er a little further discussion,
I bedded down and immediately fell into a deep sleep. This was more and
longer continued excitement than I was used to.

I was afoot with the first stirrings of dawn, you may be sure, and out
to join the party that moved with infinite precaution on the water
troughs as soon as it was light enough to see clearly. We found them
riddled with bullets and the water all run out. Gleaming brass
cartridges scattered, catching the first rays of the sun, attested the
vigour of the defence. Four bodies lay huddled on the ground under the
partial shelter of the troughs. I saw Ramon, his face frowning and
sinister even in death, his right hand still grasping tenaciously the
stock of his Winchester; and Andreas flat on his face; and two others
whom I did not recognize. Ramon had been hit at least four times. But of
Hooper himself was no hide nor hair! So certain had we been that he had
escaped to this spot with his familiars that we were completely taken
aback at his absence.

"We got just about as much sense as a bunch of sheepmen!" cried Buck
Johnson, exasperated. "He's probably been hiding out somewhere about the
place. God knows where he is by now!"

But just as we were about to return to the ranch house we were arrested
by a shout from one of the cowboys who had been projecting around the
neighbourhood. He came running to us. In his hand he held a blade of
_sacatone_ on which he pointed out a single dark spot about the size of
the head of a pin. Buck seized it and examined it closely.

"Blood, all right," he said at last. "Where did you get this, son?"

The man, a Chiracahua hand named Curley something-or-other, indicated a
_sacatone_ bottom a hundred yards to the west.

"You got good eyes, son," Buck complimented him. "Think you can make out
the trail?"

"Do'no," said Curley. "Used to do a considerable of tracking."

"Horses!" commanded Buck.

We followed Curley afoot while several men went to saddle up. On the
edge of the two-foot jump-off we grouped ourselves waiting while Curley,
his brows knit tensely, quartered here and there like a setter dog. He
was a good trailer, you could see that in a minute. He went at it right.
After quite a spell he picked up a rock and came back to show it. I
should never have noticed anything--merely another tiny black spot among
other spots--but Buck nodded instantly he saw it.

"It's about ten rods west of whar I found the grass," said Curley.
"Looks