In a few minutes the Chinaman came shuffling in from the garden."

"See here, Song," said Ted. "Did you see a strange man here early this
morning?"

"Stlange man!" said Song meditatively, with a smile of innocence on his
broad, yellow face. "No savvy stlange man."

"Man no b'long here," said Stella,

"Oh, yes, I savvy. No see stlange man."

"What time you get up?"

"Me gettee up fo' clock."

"Did you go outside?"

"Yes, me go out an' call cowbloy. Tell gettee up, P. D. Q. No gettee up,
no bleakfast."

"What did you see outside that you don't see every morning?"

"Evely moling? N