into the corral and five minutes later
Harris and Waddles rode away. Waddles was mounted on Creamer, the big
buckskin.

"We'll have to step right along," Harris said. "It's forty miles."

They held the horses to a stiff swinging trot that devoured the miles
without seeming to tire their mounts. For four hours they headed south
and a little east, never slackening their pace except to breathe the
horses on some steep ascent. The buckskin and the paint-horse had lost
the first snap of their trot and it was evident that they would soon
begin to lag. Another hour and they had slowed down perceptibly.

The two men dismounted and tied the horses to the brush in a sheltered
coulee, then started across a broad flat on foot. Out in the center a
spot showed darker than the rest,--the old cabin where Carpenter had
elected to start up for himself after being discharged from the Three
Bar.

When within a hundred yards of the cabin a horse, tied to a hitch post
in front, neighed shrilly and Harris laid a restraining hand on
Waddles's arm. They knelt in the brush as the door opened and a man
stood silhouetted against the light. After a space of two minutes
Carp's voice reached them.

"Not a sound anywheres," he said. "Likely some horses drifting past."
He went inside and closed the door. The two men circled the cabin and
came up from the rear. A window stood opened some eight inches from
the bottom. Through the holes in the ragged flour sack that served as
a curtain Harris secured a view of the inside. Carp and Slade sat
facing across a little table in the center of the room.

"I want to clean up and go," Carp was saying. "This damn Harris put me
on the black list."

"You've been on it for three months," Slade said. "Nothing has
happened yet. But don't let me keep you from pulling out any time you
like."

"But I've got a settlement to make," Carp insisted. "Let's get that
fixed up."

"Settlement?" Slade asked. "Settlement with who?"

Carpenter leaned across the table and tapped it to emphasize his
remarks.

"Listen. Morrow gave me a bill of sale from you calling for a hundred
head of Three Bar she-stock, rebranded Triangle on the hip."

Slade nodded shortly.

"I gave Morrow that for two years' back pay when he quit. He could
sell out to you if he liked."

"And now I want to sell out," Carp said. "And be gone from here."

"How many head have you got?" Slade asked.

"Three hundred head," Carp s