agon number two had disappeared and along with it the four
mule-skinners, his mind jumped to an instant conclusion. That it
happened to be the wrong one was natural enough to his sulky,
suspicious mind.

"Goddlemighty, they've double-crossed us," he swore to his partner,
with an explosion of accompanying profanity. "Figure on cleanin' up on
the goods an' cuttin' back to the States. Tha's what they aim to do.
Before I can head 'em off. Me, I'll show 'em they can't play monkey
tricks on Bully West."

This explanation did not satisfy Whaley. The straight black line of
the brows above the cold eyes met in frowning thought.

"I've got a hunch you're barkin' up the wrong tree," he lisped with a
shrug of shoulders.

Voice and gesture were surprising in that they were expressions of
this personality totally unexpected. Both were almost womanlike in
their delicacy. They suggested the purr and soft padding of a cat, an
odd contradiction to the white, bloodless face with the inky brows.
The eyes of "Poker" Whaley could throw fear into the most reckless
bull-whacker on the border. They held fascinating and sinister
possibilities of evil.

"Soon see. We'll hit the trail right away after them," Bully replied.

Whaley's thin lip curled. He looked at West as though he read to
the bottom of that shallow mind and meant to make the most of his
knowledge.

"Yes," he murmured, as though to himself. "Some one ought to stay with
the rest of the outfit, but I reckon I'd better go along. Likely you
couldn't handle all of 'em if they showed fight."

West's answer was a roar of outraged vanity. "Me! Not round up them
tame sheep. I'll drive 'em back with their tongues hangin' out.
Understand?"

At break of day he was in the saddle. An experienced trailer, West
found no difficulty in following the wagon tracks. No attempt had been
made to cover the flight. The whiskey-runner could trace at a road
gait the narrow tracks along the winding road.

The country through which he traveled was the border-land between the
plains and the great forests that rolled in unbroken stretch to the
frozen North. Sometimes he rode over undulating prairie. Again he
moved through strips of woodland or skirted beautiful lakes from the
reedy edges of which ducks or geese rose whirring at his approach. A
pair of coyotes took one long look at him and skulked into a ravine.
Once a great moose started from a thicket of willows and galloped over
a hill.

West he