en he left the roundup his going had been
carefully noted, and that he was no sooner out of sight than Dirk Tracy
was riding cautiously on his trail. While he fed his horses the last bit
of grain he had, and cooked his supper over what promised to be his last
camp-fire, he did not dream that the man with the droopy mustache was
lying amongst the bushes on the other bank of the creek, watching every
move he made.

He meant to be up before daylight so that he could strike the ranch
of the Muleshoe outfit in time for breakfast, wherefore he went to bed
before the afterglow had left the mountain-tops around him. And being
young and carefree and healthfully weary, he was asleep and snoring
gently within five minutes of his last wriggle into his blankets. But
Dirk Tracy watched him for fully two hours before he decided that the
kid was not artfully pretending, but was really asleep and likely to
remain so for the night.

Dirk was an extremely cautious man, but he was also tired, and the cold
food he had eaten in place of a hot supper had not been satisfying to
his stomach. He crawled carefully out of the brush, stole up the creek
to where he had left his horse, and rode away.

He was not altogether sure that he had done his full duty to the
Muleshoe, but it was against human nature for a man nearing forty to
lie uncovered in the brush, and let a numerous family of mosquitoes feed
upon him while he listened to a young man snoring comfortably in a good
camp bed a hundred feet away.

Dirk, because his conscience was not quite clear, slept in the stable
that night and told his boss a lie next morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE MULESHOE

The riders of the Muleshoe outfit were eating breakfast when Bud rode
past the long, low-roofed log cabin to the corral which stood nearest
the clutter of stables and sheds. He stopped there and waited to see if
his new boss was anywhere in sight and would come to tell him where to
unpack his belongings. A sandy complexioned young man with red eyelids
and no lashes presently emerged from the stable and came toward him,
his mouth sagging loosely open, his eye; vacuous. He was clad in faded
overalls turned up a foot at the bottom and showing frayed, shoddy
trousers beneath and rusty, run-down shoes that proved he was not a
rider. His hat was peppered with little holes, as if someone had fired a
charge of birdshot at him and had all but bagged him.

The youth's eyes became fixed upon the guitar