the hardware into my pantry, doggone
it."

The three men in charge of Yeager's assistants were also masked. One of
them in particular drew Steve's eyes. He was a slight, short person with
the walk and bearing of a youth. He wore for a mask a red bandanna
handkerchief with figures, into which holes had been cut for the eyes.
The other two were Mexicans.

The heavy-set man drew them aside and gave orders in a low voice. What
these were Yeager could not hear, but from the gesturing he judged the
leader of the band was giving explicit directions which he expected to
be obeyed to the letter. After tying up Shorty and Yeager, the Mexicans
and the younger man disappeared. The steady bawling of cattle that began
shortly after told what they were doing. The herd was being moved slowly
toward the south from its bedding-ground.

Already Steve had suspected the true state of affairs. He needed nobody
to tell him now that the cattle were to be driven across the line into
Sonora to supply some of the guerilla insurgents operating in the wilds
of that state. Once they were safe in Mexico the cattle would be sold to
old Pasquale for a fraction of their real value, the money received in
exchange for them having been wrung by that old ruffian from some
prisoner he had put to the torture to give up his honest earnings.

The man who had stayed to watch Yeager and his riders finished one cigar
and lit another. He held to a somber silence, smoking moodily, a
vigilant eye on his prisoners. Two or three times he looked at his watch
impatiently. It must have been close to midnight when he rose as if to
go.

"I'm going back into the bushes," he announced. "If any of you fellas
make a move to free yourself inside of half an hour I'll guarantee you
die of lead poisoning sudden."

They heard him moving away in the mesquite.

Shorty swore softly. "What d' you know about this? Me, I've had
buck-ague for most three hours expecting that doggoned holdup to blow
the roof of my head off. I don't sabe his game, unless he's on the
rustle."

"Hell! He's runnin' these cows into Sonora. It don't take any wiz to
guess that," answered Orman.

Steve was already busy trying to free himself. He gave no credit to the
man's assertion that they would be watched from the bushes. The leader
of the rustlers was already half a mile away, lengthening the distance
between them at every stride of his galloping horse. The range-rider
knew that their horses had pro