ered here and there over the
desert, and the land fell under an enchantment even stranger than the
day's.

So the days went by, wonderful, fashioning the ways and the characters
of men. Seven passed. Buck Johnson and his foreman began to look for
the stranger. Eight, they began to speculate. Nine, they doubted. On
the tenth they gave him up--and he came.

They knew him first by the soft lowing of cattle. Jed Parker, dazzled
by the lamp, peered out from the door, and made him out dimly turning
the animals into the corral. A moment later his pony's hoofs impacted
softly on the baked earth, he dropped from the saddle and entered the
room.

"I'm late," said he briefly, glancing at the clock, which indicated
ten; "but I'm here."

His manner was quick and sharp, almost breathless, as though he had
been running.

"Your cattle are in the corral: all of them. Have you the money?"

"I have the money here," replied Buck Johnson, laying his hand against
a drawer, "and it's ready for you when you've earned it. I don't care
so much for the cattle. What I wanted is the man who stole them. Did
you bring him?"

"Yes, I brought him," said the stranger. "Let's see that money."

Buck Johnson threw open the drawer, and drew from it the heavy canvas
sack.

"It's here. Now bring in your prisoner."

The two-gun man seemed suddenly to loom large in the doorway. The
muzzles of his revolvers covered the two before him. His speech came
short and sharp.

"I told you I'd bring back the cows and the one who rustled them," he
snapped. "I've never lied to a man yet. Your stock is in the corral.
I'll trouble you for that five thousand. I'm the man who stole your
cattle!"

PART III

THE RAWHIDE

CHAPTER ONE

THE PASSING OF THE COLT'S FORTY-FIVE

The man of whom I am now to tell you came to Arizona in the early days
of Chief Cochise. He settled in the Soda Springs Valley, and there
persisted in spite of the devastating forays of that Apache. After a
time he owned all the wells and springs in the valley, and so,
naturally, controlled the grazing on that extensive free range. Once a
day the cattle, in twos and threes, in bands, in strings, could be seen
winding leisurely down the deep-trodden and converging trails to the
water troughs at the home ranch, there leisurely to drink, and then
leisurely to drift away into the saffron and violet and amethyst
distances of the desert. At ten other outlying ranc