cattleman," Sanders said, looking
straight at him.

Shorty met him eye to eye. "So I've been told."

"Good range and water-holes. Stock fatten well."

"Yes."

"A man might do worse than go there if he's worn out this country."

"Stage-robbers and rustlers right welcome, are they?" asked Shorty
hardily.

"No questions asked about a man's past if his present is O.K."

"Listens good. If I meet anybody lookin' to make a change I'll tell him
you recommended Mexico." The eyes of the two men still clashed. In each
man's was a deep respect for the other's gameness. They had been tried by
fire and come through clean. Shorty voiced this defiantly. "I don't like
a hair of yore head. Never did. You're too damned interferin' to suit me.
But I'll say this. You'll do to ride the river with, Sanders."

"I'll interfere again this far, Shorty. You're too good a man to go bad."

"Oh, hell!" The outlaw turned away; then thought better of it and came
back. "I'll name no names, but I'll say this. Far as I'm concerned Tim
Harrigan might be alive to-day."

Dave, with a nod, accepted this as true. "I guessed as much. You've been
running with a mighty bad pardner."

"Have I?" asked the rustler blandly. "Did I say anything about a
pardner?"

His eye fell on the three still figures lying on the hillside in a row.
Not a twitching muscle in his face showed what he was thinking, that they
might have been full of splendid life and vigor if Dug Doble had not put
a match to the chaparral back of Bear Canon. The man had murdered them
just as surely as though he had shot them down with a rifle. For weeks
Shorty had been getting his affairs in order to leave the country, but
before he went he intended to have an accounting with one man.

Dillon came up to Sanders and spoke in an awed voice. "What do you aim to
do with ... these, Sanders?" His hand indicated the bodies lying near.

"Send horses up for them," Dave said. "You can take all the men back to
camp with you except three to help me watch the fire. Tell Mr. Crawford
how things are."

The men crept down the hill like veterans a hundred years old. Ragged,
smoke-blackened, and grimy, they moved like automatons. So great was
their exhaustion that one or two dropped out of line and lay down on
the charred ground to sleep. The desire for it was so overmastering that
they could not drive their weighted legs forward.

A man on horseback appeared and rode up to Dave and Shorty. The man was