of effort made on
his behalf. The only explanation that offered itself was--that Sims,
taking advantage of the events happening at the Bar T, had seized the
opportunity to hurry the gathering sheep north across the range. If such
was the case, Larkin resigned himself to his fate, since he had given Sims
full power to do as he thought best.

At about midnight he was dimly conscious of a scuffling sound outside his
window, and, getting softly out of bed, went to the opening. In a few
minutes the head of a man rose gradually above the window-sill close to
the house, and a moment later he was looking into the face of Hard-winter
Sims.

Controlling the shock this apparition gave him, Larkin placed his finger
on his lips and whispered in a tone so low it was scarcely more than a
breath:

"Did you get the fellow outside?"

Sims nodded.

"There's another one in the dining-room just outside my door. He ought to
be relieved at one o'clock, but he'll have to go out and wake up his
relief. He'll go out the kitchen door, and when he does nab him, but don't
let him yell. Now pass me a gun."

Without a sound, Sims inserted a long .45 between the clumsy bars, and
followed it with a cartridge belt.

"How'll we get yuh out?" he whispered.

"After fixing the man inside come out again and loosen these bars; the
door is barred, too."

"Where are the cowmen?" asked Sims.

"All in the bunk-house, and the punchers are sleeping out near the
corral."

"Yes, I seen 'em. Now you go back to bed an' wait till I hiss through the
window. Then we'll have yuh out o' here in a jiffy."

The herder's form vanished in the darkness, and Larkin, his heart beating
high with hope and excitement, returned to his bed. Before lying down,
however, he dressed himself completely and strapped on the cartridge belt
and gun.

The minutes passed like hours. Listening with every nerve fiber on the
alert, Bud found the night peopled with a multitude of sounds that on an
ordinary occasion would have passed unnoticed. So acute did his sense of
hearing become that the crack of a board in the house contracting under
the night coolness seemed to him almost like a pistol shot.

When at last it appeared that Sims must have failed and that dawn would
surely begin to break, he heard a heavy sound in the dining-room and sat
bolt upright. It was merely the cow-puncher there preparing to go out and
waken his successor. Although the man made as little noise as possi