tants 're a
set of Mexican bums and old soaks. The cowmen's all from north and
don't know nothing more than we do. I found lots who claimed to know
that country, but when I told 'em what I wanted they shied like a colt.
I couldn't hire 'em, for no money, to go down in that country. They
ain't got the nerve. I took two days to her, too, and rode out to a
ranch where they said a man lived who knew all about it down there.
Nary riffle. Man looked all right, but his tail went down like the
rest when I told him what we wanted. Seemed plumb scairt to death.
Says he lives too close to the gang. Says they'd wipe him out sure if
he done it. Seemed plumb SCAIRT." Buck Johnson grinned. "I told him
so and he got hosstyle right off. Didn't seem no ways scairt of me. I
don't know what's the matter with that outfit down there. They're
plumb terrorised."

That night a bunch of steers was stolen from the very corrals of the
home ranch. The home ranch was far north, near Fort Sherman itself,
and so had always been considered immune from attack. Consequently
these steers were very fine ones.

For the first time Buck Johnson lost his head and his dignity. He
ordered the horses.

"I'm going to follow that -- -- into Sonora," he shouted to Jed Parker.
"This thing's got to stop!"

"You can't make her, Buck," objected the foreman. "You'll get held up
by the desert, and, if that don't finish you, they'll tangle you up in
all those little mountains down there, and ambush you, and massacre
you. You know it damn well."

"I don't give a --" exploded Senor Johnson, "if they do. No man can
slap my face and not get a run for it."

Jed Parker communed with himself.

"Senor," said he, at last, "it's no good; you can't do it. You got to
have a guide. You wait three days and I'll get you one."

"You can't do it," insisted the Senor. "I tried every man in the
district."

"Will you wait three days?" repeated the foreman.

Johnson pulled loose his latigo. His first anger had cooled.

"All right," he agreed, "and you can say for me that I'll pay five
thousand dollars in gold and give all the men and horses he needs to
the man who has the nerve to get back that bunch of cattle, and bring
in the man who rustled them. I'll sure make this a test case."

So Jed Parker set out to discover his man with nerve.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MAN WITH NERVE

At about ten o'clock of the Fourth of July a rider topped the summit of
the