eel and gallop back with a warning if any rode
that way.

When the horses were corralled and the gate closed, one man climbed upon
the fence and gave orders. This horse was to be turned outside--and the
gate-tender swung open the barrier to let it through. That horse could
go, and that and that.

"A dozen or so is about as many as we better take," he said to one who
worked near him. "No--turn that one back. I know--he's a good one, but
his mane and tail, and them white stockings behind, they're too easy
reco'nized. That long-legged bay, over there--he's got wind; look at the
chest on 'im! Forequarters like a lion. Haze him out, boys." He turned
himself on the fence and squinted over the bewildered little group of
freed horses. He swung back and squinted over the bunch in the corral,
weighing a delicate problem in his mind, to judge by the look of him.

"All right, boys. We kain't afford to be hawgs, this trip. Straddle your
hosses and take 'em over to that far corner where we laid the fence down.
Remember what I said about keepin' to the rocky draws. I'll wait here and
turn these loose, and foller along and set up the fence after yuh. And
keep agoin'--only don't swing over toward Baptista's place, mind. Keep to
the left all you can. And keep a lookout ahead. Yuh don't want that kid
to get a squint at yuh."

One answered him in Mexican while they slipped out and mounted. They rode
away, driving the horses they had chosen. Unobtrusive horses as to color;
bays and browns, mostly, of the commonplace type that would not easily be
missed from the herd. The man on the fence smoked a cigarette and studied
the horses milling restlessly below him in the corral.

From the adobe cabin squatting in the moonlight came the shrill,
insistent jingling of a bell. The man looked that way thoughtfully,
climbed down and went to the cabin, keeping carefully in the beaten
trail.

The door was not locked. A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the
door jamb. With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused
long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and
stepped inside. He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his
cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down so that
his eyebrows were pinched together. He hesitated perceptibly before he
took down the receiver. Then he grinned.

"Hello!" His voice was hoarse, slightly muffled. He grinned again when he
caught the mildly querulous t