ere moving
slowly in a great mass, obliterating miles of the landscape, trampling
out clouds of dust which rose into the blue sky; the constant
bellowing came down the wind as a deep, pulsating moan which was
audible for miles.

The Man from Bitter Creek reined in his horse and turned in the saddle
to look back upon that scene. He was a small man with hard, quick
eyes; they grew harder as they rested on that wealth of beeves.

In the wild country farther up the Pecos the Man from Bitter Creek was
known by the name of Gallagher. Among the riders who roved over that
Land Beyond the Law, taking their toll from the north-going herds as
gray wolves take it under cover of the night, he passed as the big "He
Wolf," the leader of the pack. Wyoming's sage-brush hills gave
sepulture to eleven of his dead, and since he had fled hither he had
added two graves to the boot-hill cemeteries of the Southwest.

Now as he gazed over John Slaughter's cattle, he promised himself that
when they came on into the region where he maintained his supremacy,
he would seize them and, at the same time, increase his grim list of
victims to fourteen.

It was an era in some respects very much like the feudal days of
Europe, a time of champions and challenges and deeds of arms, a period
when strong men took definite stands for right or wrong and were ready
at all times to defend those positions with their lives. The Man from
Bitter Creek had received John Slaughter's gage within the hour. He
had dismounted from his pony at the cattle-buyer's camp, attracted by
the spectacle of that enormous herd destined to pass through the
country where he and his companions held sway, and he had hung about
the place to see what he could see.

He noted with satisfaction that the cattle were sleek and fat for this
time of the year; and the satisfaction grew as he peered through the
dust-clouds at the riders who were handling them, for every one of the
wiry ponies that passed him carried a swarthy vaquero--and half a
dozen of those Mexicans would not be a match for one of the hard-eyed
rustlers who were waiting along the upper Pecos in that spring of
1876. Just as he was congratulating himself on such easy pickings the
cattle-buyer noticed him.

John Slaughter was in his early thirties but his lips had settled into
an unrelaxing line, and his eyes had grown narrow from the habit of
the long sun-smitten trails. He was black-bearded, barely of middle
stature, a par