who was looking around quietly.

"Not much, youngster, not much! Seems mighty funny to me. Doesn't
hardly appear likely that a man could get away in this flat country
without us seeing him. But that's what happened all right. Never knew
a cowpuncher to have that much sneakin' ability in him."

"Maybe it wasn't a cowboy," Nort suggested. "Maybe it was a--Chink."

"Never knew a Chink to use a forty-four in my life," the Kid declared.
"These here shells come from a gun big enough to knock a Chinee clean
off his slippers. Nope, this here job was done by a puncher--or--" and
he stopped a moment--"or a Greaser."

"A Mexican!" cried Bud. "Say, Dick, remember the conversation we heard
in Dad's new bunk house? Maybe it was the same Mex that did the
shooting!"

"What's this all about, boys?" asked Joe Hawkins. "Anything I ought to
know?"

"It might help you," offered Dick. "It was two nights ago." And he
told of hearing the voices in the shack.

"Well, I don't know. I don't mind telling you that the crowd we're
after for the smugglin' is Mexican--at least we're pretty sure they
are. Think you'd recognize the voices if you heard them again?"

"Certain sure I could tell that Greaser's tones in a million," Dick
declared. "I'll never forget him."

After another survey of the terrain, it was decided to start for the
Shooting Star ranch. Joe Hawkins said he would ride to Roaring River
with them and make his report, and see if anything had developed in
town. So, filling their canteens, the six set off.

On the way the Kid offered a tale of a tarantula fight. These bouts
were carefully arranged by the cowboys, the scene being set in a deep
washbowl. Two females were the combatants, and the one who first
amputated all the legs of the other was declared the winner.
Occasionally a particularly vicious spider would forsake his natural
enemy and leap high at one of the spectators, inflicting a painful,
though not necessarily dangerous, bite. Hence these contests were not
without excitement.

"I used to have a pet tarantula I called Jenny," told Yellin' Kid.
"She was absolutely the meanest critter I ever see! She could just
about straddle a saucer, that's how big she was. Had a coat of hair
like a grizzly. She won five fights for me, and I was all set to match
her against a spider some puncher brought all the way from Oklahoma,
when she took a sudden likin' to Jeff Peters, and her ca-reer was
brought to a su