p to
drift any strays back south."

"Those you were driving are Three Bar stuff--every hoof," she said.
"All two-year-old she-stock."

Bentley turned and regarded the little herd they had just passed.

"Them? Sho--we wasn't driving them," Bentley denied easily. "They
just drifted ahead of us as we rode down the bottoms. A cow critter
will always move on ahead of a man. We rode on past 'em as soon as we
decided to amble along."

She knew that they were on safe ground. Any cow would drift on before
a horseman.

"The only way to convict a man on a case like this is to shoot him out
of the saddle before he has a chance to pass the cows," she said.
"That's what will happen to the next Slade rider that gets noticed with
any Three Bar cows moving out in front of him and headed south. You
can carry that word to Slade."

She whirled Papoose and headed back for the ranch, the intended visit
to the Brandons postponed. Harris was piling brush in the lower field
when she arrived and she informed him of the act of the two men.

"I wouldn't put it past Carp," he said. "But I hadn't sized Bentley up
just that way. It's hard to tell. If Carp shows up here again we'll
make him a visit in the middle of the night--and he won't trouble us
much after that."

"We'd better pay Slade a night visit too," she said. Her feelings
toward Slade had undergone a complete revulsion. She knew beyond a
doubt that he had been responsible for the raid on Three Bar bulls.
The wild bunch would have had no object in such a foray. Figuring it
from any angle Slade was the only one man who could possibly derive any
benefit from that. She had come to see that Slade was fighting with
his back to the wall,--that he had run his course and come to the end
of it if squatters secured a start in his range, and he considered the
act of the Three Bar the opening wedge which would throw open the way
for the nesters to crowd him out.

The evening of the following day the beef herd trailed into the lower
end of the Three Bar valley and bedded for the night. In the morning
the trail herd was headed for the railroad under a full crew, for
Harris had kept all hands on the job.

There was none of the fast and varied work of the round-up; the
trail-herding of beef to market seeming a slow and monotonous procedure
in comparison. The cows were drifted slowly south, well spread out and
grazing as they moved. Harris detailed two men to ride the "points,"