ear-olds. And his red head was full of Jocelyn Truxton and
"Macbeth." He rode with his hat low over his eyes, one hand holding
his horse's reins, the other grasping firmly a little book. So it
happened that Lonesome Pete rode through the gate and close to the two
men and did not see them.

But the horse did see them, did see a man lying stretched upon the
ground, and with the sharp nostrils of its kind the horse scented
fresh blood. The result was that the frightened brute reared,
snorting, and wheeled suddenly, plunging back through the corral gate.
And Lonesome Pete, taken unawares as he sat loosely in the saddle, was
jerked rudely out of his dreamings of the fair Jocelyn and the bloody
Macbeth to find his horse shooting out from under him, and to find
himself sitting upon the hard ground with his legs in Brayley's lap.

Brayley's strength of lungs came back to him with a new anger. "You
howlin' idiot, what are you tryin' to do?"

"I was a-readin'," responded Lonesome Pete, still grinning vapidly,
still not quite certain whether the things which he saw about him were
real things or literary hallucinations.

"A-readin'!" snapped Brayley, sitting up. "That what I'm payin' you
for, you blame gallinipper!"

With a glance from Brayley's lacerated face to the bloody smears on
Conniston's, Lonesome Pete got to his feet and, shaking his head and
dusting the seat of his overalls as he went, turned and disappeared
into the stable after his horse. Brayley glared after him a second,
grunted, and got to his feet.

"Well," he snarled, facing Conniston. "You licked me. Now what? Want
to beat me up some more?"

"No, I don't," Conniston answered him, steadily. "You know I had to do
it, Brayley. You had it coming to you after that first night in the
bunk-house. Now--I want to shake hands, if you do."

With a keen, measuring glance from under swelling eyelids, and no
faintest hesitation, Brayley put out his hand.

"Shake!" he grunted. "You done it fair. I didn't think you had it in
you. And"--with a distorted grin--"I'll 'scuse the left hand, Con!"

CHAPTER XI

Brayley and Conniston went together into the corral and picked up the
three revolvers. Then Conniston turned toward the stable to get his
horse. Brayley's eyes followed him, narrowing speculatively.

"Hey, Conniston," he called, sharply, "where you goin'?"

"To work. It's late now."

"Yes, it's late, all right. But you better go up to the bunk-house
firs