d by Bud.

"Some one's coming!" yelled Bud, and he stood up on the edge of Spur
Creek looking at the approaching horseman until Yellin' Kid shouted:

"Better duck back here, boy. No telling when he may unlimber a gun!"

It was good advice and Bud took it, to the extent of getting back
nearer the cabin fort. On came the rider, seemingly fearless, until he
pulled rein on the other side of the stream and sat there on the back
of his panting horse, a most picturesque figure.

"Mex from hat to stirrups," murmured Snake Purdee.

"An' wicked from outside to inside," added Yellin' Kid in a lower voice
than usual.

The Mexican rider, for such he seemed to be, raised one hand, smiled to
show two rows of very white teeth in the expanse of a very dark face,
took off his broad-brimmed and high crowned hat and said:

"_Parlez, senors?_"

It was in the form of a question, and as such Old Billee answered it.

"Talk?" grunted the veteran cow puncher. "What about?"

"The land," replied the stranger, with another smile evidently intended
to be engaging, but which seemed rather mocking. "I come to ask why
you are here in such force, evidently to stop any who might wish to
cross to feed their stock on open range?"

"Well, it'll save trouble in a way, if you recognize the fact that we
are here to stop you," said Billee. "An' we're goin' to! _Sabe_?"

"But for why?" asked the other, speaking English much better than his
appearance seemed to indicate he might be able to. "It is land open to
all who come, and I have come----"

"Then you may as well go back where you came from!" interrupted Yellin'
Kid, "'cause there's going to be no onery sheep pastured here, an' you
can roll that in your cigaret an' smoke it!" he added, as the stranger
calmly made himself a "smoke" from a wisp of paper and some tobacco he
shook into it from a small cloth bag.

There was no answer to this implied challenge on the part of Yellin'
Kid, hardly even the flicker of an eyelash to show that the stranger
heard and understood.

Yet he must have heard. Yellin' Kid was not one to leave a matter of
that sort in doubt. His tones were always above the average.

And that he has made himself plain was evident to all--even to the
stranger it would appear. For there was that in his air--something
about him--which seemed to say that he had absorbed what the cowboy had
intimated.

Whether he would profit by the remarks--well, that was another
matter-