ou're sure you didn't leave any trace they could pick up?" he asked with
a touch of anxiety.

"Certain sure," returned Jessup confidently. "When Miss Mary came in
around four, I was in the wagon-shed, the rest of the crowd bein' down in
south pasture. Like I told yuh before, she had a good-sized package all
done up nice in her hand, an' it didn't take her long to tell me what was
up. Then we walks out together an' stops by the kitchen door.

"'Yuh better get yore supper at the hotel,' she says, an' ride back
afterwards. 'I meant to send in right after dinner to mail the package,
but I got held up out on the range.'

"Then she seems to catch sight of the greaser for the first time jest
inside the door, though I noticed him snoopin' there when we first come
up.

"'I hope yuh got somethin' left from dinner, Pedro,' she says, with one of
them careless natural smiles of hers, like as if she hadn't a care on her
mind except food. 'I'm half starved.'"

Bud sighed and finished with a note of admiration. "Some girl, all
right!"

"You've said it," agreed Buck fervently.

His appearance had improved surprisingly in the ten days that had passed
since his accident. The head-bandage was gone, and his swollen ankle,
though still tender at times, had been reduced to almost normal size by
constant applications of cold water. His body was still tightly strapped
up with yards and yards of bandage, which Mary Thorne had thoughtfully
packed, with a number of other first-aid necessities, in the parcel which
was Bud's excuse for making a trip to town.

Stratton was not certain that a rib had been broken after all. When Jessup
came to examine him he found the flesh terribly bruised and refrained from
any unnecessary prodding. It was still somewhat painful to the touch, but
from the ease with which he could get about, Buck had a notion that at
the worst the bone was merely cracked.

"They wouldn't be likely to notice where you left the Paloma trail, would
they?" Buck asked, after a brief retrospective silence.

"Not unless they're a whole lot better trackers than I think for," Jessup
assured him. "I picked a rocky place this side of the gully, an' cut
around the north end of middle pasture, where the land slopes down a bit,
an' yuh can't be seen from the south more 'n a quarter of a mile. I kept
my eyes peeled, believe me! an' didn't glimpse a soul all the way. I
wouldn't fret none about their followin' me here."

"I reckon it is f