e fringe of tossing horns, tired, dusty, but singing
their quaint songs.

Carter had sent the cook back to the ranchhouse during the afternoon to
obtain supplies; and now the chuck wagon, with bulging sides, was
standing near a fire at which the cook himself was preparing supper.

Carter grinned as Sanderson rode up.

"All ready!" he declared. "We sure did hump ourselves!"

Around the camp fire that night Sanderson was moody and taciturn. He
had stretched out on his blanket and lay listening to the men until one
by one they dropped off to sleep.

Sanderson's thoughts were bitter. He felt the constricting influence
of his enemies; he was like the herd of cattle that his men had rounded
up that day, for little by little Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were
cutting down his area of freedom and of action, were hampering him on
all sides, and driving him to a point where he would discover
resistance to be practically useless.

He had thought in the beginning that he could devise some way to escape
the meshes of the net that was being thrown around him, but he was
beginning to realize that he had underestimated the power and the
resources of his enemies.

Maison and Silverthorn he knew were mere tentacles of the capital they
represented; it was their business to reach out, searching for victims,
in order to draw them in and drain from them the last vestige of wealth.

And Sanderson had no doubt that they did that work impersonally and
without feeling, not caring, and perhaps not understanding the tortures
of a system--of a soulless organization seeking only financial gain.

Dale, however, was intensely human and individualistic. He was not as
subtle nor as smooth as his confederates. And money was not the only
incentive which would drive him to commit crime. He was a gross
sensualist, unprincipled and ruthless, and Sanderson's hatred of him
was beginning to overshadow every other consideration.

Sanderson went to sleep with his bitter thoughts, which were tempered
with a memory of the gentle girl at whom the evil agencies of his
enemies were directed. They were eager to get possession of Mary
Bransford's property, but their real fight would be, and was, against
him.

But it was Mary Bransford that he was fighting for, and if he could get
the herd of cattle to Las Vegas and dispose of them, he would be
provided with money enough to defeat his enemies. But money he must
have.

At breakfast the next morning