lag of truce when you see it, Dinsmore?" demanded
Roberts.

"Excuse that shot, Mr. Ranger," said Homer evenly. "It was a mistake."

"Gurley does make 'em," returned Jack, guessing shrewdly. "Some day
he'll make one too many."

"I take it you came on business."

"Why, yes. Captain Ellison sent me with his compliments to get Ranger
Ridley."

"Lost him, have you?"

"You can't exactly call him lost when we know where he is."

"Meanin' that he's here?"

"You ring the bell first shot."

Overstreet broke in, to mark time. "You think we've got him?"

"We do. Don't you?"

"And Ellison wants him, does he?"

"Wants him worse 'n a heifer cow does her calf." Roberts laughed softly,
as though from some fund of inner mirth. "He's kinda hopin' you'll prove
stubborn so as to give him a chance to come an' get him."

"Where is Ellison?"

The Ranger smiled. "He didn't give me any instructions about tellin' you
where he is."

"H'mp! You can come in an' talk with Pete. We'll have to blindfold you,"
said Dinsmore.

The envoy made no objections. He dismounted. A bandana was tied across
his eyes, and the men led him into the pocket of rock. The handkerchief
was removed.

Jack told again what he had come for.

"How did you know we were here?" demanded Pete.

"It's our business to know such things." Jack did not think it wise to
mention that he had been here once before, the same day he found
Rutherford Wadley's body a few miles away at the foot of a bluff.

"Ridley told us he was alone--no Rangers a-tall with him, he said."

"Did he?" Jack showed amusement. "What did you expect him to tell you?
He draws pay as a Ranger."

"What's Ellison's proposition?"

"Captain Ellison hasn't any proposition to make, if by that you mean
compromise. You're to turn Ridley over to me. That's all."

"An' where do we get off?" snorted Pete. "What does that buy us?"

"It buys you six hours' time for a get-away. I've got no business to do
it, but I'll promise to loaf around an' not report to Captain Ellison
till after noon. I'll go that far."

"I don' know's we want to make any get-away. We could hold the fort right
here against quite a few Rangers, I reckon."

"Suit yourself," said Jack indifferently.

Pete chewed tobacco slowly and looked down sullenly at a flat rock
without seeing it. Anger burned in him like a smouldering fire in peat.
He hated this man Roberts, and Ellison he regarded as a natural enemy.
Nothing would have p