ur bridle unbuckled. Serves you
right!"

Robert E. Lee reluctantly abandoned the sotol stalk he had been breaking
to a length suitable for admonitory purposes.

"All right! But I'll fix him yet--see if I don't! He's got to pack me
back up that hill after my hat. Gimme a knife, so's I can cut a saddle
string and mend this bridle." These remarks are expurgated.

He mended the bridle; he loosened the cinches and set the saddle back.
Stan, dismounting, made a discovery.

"I've lost a spur. Thought something felt funny. Noticed yesterday that
the strap was loose." He straightened up from a contemplation of his boot
heel; with a sudden thought, he searched the inner pocket of his coat.
"And that isn't all. By George, I've lost my pocketbook, and a lot of
money in it! But it can't be far; I've lost it somewhere on my boy chase.
Come on, Dewing; help me hunt for it."

They left the boy at his mending and took the back track. Before they had
gone a dozen yards Dewing saw the lost spur, far down the hill, lodged
under a prickly pear. Stanley, searching intently for his pocketbook, did
not see the spur. And Dewing said nothing; he lowered his eyelids to veil
a sudden evil thought, and when he raised them again his eyes, which for
a little had been clear of all save boyish mischief, were once more tense
and hard.

Robert E. Lee Carr clattered gayly by them and pushed up the hill to
recover his hat. The two men rode on slowly; a brown pocketbook upon a
brown hillside is not easy to find. But they found it at last, just where
Stanley had launched his pursuit of the hatless horseman. It had been
jostled from his pocket in the first wild rush. Stanley retrieved it with
a sigh of relief.

"Are you sure you had your spur here?" asked Dewing. "Maybe you lost it
before and didn't notice it."

"Oh, never mind the spur," said Stan. "I'm satisfied to get my money.
Let's wait for Little Boy Blue and we'll all go in together."

"Want to try a little game to-night?" suggested Dewing. "I could use that
money of yours. It seems a likely bunch--if it's all money. Pretty plump
wallet, I call it."

"No more for me," laughed Stanley. "You behold in me a reformed
character."

"Stick to that, boy," said Dewing. "Gambling is bad business."

It grew on to dusk when Robert E. Lee Carr rejoined them; it was pitch
dark when they came to the Carr camp-fire at Hospital Springs, close
beside the trail; when they reached Cobre, supper-time was ove