tive, giving a strange appearance to the landmarks with
which Lawler and the horse were familiar.

Lawler increased Red King's pace. He saw that the storm was nearer than
he had thought, and he would have to work fast to get the cattle headed
into the valley before it broke.

The distance from the Circle L ranchhouse to the big plain near the line
cabin was about fifteen miles, and the trail led upward in a long,
tiresome rise. Yet Red King struck the level with a reserve strength
that was betrayed by the way he fought for his head as he saw the level
stretch before him. He was warmed up--he wanted to run.

But Lawler drew him down in an effort to locate the herd before he
started toward it.

Man and horse made a mere blot on the yawning expanse of land that
stretched away from them in all directions. A lone eagle in the sky or a
mariner adrift on a deserted sea could not have seemed more isolated
than Lawler and Red King. In this limitless expanse of waste land horse
and rider were dwarfed to the proportion of atoms. The yawning, aching,
stretching miles of level seemed to have no end.

Several miles into the north Lawler saw the herd. Directly westward, at
a distance of about a mile, he saw the line cabin. No smoke was issuing
from the chimney; and so far as he could discern, there were no men with
the cattle.

Harris and Davies had overstayed. That knowledge might have been
responsible for the grim humor in Lawler's eyes; but the rigidness of
his body and the aggressive thrust to his chin were caused by knowledge
of a different character. The storm was about to break.

The sun was casting a dull red glow through the gray haze. It was
blotted out as he looked. Southward from the horizon ends extended a
broad sea of shimmering, glittering sky that contrasted brilliantly to
the black, wind-whipped clouds that had gathered in the north. Fleecy
gray wisps, detached from the heavy, spreading mass northward, were
scurrying southward, streaking the shimmering brilliance and telling of
the force of the wind that drove them.

A wailing note came from the north, a sighing vague with a portent of
force; a whisper of unrest, a promise of fury. Far in the north, its
blackness deepening with distance, stretched the menace, arousing awe
with its magnitude.

Nature seemed to know what impended, for on the vast level where the
storm would have a clear sweep the dried grass, bronzed by the searing
autumn sun, was rustling as