He wheeled the pony and urged it slowly back over the mesa, riding along
near the edge until he reached a point behind a heavy post-oak thicket,
where he pulled the pony to a halt. From here he would not be observed
from the trail on the plains, and he again twisted in the saddle, sagging
against the high pommel and drawing the wide brim of his hat well over
his eyes, shading them as he peered intently at the moving speck.

He watched for half an hour, while the speck grew larger in his vision,
finally assuming definite shape. He recognized the buckboard and the
blacks that were pulling it; they had been inseparable during the past
two years--for Bill Harkness, the Flying W owner, would drive no others
after his last sickness had seized him, the sickness which had finally
finished him some months before. The blacks were coming rapidly,
shortening the distance with the tireless lope that the plains' animal
uses so effectively, and as they neared the point on the mesa where the
rider had stationed himself, the latter parted the branches of the
thicket and peered between them, his eyes agleam, the color deepening in
his face.

"There's four of them in the buckboard," he said aloud, astonished, as
the vehicle came nearer; "an' Wes Vickers ain't with them! Now, what do
you think of that! Wes told me there'd be only the girl an' her aunt an'
uncle. It's a man, too, an' he's doin' the drivin'! I reckon Wes got
drunk an' they left him behind." He reflected a moment, watching with
narrowed eyes, his brows in a frown. "That guy doin' the drivin' is a
stranger, Patches," he said. "Why, it's mighty plain. Four in the
buckboard, with them bags an' trunks an' things, makes a full house, an'
there wasn't no room for Wes!" He grinned.

The buckboard swung close to the foot of the slope below him, and he
eagerly scrutinized the occupants, his gaze lingering long on the girl on
the seat beside the driver. She had looked for one flashing instant
toward him, her attention drawn, no doubt, by the fringing green of the
mesa, and he had caught a good glimpse of her face. It was just like the
picture that Wes Vickers had surreptitiously brought to him one day some
weeks before, after Harkness' death, when, in talking with Wes about the
niece who was now the sole owner of the Flying W, and who was coming soon
to manage her property, he had evinced curiosity. He had kept the
picture, in spite of Vickers' remonstrances, and had studied it man