al tone the cattleman continued, but now there
was a touch of frost in his eyes.

"It was thisaway, Dug. When he and Bob knocked Steelman's plans hell west
and crooked after that yellow skunk George Doble betrayed me to Brad, the
boy lost his boots in the brush. 'Course I said to get another pair at
the store and charge 'em to me. I reckon he was havin' some fun joshin'
you."

The foreman was furious. He sputtered with the rage that boiled inside
him. But some instinct warned him that unless he wanted to break with
Crawford completely he must restrain his impulse to rip loose.

"All right," he mumbled. "If you told him to get 'em, 'nough said."

CHAPTER X

THE CATTLE TRAIN

Dave stood on the fence of one of the shipping pens at the Albuquerque
stockyards and used a prod-pole to guide the bawling cattle below. The
Fifty-Four Quarter Circle was loading a train of beef steers and cows for
Denver. Just how he was going to manage it Dave did not know, but he
intended to be aboard that freight when it pulled out for the mile-high
town in Colorado.

He had reached Albuquerque by a strange and devious route of zigzags and
back-trackings. His weary bronco he had long since sold for ten dollars
at a cow town where he had sacked his saddle to be held at a livery
stable until sent for. By blind baggage he had ridden a night and part of
a day. For a hundred miles he had actually paid his fare. The next leg of
the journey had been more exciting. He had elected to travel by freight.
For many hours he and a husky brakeman had held different opinions about
this. Dave had been chased from the rods into an empty and out of the box
car to the roof. He had been ditched half a dozen times during the night,
but each time he had managed to hook on before the train had gathered
headway. The brakeman enlisted the rest of the crew in the hunt, with the
result that the range-rider found himself stranded on the desert ten
miles from a station. He walked the ties in his high-heeled boots, and
before he reached the yards his feet were sending messages of pain at
every step. Reluctantly he bought a ticket to Albuquerque. Here he had
picked up a temporary job ten minutes after his arrival.

A raw-boned inspector kept tally at the chute while the cattle passed up
into the car.

"Fifteen, sixteen--prod 'em up, you Arizona--seventeen, eighteen--jab
that whiteface along--nineteen--hustle 'em in."

The air was heavy with the dust raised